NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ZADAR (NARODNI MUSEJ ZADAR)
National Museum of Zadar including the Natural History Department, the Fine Arts Gallery and the Ethnological Department.
In Croatia, the first regional museum was established in Zadar in 1832 in the historic buildings of the municipality to preserve and present to the public all the Dalmatian heritage, plant and animal species, the history of the region, its cultural and ethnological activities. During the Second World War, many of the exhibition rooms of the National Museum were destroyed by the fighting. In 1945, the works and objects were brought back from the storerooms and the archaeology department was relocated to a specific building. In 1948, the Fine Arts Gallery was created, followed in December 1962 by the Museum of the People's Revolution. In the early 1960s, all the existing museums were centralized by the administration of the National Museum Zadar, which moved to a new building. In the 1970s, the museum was given the task of supervising the exhibition of the historical and ethnographic collections of the island of Iž in the Zadar archipelago. The permanent and temporary exhibitions, together with the temporary exhibitions (City Lodge), felt more than a little cramped in the Rector's Palace. A programme plan for architectural redevelopment was delivered in 2017 with the opening of the National Heritage Museum.
The Natural History Department (Prirodoslovni odjel), in the south wing, consists of one of the oldest national collections. Among the twenty-five collections preserved, the herbarium bequeathed by Domenico Pappafave in the 19th century, an important collection for the study of macalogy (mollusc shells) belonging to Blaž Cvitanović, and a collection of fish and crustaceans catalogued by Ivo Franković (190 specimens) are worth seeing. In 1990, the permanent exhibition was expanded to include the collection of Ante Savković, who was interested in moths (300 specimens).
Gallery of Fine Arts (Galerija umjetnina). Another renovated wing offers a beautiful and bright space for the collections of icons, paintings and sculptures of old masters, works of modern and contemporary Croatian artists, photographs, especially the black and white images of Ante Brkan. Not to be missed is the graphic work of Ivan Palčić, a student of painters Bela Čikoš Sesija or Vlaho Bukovac, who became close to the Zagreb bohemian scene and was a friend of Antun Gustav Matoš
Ethnological Department (Područna etnografska). Historical, cultural, folk traditions collections from Veli and Mali Iz, and the islands of the Zadar archipelago.