Tuesday, September 28, 2010

National Historical Museum

The National Historical Museum in Sofia is Bulgaria's largest museum. It was founded on 5 May 1973 and its first representative exposition was opened in 1984 to commemorate 1300 years of Bulgarian history. The museum was moved to a former governmental residence in 2000 and currently stores and owns over 650,000 objects connected to archaeology, fine arts, history and ethnography, exhibiting about 10% of all.

The National Historical Museum disposes of a cloakroom, a buffet, a museum library and a souvenir shop, also offering professional conservation and restoration of historical monuments, authenticity investigations and expert valuation.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Toulouse Capitole Night

The Capitouls of Toulouse embarked on the construction of the original building in 1190, to provide a seat for the government of a province growing in wealth and influence. The name "Capitole" referred not only to the Roman Capitol but also to the capitulum which was the chapter of the governing magistrates.

Viollet-le-Duc built a bell tower typical of the style of northern France on top of the donjon of the building. It was in this donjon that Jean Calas, a Protestant victim of a religiously biased trial, was interrogated. Only the Henri IV courtyard and gate survive from the original medieval buildings. It was in this courtyard that the Duke de Montmorency was decapitated after his rebellion against Cardinal Richelieu.