Event: Slovenia - Ljubljana

National Museum of Slovenia

When:	Daily; not Mon
Where:	National Museum of Slovenia
Opening Hours:	Tue, Wed & Fri-Sun 10am-6pm; Thu 10am-8pm

Established in 1821 and granted the title "Provincial Museum" by Emperor Francis I, this collection devoted to the history of Slovenia and its predecessors had to wait over 60 years for a building to be constructed to house it. In 1882, the year after Emperor Franz Joseph I renamed the collection the "Carniolan Provincial Museum - Rudolfinum" (in honour of the heir to the throne), work started on the new building designed by Viljem Treo, which opened in 1888. In 1921 the collection was retitled as the "National Museum."

Over the years various departments have seceded from the main collection - with different sites now devoted to the ethnographic, natural history and art collections (donated to the National Gallery in 1933), each becoming its own separate entity. But the collections that remain under the behest of the National Museum are very impressive.

With some 60,000 artefacts in the archaeological collection, the museum traces not only the history of the region from the palaeolithic to the late Middle Ages - including a boat, hollowed from a single trunk, unearthed from the Ljubljana marshes - but also treasures from further afield, including Slovenia's only Egyptian mummy. From early modern times to the present, the department of history and applied arts brings the story up-to-date, with some 26,000 exhibits, including fine furniture, religious artefacts and weaponry, while the numismatic collection includes no fewer than 80,000 coins, banknotes and medals, from Roman times to the present.

The museum's library contains 150,000 volumes, including many rare 16th- and 17th-century editions, while there is also an extensive collection of drawings, prints and watercolours.

In pride of place in the square in front of the museum stands Alojz Gangl's monument to the Slovenian historian Janez Vajkard Valvasor (1641-1693).