Muzeul Național de Istorie a Transilvaniei

The building at Daicoviciu 2 is also known as the Petrechevich-Horvath House. It holds much of the collection of the Transylvanian Museum Society, founded on 23 November 1859 — antiquities, mineralogy, botany, zoology, an ethnographic collection and a picture gallery.

The Society gathered over 24,000 archaeological, numismatic and other pieces. When the Cluj university was founded in 1872, the collections passed to it. From 1929 the antiquities went to the Institute of Classical Studies, but with no suitable space the collection kept moving, until it settled for good in 1937 in the present building.

Here is the detail that ties half of this guide together: the Society's ethnographic collection and picture gallery became the basis for two further Cluj museums — the Art Museum and the Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania. Three separate institutions today, one collection at the root.

From 1948 the collections passed to the Cluj branch of the Romanian Academy. From 1 January 1963 the History Museum began operating as an institution in its own right.

Hours: Tuesday–Sunday, 10:00–18:00. Closed Monday. Phone: 0752 108 705. Its Google listing is claimed by the institution which, as we measured, is rarer than it ought to be.