Baroque Palace of Oradea

The Baroque Palace of Oradea, also know as Palatul Baroc Oradea (Rom.) or Muzeul Tarii Crisurilor (Rom.) (Eng. Museum of the Rivers Country) or The Bishopric Palace of Oradea.

The Baroque Palace of Oradea, located in Bihor county, Romania, was founded in 1762 by the Barron Bishop Adam Patachich, as The Roman Catholic Bishopric Palace of northern Transylvania. designer of Hungarian Royal Palace in Budapest and Palace of the Cardinals in Bratislava, illustrious Austrian architect Anton Franz Hillebrandt, one of Europe`s eighteenth century best, created the plans, while engineer A.J. Neumann was in charge of its massive construction, complete with the 365 exterior windows resembling the days of year and 120 large rooms distributed on three levels. The architecture of the palace is of late Austrian Baroque style, a more sober and practical type compared to the overly ornamented French Baroque for example. The building was meant to resemble on a smaller scale the famous Royal Belvedere Palace from Vienna, which , maybe , was one of the reasons along with other religious conflicts that made Empress Maria Theresa of Austria to repudiate the founder, Baron Adam Patachich , the bishop of Oradea between 1759 and 1776, when later she was banning him by send him to a much lesser importance diocese , somewhere in Kalocsa, Hungary . Nevertheless , the baron was a charismatic , highly educated humanist and an illuminated patron of arts, who is mostly remembered for the finest music and musicians he surrounded himself with; so this is where Michael Haydn , legendary composer Joseph Haydn`s brother , worked as a Kapellmaister to the the bishop`s orchestra , who also employed at the court other famous European composers and violonists like Wenzel Pichl and Carl Ditter von Dittersdorf between 1765-1769 serving as a Musikdirektor ( see pages ahead for more ) ... Finally, in 1771, the Austro-Hungarian and Holy Roman Empress, Maria Theresa of Austria, together her son, future King Joseph II of Austria, arrived here in a visit, to make peace with a place whose project she did not innitially fancied. In 1773 the palace misfortunately burned down entirely in a fire but was reconstructed imediately by the next appointed bishop, after its very exact and original plans . In the year 1855 a new side and entrance is added graciously in tone and respect with the initial building ,with grand double stairways . Later in , when Romania gained possesion of Transylvania and after World Wars , in 1978 the Palace becomes a museum hosting many large and fine archeological , historical , natural sciences , etnographical and art collections under the name of "Muzeul Tarii Crisurilor". The front courtyard is an artistic park with large old bronze and marble statues of historical figures and also home to an absolutely fabulous baroque parish church erected in 1752 even before the palace, a work of Italian architect Giovanni Battista Ricca modelated after the mother church of the Jesuites , Chiesa di Jesu in Rome . that contains the relics of king Saint Ladislaus , born in year 1040 , a splint of his skull being kept here in a gold box while in year 1992 , himself , the Pope John Paul II brought the church to a Basilica rank ... Its architecture it is said it was inspired from the mother church of Jesuits order , Chiesa di Jesu in Rome , Italy ...