Brașov County History Museum

The Brașov County History Museum is the county's principal museum institution, with its main seat in Casa Sfatului at Piața Sfatului no. 30 — the most important secular monument of medieval Brașov. The building served as the seat of the city's administration, with the first documentary record dating from 23 December 1420, when the Assembly of the District of Țara Bârsei approved the construction of a chamber for "the dispensation of justice" and sessions of the Magistrate. The tower, built between 1521 and 1528, received its name — the Trumpeters' Tower — at the beginning of the 17th century, after the watchman who blew a trumpet every hour to mark the passage of time. In 1600, within this building, the Diet of Transylvania was convened by Mihai Viteazul, on which occasion the rights of the inhabitants of Țara Bârsei were recognized. The museum, founded in 1990 on the basis of the collections of the Saxon Museum of Țara Bârsei and the ASTRA Museum, holds a heritage of over 159,000 items from all historical periods — from the Palaeolithic to the contemporary era — distributed across four locations: Casa Sfatului, Bastionul Țesătorilor, Bastionul Graft, and the Olimpia building. The collections include Dacian artefacts, ceramics and tools from the Iron Age, finds from the Roman forts at Râșnov and along the Valea Oltului, weapons, furniture, documents and guild seals of the Brașov guilds, numismatic collections, and a period pharmacy room. The museum also preserves materials relating to the printing press of Johannes Honterus, one of the first printing establishments in the Romanian lands, active in Brașov in the 16th century.