Sibiu Museum of Pharmacology

Due to the specific profile, the Museum of Pharmacy of Sibiu (opened in 1972) represents a rarity in its domain on Romanian level, as well as on European one. The founding of the Museum in the city of Sibiu was double motivated: on one hand, this is the place of the first documented apothecary, mentioned as early as the year 1494; on the other hand, a rich tradition of pharmaceutical activities developed in the area.


At present, the building sheltering the Museum lies in the historical center of Sibiu, being one of the architectural monuments of historical importance, displaying Gothic and Renaissance features, dating from the year 1568. In this very building has functioned one of the oldest apothecaries in Sibiu, the third in chronological succession, founded around 1600 and named At the Black Bear.


It is the basement of this house where Samuel Hahnemann invented homeopathy and developed his version of treatment. Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of the therapeutic doctrine, was active in Sibiu between 1777 and 1779, as physician and the secretary of Baron Samuel von Brukenthal, Governor of Transylvania. It is considered that, during the period, he was able to research the traditional Transylvanian folk practice of medication, which inspired him. The Collection of Homeopathy comprises over 2900 pieces, kits and bottles of homeopathic recipes respectively, all of which being took over from the former apothecary La Înger (At Angel) in Sibiu.


The exhibition was conceived according to a classic apothecary pattern, comprising an Oficina and a Laboratory, in addition to which the medical kits hall and a Homeopathy sector were added. The exhibits are displayed in thematic sectors; an all-comprising image of the apothecary functioning and instruments is envisaged to the visitor, evincing their historic evolution. The furniture of the room was manufactured in Vienna, in 1902, and it belonged to the former apothecary named To the Black Vulture.


The Museum’s collections comprise over 6600 pieces, bringing valuable evidences about the evolution of medication and pharmaceutical techniques for more than three and a half centuries. (From Brukenthal National Museum)

Sibiu Museum of Natural History

There was a time when the Transylvanian naturalism, as well as the European one, experienced a spectacular grow and by that time the Transylvanian Society for Natural Sciences (Siebenbürghische Verein für Naturwissenschaften zu Hermannstadt) was established (1849) as the result of German-Saxon intellectuals’ initiative. They aimed for an organization fit to accommodate the sharing of their passion for the nature and to serve the dissemination of their discoveries in order to educate the younger generation in the spirit of knowledge about nature and of the preservation of natural trust.


One of the issues becoming more and more imperative in the late19th century was that of the available spaces for the collections storage, as their number increased. Around the year 1890, the plans for the construction of a building specially design in this porpoise were clearly contoured.


The construction started in the autumn of the year 1894, having the opening in the 12th of May, 1895. The building was built in an Italian High Renaissance architectural style, on three levels (basement, ground floor and one upper storey), being entirely renovated between 2006 and 2008. The courtyard is meant to be a means of relaxation for the visitors and also of seeing common and rare species of plants as trees and ornamental bushes.


The entire project of the permanent exhibition inaugurated in December 2007 is meant to take into a good account the extent patrimony from a scientific, chronological and esthetical perspective. As elements of novelty in the fashion of presentation, there are the tri-dimensional displaying through the means of dioramas and the sounding and illumination systems suggesting a night and day cycle in each described environment, all conferring to the exhibition a dynamic atmosphere, inducing the visitor an empathic approach to the condition of an explorer.


The collections of the museum comprise over 1 million exhibits (including mineralogy-petrography, paleontology, botany, entomology, malacology, the zoology of the vertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, as well as ichthyology, ornithology, and the zoology of mammals).


The main sections of the museum are The Live World, Ecosystems, Paleontology, Mineralogy. (From Brukenthal National Museum)