About the museum

Mission and History of the Museum

Mission 

The SNM - Bojnice Museum is a specialized art-historical museum with a nationwide reach. It is a documentation, research and methodological museum workplace which ambitiously collects, protects, scientifically processes, makes use of and gives access to documents about the art-historical development of the Bojnice Castle National Cultural Monument, artefacts from the development of the revival of various architectural styles in Slovakia, works of traditional art and artistic craftsmanship.  

History 

The SNM – Bojnice Museum has been located in Bojnice Castle since 1950. Even the last owner of the castle, count František Pálfi (Pálffy) thought about establishing a museum on the castle’s premises; in his last will and testament (1907), he requested that his palaces in Vienna and Budapest, the manner house in Kráľová and the castle in Bojnice be made available to the public.

The first exposition was placed in the Bojnice Castle in 1941 thanks to the members of the Horná Nitra Museum Club. After the big fire there in 1950, the Nitra Regional Museum was established; afterwards, in 1960, the museum became a regional workplace dedicated to the research and documentation of the Horné Ponitrie region. As part of the new network of museums of central Slovakia, this museum was tasked with becoming a museum of national history and geography. In 1970, Bojnice Castle became a National Cultural Monument. In 1981, the museum became a specialized museum with the objective to become a museum of national history and geography with nationwide competence aimed at the documentation and presentation of the Neostyle period in Slovakia. The Bojnice Museum has been part of the Slovak National Museum since 1988.