• 1. What was hidden under the Museum
• 2. Before Zagreb
• 3. Finds at the Site of Discovery
• 4. First Recorded Use of the Name of Zagreb
• 5. The Royal Free Town on Gradec
• 6. Conflict, Punishment, Prejudice
• 7. Medvedgrad
• 8. The Ottoman Threat
• 9. The Emblems of the City
• 10. Laška Ves and Nova Ves
• 11. Kaptol
• 12. The Building of the Cathedral
• 13. The Main Portal of the Cathedral
• 14. The Interior of the Cathedral
• 15. The Restoration of the Cathedral by Bollé
• 16. The Parish and the Parish Church of St. Mark at Gradec
• 17. The Baroque Altars of St. Mark’s
• 18. The Guilds of Gradec and Kaptol
• 19. Master Craftsmen of Gradec and Kaptol
• 20. The New System of Municipal Government
• 21. Religious Orders Encourage Piety and Education
• 22. The Poor Clares of Zagreb
• 23. Veneration for the Blessed Virgin Mary
• 24. Magnates at Gradec
• 25. Parks and Walks
• 26. Life in the Lower Town
• 27. The Time of the Croatian National Revival
• 28. Ban Josip Jelačić
• 29. From the Homes of Zagreb People during the Biedermeier Period
• 30. Civic Societies and Clubs
• 31. The Foundations of the Modern City
• 32. Ilica Becomes the Main Commercial Street
• 33. From the Photographic Studio
• 34. The Lower Town
• 35. Theatre Life
• 36. Public Utilities
• 37. Life in Associations
• 38. Sensations from the Beginning of the 20th Century
• 39. Echoes from the Battlefield
• 40. House and Life
• 41. The Second World War
• 42. In Socialist Reality
• 43. The Zagreb School of Animated Film
• 44. Zagreb in Independent Croatia
• 46. The Study of Ivan pl. Zajc
• 45. Echoes of Events in Zagreb
• 47. August Šenoa and Zagreb
• 48. Tilla Durieux and her Art Collection
• 49. The Collection of Mechanical Musical Automata of Ivan Gerersdorfer
• 50. Dr Ante Rodin''s Collection of Old Packaging

Permanent Display 46. The Study of Ivan pl. Zajc

The great Croatian composer Ivan pl. Zajc (the pl. in the name is an indication of aristocratic birth) was born in Rijeka in 1832. He studied at the Conservatory in Milan, lived and worked for several years in Vienna. He associated with numerous students from Zagreb, including August Šenoa.

Urged by patriotic feelings, he abandoned a respected and profitable job in Vienna and in 1870 arrived in Zagreb, where he at once became director of the opera company and took over the management of the school of the Croatian Musical Institute. Not only did he really establish the opera as an institution in Zagreb, but he enriched the art of opera by putting on numbers of works of his own and of foreign and domestic composers.

His best known work is the opera Nikola Šubić Zrinski, which became a focal point for patriotic enthusiasm.

Coming to Zagreb, he settled down in the Upper Town, in quiet Visoka Street, which looked out over the green of Tuškanac. The study of Maestro Zajc found a home in the Museum of the City of Zagreb, where it has been carefully looked after for more than seven decades. He created his work in this study until the end of his life. As well as being active in organization and in teaching, he created a considerable oeuvre in Zagreb, one containing more than a thousand works. The city councillors, aware of how much he had done for the city, gave him a certificate of honorary citizenship. Attaining a ripe old age, he died in his home in Visoka Street on December 16, 1914. Šenoa and Zajc, two friends in their youth, could hardly have imagined that one day they would share the same room in the Zagreb City Museum.

Nada Premerl