The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina was established in 1888, having originally been conceived around 1850. In 1913, the museum building was expanded by the Czech architect Karel Pařík who designed a structure of four symmetric pavilions with a facade in the Italian Renaissance Revival style. The four pavilions contain the departments of archaeology, ethnology, natural history, and a library. After being closed for several years due to heavy damage in the recent war, the museum has re-opened and is in the process of mounting new and pre-existing exhibits.
The museum is a cultural and scientific institution covering a wide range of areas including archaeology, art history, ethnology, geography, history and natural history. The Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated manuscript and the oldest Sephardic Jewish document in the world issued in Barcelona around 1350, containing the traditional Jewish Haggadah, is held at the museum.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.