Chapter House (Museum of the Kroměříž Region)
The house was built in 1609 on the site of two older plots by the Bishop of Olomouc, Cardinal Franz von Dietrichstein, as recorded on a stone plaque below the second-floor windows. In 1636 the Jesuits were brought here and opened a five-class school. During the Swedish invasion in 1643 the building burned down, and in 1644 the Jesuits left for Uherské Hradiště. The house then passed to the Olomouc chapter.
Bishop Karl of Liechtenstein, whose coat of arms is below the first-floor windows, had the house repaired and gave it roughly its present appearance, keeping the arcade, vaults and paired Renaissance windows with stone frames. Church synods and courts were held here; after the château it was the most spacious and grandest building in the town. Later it was divided into flats, and during the Nazi occupation it housed the labour office (Arbeitsamt).
A thorough restoration came only with the approaching 100th anniversary of the birth of the painter and printmaker Max Švabinský (1873 Kroměříž – 1962 Prague). In 1973 a large exhibition of his work opened here and was seen by almost 90,000 people. Today the house is the seat of the Museum of the Kroměříž Region, with permanent exhibitions and an exhibition gallery, and a memorial to Max Švabinský.
