A friend of mine and a great photographer Blaž Gutman recently showed me an interesting image of the area dating back late 1700! This woke up in me the desire to find more informations.

ZOIS PALACE

The Zois Palace in Ljubljana was built in the second half of the 18th century with the merging and partial rebuilding of older houses on the Breg between today's Križevniška Ulica and Zoisova cesta. 

Baron Michelangelo Zois (1694-1777), the father of Žiga Zois (1747-1819), bought a house on the Breg on the corner of Nemška (today Križevniška) Street in 1728, which became the first home of the Zois in Ljubljana. In the early 1960s, he bought three smaller houses on the then Nemška Street, and in 1765 Erberg's house on Breg - a large building that was in the 16th century. built as a city warehouse. Next to Erberg's house, on the corner, along the city wall, stood the house of the abbot of Bistrica - the so-called "Bistrica court", which together with the church of St. Lawrence and part of the defensive walls were bought by Žiga Zois in 1793.

He had the church and the wall demolished to gain space for a garden, he annexed the house of the abbots of Bistrica to his estate and by 1798 had united all three buildings with a single façade. The facade is designed in the spirit of classicism, strict and somewhat monotonous, without any special architectural decoration. On the ground floor and on the first floor were rooms for trade and storage of goods, on the second floor had Baron Žiga Zois his living quarters and the famous cabinet with a rich library with about 4000 books and a famous collection of minerals in which was ok. 5000 exhibits. 

Renovation of the facade in 1938 spoiled the visual image of the original facade, as due to the thick layer of new plaster, the window frames are sunk into the wall and therefore less pronounced. The main decoration of the stone ground floor is a monumental portal made for the city warehouse building by Abondio Donino in 1589, but it was in the 18th century. processed. The key of the original portal with the city coat of arms is today built to the left of the main entrance. To the right of the front door is a bronze portrait bust of Žiga Zois, made by Mirsad Begić. In the courtyard of the palace is a built-in tombstone of Baron Žiga Zois, brought from the abandoned Ljubljana cemetery near the church of St. Christopher. Zois Palace is today a multi-apartment house with private apartments and smaller shops on the ground floor. The palace is ok. in 1780 it became one of the most important social centres, where Slovene intellectuals and artists who worked in the spirit of the Enlightenment gathered. The so-called Zois circle was formed, which included Anton Tomaž Linhart, Valentin Vodnik, Jurij Japelj, Jernej Kopitar, Blaž Kumerdej and others. As a widely educated patron and member of the Enlightenment, Žiga Zois was one of the most prominent co-creators of intellectual life in Carniola in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Although he also engaged in literary work and translated foreign literary works into Slovene, he is mainly credited as the initiator and supporter of Slovene literary design and linguistic activity. Even after 1797, when he no longer walked out of the house due to paralysis (he moved around the apartment in a wheelchair, which he constructed himself), he remained socially active and active in various fields of science from mineralogy, metallurgy and geology to zoology and botany. . Just before his death, in severe financial distress, he sold the palace with a library and a collection of minerals to his nephew Karl, but he wanted them to continue serving Slovenian science in the future.

Templars

Križevniška ulica, which used to be known as Ribiška, is one of the oldest streets in Ljubljana. Between 1167 and 1200 the Knights Templar had a stronghold here, later superseded by the Teutonic Order. The Spanheim noble family, who set up the administrative centre of their estates in Carniola in Ljubljana in the 12th century, founded the monastic church of Mary, Help of Christians here, and alongside it a monastic house with a hospital and school for the education of poor children.

The Knights Templar were a famous Christian military order of the Middle Ages. Although they’re gone (except in the occasional mystery novel) their buildings are still around. In Slovenia, their legacy remains in the old Monastery Church and the area known as Križanke. The name is the first clue. However, even though Križanke means crossword puzzle in Slovene, the name owes its origins to the word Križar, which is crusader. The crusading knights, in fact, put up a post there back in 1167 and ran it for about 50 years, until the Teutonic Knights took it over.