Narodni Muzej

The oldest of museum institutions in Belgrade was founded in 1844 at the initiative of the Serb writer Jovan Sterija Popović.The founding of the National Museum coincides with the rise of the civic culture and the establishment of the state institutions of the Principality of Serbia. The National Museum in Belgrade, a complex type museum, is the most significant, oldest and central museum of Serbia containing 34 archaeological, numismatic and historical collections at this moment, after 160 years of growth and development. The museum collections contain over 400,000 archaeological and historical-artistic items, key mementos for archaeology and the history of art within the region of contemporary Serbia and its nearest surroundings and for European art world from the medieval period to modern times. The National Museum also holds the Gospel of Miroslav (“Miroslavljevo Jevanđelje“) from the 12th century, the most valuable artefact of Serb culture, officially declared the most beautiful Cyrillic manuscript in the world and a cultural treasure placed, along with the archive of the Museum of Nikola Tesla, under the protection of the UNESCO program “Memories of the World”.