The pharmacy Dubrovnik is famous for is the Old Pharmacy in the Franciscan Monastery of the Friars Minor, one of the oldest preserved pharmacies in Europe, founded in Dubrovnik in 1317. The fascinating fact is that, since then, the pharmacy has been continuously operating. It has come a long way from a cabinet with dried plants, over medicines prepared under the influence of alchemy, up to today’s contemporary pharmacy.
The pharmacy jars exhibited in our Cabinet of Curiosities were used to hold thick syrups in the Dubrovnik public pharmacy “Domus Christi” (The House of Christ – in English). “Domus Christi” pharmacy was known to have existed in 1420, as part of the namesake public hospice that was opened earlier, in 1347, as a shelter for the poor, situated inside the city walls. The hospice was turned into a real hospital in 1540.