Maritime Museum

The Maritime Museum occupies the upper floors of Fort St John, the massive stone fortress guarding the Old Port at the south-eastern corner of Dubrovnik's old town, at Damjana Jude 2 in Croatia. It is a branch of Dubrovnik Museums and documents the maritime history of the Republic of Ragusa, which for centuries operated one of the largest merchant fleets on the Adriatic and traded with Venice, the Levant, North Africa and Spain. The museum was founded in 1941 in the fort and is arranged chronologically and thematically across several rooms. Exhibits include ship models, among them models of the Ragusan carracks and galleons known as argosies, a word possibly derived from Ragusa, together with navigational instruments, charts, flags, weapons, paintings of ships and objects connected with shipbuilding and seafaring families. Documents show how the Republic regulated maritime insurance, taxation and the rights of seamen, and displays also cover the later steamship era and the Dubrovnik shipping companies of the 19th and 20th centuries. The building itself is part of the exhibit: Fort St John was begun in the 14th century to defend the harbour, strengthened in the 15th and 16th centuries and equipped with gun platforms and a chain boom that closed the harbour entrance. The ground floor once housed the Aquarium, and the fort's thick walls, vaulted spaces and cannon ports are visible from the interior. The fort was damaged by the 1667 earthquake and again in the 1991 siege and has since been restored. From the upper terraces visitors see the Old Port, Lokrum island and the sea approaches the Ragusan fleet used. Texts are provided in Croatian and English. The museum is included in the 10 Museums ticket, and the City Walls ticket also gives access to the fort's terrace.