Pharmacy Museum
The building of the Pharmacy House extends into the Main Square, which is why the City Council wanted to demolish it in order to increase the size of the square in the 16th century. However, King Louis II forbade the demolition of the house, with reference to the architectural unity of the Main Square. This decree of 1525 is the first Hungarian decision on monument protection; the original document is still preserved in the Sopron Archives.
From the middle of the 17th century, the former White Angel Pharmacy already operated in the building and from that time families of pharmacists and doctors lived here. One of them, the doctor and meteorologist Ádám Gensel deserves special mention; he was the first in the world to research the effects of weather fronts on the human body at the beginning of the 18th century. His name is preserved on a plaque on the Pharmacy House. Until its extension in the 18th century, the house was a house on stilts, but then the Gensel family expanded the pharmacy, the pillared facade was removed and the corridor was also walled in. After the restoration of the monument in 1966-67, the Pharmacy Museum of Sopron was located here. The collection, as the country’s first pharmaceutical museum opened in 1968. Opposite the entrance you can see the furniture of the old medicine dispensing room, which has a table, cabinets and beautiful containers from the beginning of the 19th century. When compiling the collection, the main goal was to restore the interior of the former pharmacy as well as to present other pharmaceutical and partly medical items from the town’s history.
Opening hours from 2. April 2024: Tuesday-Sunday 10:00-14:00
