Brezno through the centuries

Brezno v premenách času traces the town's history from its beginnings to 1918, bringing political events together with the social and cultural lives of its residents. Alongside changes to the town itself, the exhibition introduces people whose work shaped the local community, drawing on the museum's historical collections. One important milestone was 1380, when King Louis I of Anjou granted Brezno municipal privileges. In 1650, under Ferdinand III of Habsburg, it became a free royal town, a status distinct from that earlier grant.

Matthias Corvinus granted the right to hold a fair in 1488, fixing its date on the Feast of the Assumption, 15 August. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, agriculture and guild-organised crafts provided the main livelihoods, while the settlement's earlier growth had been connected with mining. Another change came with the construction of the railway to Brezno in 1896, still within the period covered by the exhibition.