Episcopal palace, Oradea

The Episcopal palace (Romanian: Palatul Episcopiei Romano-Catolice din Oradea) of the city of Oradea in Bihor county, Romania dates to the Baroque times.

It was founded in 1762 by the Baron Bishop Adam Patačić, as bishopric palace of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Magnovaradimum. Illustrious Viennese architect Franz Anton Hillebrandt, designer of many Austrian palaces and one of Europe's 18th century best, designed the palace and planned the city's posh side as Baroque quarter, while engineer A.J. Neumann was in charge of the palace's massive construction, complete with its 365 exterior windows resembling the days of the year and 120 large, extravagant rooms distributed on three floor plans.

The architecture of the palace is of late Austrian Baroque style, a more sober and practical type compared to the overly ornamented French Baroque, for example. The building was meant to resemble on a smaller scale the famous Royal Belvedere (palace) of Vienna, which likely was one of the reasons along with other religious conflicts that made Empress Maria Theresa of Austria repudiate the founder, Adam Patachich, a Croatian nobleman and the bishop of Oradea between 1759 and 1776; he was then sent to another diocese, in Kalocsa, Hungary.

Nevertheless, the baron was a charismatic, highly educated humanist and an illuminated patron of arts, who is mostly remembered for the fine music and musicians he surrounded himself with: this is where Michael Haydn, famous composer and Joseph Haydn's brother, worked as a Kapellmeister in the bishop's orchestra. The bishop also employed at the court other famous European composers and violinists like Wenzel Pichl and Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, who between 1765-1769 served as a Musikdirektor.

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