FRANCISCAN CHURCH

This place of worship has had an eventful history over the centuries. Originally, it was the first Catholic church in Cluj. It was destroyed during the first Tatar invasion in 1241, replaced by a Romanesque church and rebuilt in Gothic style in the ^15th century. The monastery was then built by the Dominicans. The site was no longer used for religious purposes from 1556 to 1609, when it fell into the hands of the Calvinists. In 1728, the Franciscans recovered the building and launched a campaign to restore the bell tower, in a Baroque architectural style. The church then suffered the consequences of Romania's political climate: it was confiscated in 1949, when the Communist authorities decided to dissolve the Franciscan order in Romania. For many years, the building housed a music school, until 1990, the year that marked the end of the church's special history. It then became the property of the Roman Catholic Church and the Franciscan order, along with part of the monastery.

The building was restored in the 1970s and 1980s, during two periods of renovation. An attractive inner courtyard separates the church from the monastery. The monastery also houses an important Franciscan library, with a collection of over a thousand volumes. Finally, in the square in front of the building stands an obelisk, said to have been erected after the visit of Austrian Emperor Francis ^I and his wife, Caroline.