BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, December 7, 1820

The December 16 Wiener Zeitung quotes the December 11 Troppau newspapers as reporting that Archduke Rudolph is still in Troppau. Today he visited the museum there and honored its collections and craftsmanship. [The Silesian Museum was founded in 1814, when it was known as the Museum Gymnazijni, since it was placed into a building that previously was a grammar school. With 2,400,000 exhibition items, today it is the third largest museum in the Czech Republic. The main building seen in the attached photo was built in 1882, and thus is not the one visited by the Archduke. ]

The Silesian Museum today (main exhibition building, 1882). Photo by Fotoarchiv Slezského zemského muzea.

Apparently no one had been doing confirmations in the area for quite some time. The Troppau newspaper reports that in the two main churches of the city over the last nine days, the Archduke/Cardinal/Archbishop has performed the sacrament of confirmation for a fairly astonishing 10,244 youngsters, not only from the city but from distant regions.