Dadiani Palaces Museum

Seat of the Mingrelian princes

The palace complex in Zugdidi was the seat of the Dadiani princes, who ruled Mingrelia as a separate principality. The Italian missionary Arcangelo Lamberti wrote in the 17th century that the prince had more than fifty palaces and that the one at Zugdidi was the finest. The present building went up in 1873–1878 for Princess Ekaterine Dadiani; the architect Edgar Rice looked to the Vorontsov Palace at Alupka, and a second palace was raised in the 1880s for her son.

The surprise of the collection is one of the three death masks of Napoleon. It came through the family: Ekaterine's daughter Salome Dadiani married Prince Achille Murat, grandson of Napoleon's marshal, in Paris in 1868, and he brought Bonapartist relics to Mingrelia.

Besides the mask and the family's belongings there are church antiquities, weapons, furniture and portraits, and around the palace lies a botanical garden planted by the same owners.