House of Perkūnas is one of the most original and archaic Gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

 secular buildings, located in the Old Town

Centras (Kaunas)

Centras is an elderate in the city of Kaunas, Lithuania, based on two neighbourhoods of Kaunas - the Old City and the New City. It lies at the confluence of two major Lithuanian rivers, the Nemunas and the Neris....

 of Kaunas

Kaunas

Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...

, Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

. Originally built by Hanseatic merchants

Hanseatic League

The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...

 and served as their office from 1440 till 1532, it was sold in the 16th century to the Jesuits who had established a chapel there in 1643. The Jesuits have also completed the Church of St. Francis Xavier

Church of St. Francis Xavier, Kaunas

Church of St. Francis Xavier is located in the Old Town of Kaunas, Lithuania. The church dedicated to St. Francis Xavier was built at the Town Hall Square in the Old Town of Kaunas by Jesuits. They opened their first residence in Kaunas in 1642 and established a chapel in the House of Perkūnas in...

 at the Town Hall

Town Hall, Kaunas

The Town Hall of Kaunas stands in the middle of the Town Hall Square at the heart of the Old Town, Kaunas, Lithuania.The structure dates from the 16th century. It houses a Museum of Ceramics.-History:...

 Square in 1722.

The ruined house was rebuilt in the 19th century and served as a school and theatre, which was attended by Polish-Lithuanian

Polish-Lithuanian (adjective)

Polish-Lithuanian individuals and groups are those with histories in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This federation, formally established by the 1569 Union of Lublin between the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania, created a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state founded on the...

 poet Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...

. At the end of the 19th Century it was renamed "House of Perkūnas", when a figure, interpreted by the romantic historians of that time as an idol

Cult image

In the practice of religion, a cult image is a human-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents...

 of the Baltic

Baltic languages

The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe...

 pagan god of thunder and the sky Perkūnas

Perkunas

Perkūnas was the common Baltic god of thunder, one of the most important deities in the Baltic pantheon. In both Lithuanian and Latvian mythology, he is documented as the god of thunder, rain, mountains, oak trees and the sky.-Etymology:...

 was found in one of its walls. Today, the house of Perkūnas once again belongs to the Jesuits and houses a museum of Adam Mickiewicz.

Lithuanian historian, theologian and translator Albert Wijuk Kojałowicz was born in the house.

The House of Perkūnas was included into the Registry of Immovable Cultural Heritage Sites of the Republic of Lithuania in 1996.