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Back on the horseshoe just south of Zrinjevac lies Strossmayerov trg, the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded as the Yugoslav Acad of Arts and Sciences by Bishop Juraj Strossmayer in 1866. Based in cathedral town of Dakovo in eastern Slavonia,

Strossmayer was leading figure in the current of  nineteenth-centu Croatian nationalism regarded Yugoslavism - the drawing together of all southern Slaysas the way of offering resistance to Croatia's traditional enemies - Hungari. Austrians and Italians. He's still a respected figure, regardless of what may happened in the intervening hundred years. A statue of Strossmayer by I Meštrović sits among the trees in front of the building, a curiously gang piece of sculpture that makes the Bishop look more like a hyperactive conjurer than a dignified cultural leader. In the academy itself, the Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters (Strossmayerova galerija starih majstora; Tues-Sun 9am-5pm) includes pieces by prominent Venetians, including Veronese and Tintoretto, together with a small Mary Magdalene by El Greco, some early Flemish canvases by Joos van Cleve and the anonymous Master of the Virgin among the Virgins, and French paintings by the likes of Fragonard and Boucher. Crouched in the lobby of the building is the Baška Tablet (Bascanska ploca), an eleventh-century inscription from the island of Krk which bears the oldest-known example of Glagolitic, the archaic script used by the medieval Croatian church.

Across the street from the Strossmayer Gallery is the Modern Gallery (Moderna galerija;Tues-Sun 10am-lpm & 5-8pm; a vast collection of Croatian art from 1850 to World War II. Quality is largely sacrificed for quantity here, and highlights are relatively easy to pick out Vlaho Bukovac heads the list of pre-World War I painters with his monumental Krist na odru ("Christ on the funeral bier") of 1905, in which ghostly angels play around the catafalque. Krsto Hegeduk is represented by three canvases depicting life in the village of Hlebine in the 1930s, while contemporaneous Dalmatian painters Ignjat Job and Petar Dobrović contribute animated and colourful representations of Adriatic life. Just round the corner from the Modern Gallery, the Croatian Academy's Graphic Art Gallery (Kabinet grafike; Mon-Sat 11 am-7pm; admission prices vary depending on what's on display) hosts temporary exhibitions. At the far end of Strossmayerov trg, the early twentieth-century Art Pavilion (Umjetnički pavilion; Mon-Sat I lam-7pm, Sun 10am-lpm) resplendent in the bright yellow paint job beloved of Habsburg-era architects, hosts regular temporary art exhibitions in its gilded stucco and mock-marble interior. Beyond lie the immaculate lawns and flowerbeds of Tomislavov trg, its name taken from the tenth-century Croatian king, Tomislav, whose equestrian statue stands at the square's southern end, greeting travellers emerging from the Neoclassical portals of Zagreb's main train station.