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By definition, the palace is a “grand and beautiful house”¹ or a “building which stands out by its size and luxury”. In Latin, the word “palatium” was used to describe the residence of an emperor and it comes from the name of one of the seven hills of Rome, the Palatine Hill, where Emperor Augustus Caesar lived and where his successors built their luxurious residences.  In its basic meaning the word palace was used to denote an urban residence of a sovereign, a feudal lord, a patrician, etc. and is synonymous to a court. In a broader sense, the term is applied nowadays here to larger buildings used as the seats of ministries, banks, business concerns, organisations, institutions, etc.  

“In many ancient civilisations, such as Egypt, Crete, Persia, the Roman Empire, etc. palaces of large dimensions were used as the residences of rulers (e.g. Diocletian’s palace in Split). In Rome, the emperor’s residence was built on one of the seven hills (Palatine Hill) and the name of the hill later came to mean the palace. In the middle ages, feudal lords used fortified towns, i.e. burgs, as their residences (e.g. the papal residence in Avignon). A residential building within such fortified towns acquired the name palais, pales, palas, palast, etc. From the Renaissance onwards, the residential building evolved into a type of palace, differing from the burg in that it was not fortified; it was part of an urban complex but was not connected to utility buildings, which is characteristic of the court as centre of a feudal estate. A Renaissance type of feudal palace (Ital. palazzo) developed in Italy from the 15th century onwards, first in Florence, Rome and Venice; here the wings of a palace with porches resting on pillars enclose a fine quadrangle (e.g. Strozzi Palace and Pitti Palace in Florence). Palaces serving public purposes were built in a similar way (e.g. Palazzo della Cancellaria in Rome). In Italy, palaces developed especially in the Baroque period, and the term “palazzo” became widely used.  

The Slavic names for a palace are derived from Latin (e.g. palata, palača, polača, palac in Serbo-Croat; palac in Czech and Polish). Today, in this area, the term palace is applied not only to luxurious, distinctive houses built as private residences of noble families, but also to all fine and prominent buildings.”²