In Kaunas, in the southwest corner of the Town Hall Square, the former Pacai Palace (now the Maironis Museum of Lithuanian Literature) stands. It is believed that this palace was built in the 17th century by Kristupas Pacas, a chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, by connecting several previously built residential houses of the town’s citizens (the authorship of the Pazaislis monastery, completed in the second half of the 17th century, is attributed to another representative of the Pacai dynasty, Mikalojas Pacas). In the 18th century, Simonas Sirutis, an elder of the Kaunas court, bought the palace and rebuilt it. That is why the palace is sometimes called Sirutis’ Palace. It is a palace of the late Baroque (Rococo) style, built by joining three Gothic brick houses. The Gothic cellars of the 15th - 16th centuries, which have been perfectly preserved to this day, are among the oldest ones in Kaunas. After the death of S. Sirutis, in 1779, the palace was bought by Count Juozapas Chrapovickis, the elder of the Starodub court. In 1965, the government decided to grant Maironis Museum the status of a republican museum.
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