The Palatul Baroc was built between 1762 and 1777 as the seat of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Oradea, on commission from bishops Adam Patachich and Ignác Báthory. The design — by the Italian architect Franz Anton Hillebrand — is unmistakably a Habsburg ceremonial palace: a long horseshoe-shaped wing, two storeys of yellow plaster with white pilasters, statuary along the roofline, and formal gardens out front.
After decades of mixed use under communism — variously a hospital, a museum and a barracks — the building was returned to the Catholic Church in 2003 and slowly restored. It now functions partly as the episcopal residence and partly as a museum of religious art, with several of the original state rooms open to visitors. The chapel and the bishop's library, with its early printed books, are worth the entry fee.