The house in which Dr. France Prešeren was born in 1800 was built in the 16th century. Locally, it was known as “pri Ribč.” The original, partly wooden building, after later additions, became a typical farmhouse. It acquired its present appearance after a fire that struck Vrba in 1856. In 1938, the house was purchased, while the adjacent farm building remained the property of the Ribč family. On May 21, 1939, Prešeren’s house was ceremoniously opened to the public as a museum. The entrance hall, living room, and chamber are furnished with furniture and objects from the time of Prešeren’s life; the black kitchen has been preserved as it once was, and a permanent exhibition on the poet’s life and work is arranged in the former granary.

A hundred years after the poet, the Ljubljana archbishop Anton Vovk (1900–1963) was also born in Prešeren’s birth house.

“What Shakespeare is to the English, Racine to the French, Dante to the Italians, Goethe to the Germans, Pushkin to the Russians, Mickiewicz to the Poles—that is what Prešeren is to the Slovenes,” wrote Josip Stritar in 1866 upon the publication of Poezije. Dr. France Prešeren (1800–1849), the foremost of Slovenian poets, played a decisive role in establishing the Slovenian language in history and demanded that Slovenians become equal among European nations. He expressed his vision of equality and friendly coexistence among all nations in Zdravljica, which became Slovenia’s national anthem upon independence.