The origins of the Italian Court are shrouded in mystery and historians can only guess because no written resources and only a few artefacts dating from the earliest history of the building have been preserved. Presumably there used to be a little fortified castle that was later chosen by the sovereign to become the seat of the new Central Mint. Since the very beginning, the Italian Court was separated from the town by fortified moats to protect the workshops, in which silver was processed and coins were struck. The original building was reconstructed at the turn of the 15th century, allegedly upon the request of King Wenceslas II, and the chapel and the royal palace were added. Fires accompanying the Hussite wars probably avoided the Italian Court at all and thus it was able to retain its representative appearance enabling to welcome significant visitors and host royal assemblies. Another restoration was initiated by King George of Poděbrady at the time of reintroduction of Prague Groschen. Jan Horstoffar of Malešice, the ambitious highest mintmaster, had the adjacent mintmaster’s house built at the end of the 15th century; he also refurnished the chapel by purchasing new panel altars from Nuremberg, his native town. Reconstruction activities were managed by Matyas Rejsek. From the Baroque period dates only the fountain in the courtyard (1739) and a few details. The Italian Court thus remained virtually unchanged until the end of the 18th century, when the mint and the mining office were abolished and the building began to decay. A century passed and the condition was critical, some people even called for its demolition. Eventually in the 1880s, municipal authorities decided to carry out a vast reconstruction project under the direction of the famous architect Ludvík Lábler. That involved mainly the removal of ruined workshops; what remained were the royal palace, the treasury and the chapel that was redecorated in the Art Nouveau style by František and Marie Urban. Despite all transformations, the Italian Court is one of the most valuable monuments of Kutná Hora. Its neo-Gothic reconstruction is a great example of cultural preservation methods and techniques a hundred years ago.