The visit to Brno by Mozart took place at the end of 1767 and the beginning of 1768. When in October 1767 an epidemic of chickenpox broke out in Vienna, Leopold Mozart feared infection and so he travelled with his children to Moravia. On 24th October he arrived in Brno with Wolfgang and Maria Anna (Nannerl). On 26th October they went to Olomouc and returned on Christmas Eve to Brno, where they probably stayed in the palace of Count Schrattenbach on Koblizná Street. On 30th December the young Wolfgang performed a concert together with his sister Nannerl before the district governor in the Taverna, today the Reduta theatre. Operas and plays would be performed here and sometimes concerts were arranged. Wolfgang and Nannerl probably performed on the harpsichord. The Mozart family returned to Vienna on 9th January 1768. Of the later Mozart operas the first to be performed in Brno was Don Giovanni in December 1789 (two years after the Prague premiere), followed by The Magic Flute (autumn 1793), The Abduction from the Seraglio (May 1794), The Marriage of Figaro (June 1797) and La Clemenza di Tito (April 1798).

Man has inhabited the Brno basin since prehistoric times, and there has been a settlement on the site of Brno since the Greater Moravian Empire. In circa 1000 a village was established by a ford across the River Svratka, now known as Staré Brno (Old Brno), which has given the city its name. In the 11th century the castle of Břetislav was built, the seat of the Přemyslid prince. Under the castle developed Czech market villages, both in Old Brno and around the marketplace of Horní trh (today Zelný trh). In the 13th century foreign colonists arrived from Germany, Flanders and Wallonia, and they settled around the Dolní náměstí (today's náměstí Svobody) square. The Jews also established a community around the lower part of what is today Masarykova Street. Legal backing for the development of the city was provided by the greater and lesser privileges that were conferred on the city by the Czech King Wenceslas I in 1243. The city was provided with fortifications and five gateways (Měnínská, Zidovská, Starobrněnská, Veselá and Běhounská).