Museum of Natural History and Archaeology Vicenza occupies two Dominican cloister, flanking the Church of Santa Corona and-facing the street of the same name. Cloister of the 17th century, smaller in size, is located on the north side of the church, as well as the old library. The latter was built between the 1496th and 1502 meters for years, supposedly designed by Rocco da Vicenza, but today is not used. The second, larger cloister was built in the second half of the 15th century, decorated with columns of local stone with Gothic capitals. Lodge and west facade of the cloister was designed by Francesco Mouton. In the premises of the cloister once housed not only monks but also the administration of the Inquisition - it occupies the first floor of the west wing.

In 1811 a large cloister was used as a city college, then it housed the Austrian military hospital, and later - school. In 1823, the year it was built to the current entrance facade with a triple, and in 1877, the year it became the seat of the prestigious Institute of Technology, based industrialist Alessandro Rossi. The Institute was located here until the year 1962. In 1987, both the cloister were restored, and a few years later they were placed in the collection of the Museum of Natural History and Archaeology.

Previously, the museum's collection is housed in the Palazzo Chiericati, along with other collections of the Museum of the City of Vicenza .  In the 19th century, were donated to the museum collection of the important naturalistic, which included a rich herbarium containing silver minerals, fossils of crocodile that once lived on the territory of Vicenza and many other exhibits lyuboptynyh .  In 1945 the Municipal Museum was bombed, and most of the materials on the natural history, was destroyed .  From the original collection of preserved only two paleontological collections .  Therefore, the current exhibits of the museum - is the result of recent acquisitions and donations .  Today, the Museum of Natural History and Archaeology can see malacological and osteological collection of stuffed birds and rare species of priceless herbarium, created by the famous naturalist-arhelogom Paolo Lioy in 1854-56-m respectively .  The entomological collection contains holotypes and paratypes found in Vicenza in northern Italy, and insect species .