The building that today houses the Museum, adjacent the church built by Jesuits between 1719 and 1740 in honor of St. Francis Xavier, was arisen between 1746 and 1755 on project of architect Alfonso Torregiani (1682-1764) as “college” of the Jesuits.
The planimetric shape of the complex design follows a typical Jesuit architecture: a body shaped like a U on the side of the church, with a corridor that runs on three internal sides allowing access to all rooms. In 1773, with the abolition of the Jesuits order, the “College” went to the Episcopal seminary that was sold in 1796 to Dominicans: also this order was revoked a few months later. From 1797 to 1977 was used as a hospital, first military and then civil, suffering many functional transformations. The bombing of the last war has seriously damaged the entire structure. The restoration, conducted by the architect Pier Luigi Foschi, has again led to the suggestion of the ancient spaces, today used in exhibition halls of the Museum of the city.
The garden houses the Roman inscription collection with items dating from the 1st century BC. to the 4th century AD.
Roman monuments and rich domus with their furnishings are presented in the Archeological Section. Also a part of the necropolis that flanked via Flaminia, with its majestic monuments, now lost, is presented in a form of plastic.
The Archaeological Section, in 2003, opened an initial sector illustrating the mid centuries of the Roman Empire. The visitor’s itinerary – enlarged in 2007 to include the archaeological site of the Surgeon’s House – as of June 2010 houses the area’s archaeological heritage displaying human progress from prehistory to late antiquity.
Rimini all year round