Interest in Croatian monumental heritage has existed since ancient times. At the beginning of the 16th century, Dominik Papalić, a humanist and nobleman from Split, collected a collection of ancient inscriptions in his house, which he found together with Marko Marulić, the “father of Croatian literature”, during numerous walks around the ruins of Salona. In the atrium of the exhibition hall of the Archaeological Museum, five original inscriptions, as many as have been preserved from that collection, are on display. Marulić wrote a “catalog” or “guide” to that collection.

The Archaeological Museum in Split, the oldest museum institution in Croatia, was founded in 1820 by the decree of the Dalmatian government in Zadar. The impetus for its foundation was the arrival of Emperor Francis I in Dalmatia in 1818, when he visited Split and the Solina monuments. The first museum building was built in 1821 next to the eastern walls of Diocletian’s Palace, but it soon became too cramped for the growing number of monuments.