Institute of Dubrovnik Museums, one of the oldest museum institutions in Croatia, was founded in 1872, by the city authorities. Today, the Dubrovnik Museums are cohesion of five museums with different collections - archaeological, cultural-historical, ethnographical, maritime and modern art.

The Cultural-Historical Museum - located in the Rectors Palace, a Gothic-Renaissance palace. The collection held in the Cultural-Historical Museum dates from the XIV to XIX century periods of Dubrovnik. Here we can find ancient Dubrovnik weapons and coins, and portraits of important people from these periods (Boskovic, Getaldic, Gradic, Gundulic, Cvijeta Zuzoric), including works by Dubrovnik and Italian painters.

The Maritime Museum - located in the Fort of Saint John that defended the entrance to the old city harbor. It shows the wealth of Dubrovnik’s maritime history - paintings of ships that were pledged by seamen, documents, ships inventory, tools, ship models from the Middle Ages.

The Ethnographic Museum - is located in a place where grain used to be stored in large holes. The Museum of Holes, which collection exhibits traditional culture, national folklore costumes, ancient jewelry and lacework fabricated by the craftsmen of old Dubrovnik, reveals the secrets of how people once lived, both lower and upper classes.

The Archaeological Museum - contains a collection of items dating from prehistoric times to the Middle Ages. There are numerous exhibits and remnants of Middle Age churches, as well as a collection dating to ancient Egypt and Cyprus.