The museum as an institution, is directly connected with the habit of collecting objects and underwent a continuous evolution through the centuries, before obtaining its present form as a place in which civilization is not only presented but also produced. Starting with the collections of ancient Greece and Rome and the Museum of Alexandria and continuing with the private collections of the Renaissance and the scientifically classified collections of the period of Enlightenment, we end up with the public museum of the nineteenth century and the cultural-museum centres of our time. This article attempts a survey of the evolution of museums in time and place.