The first nucleus of the Museum was born in the early 1970s by initiative of the Massa Marittima Mineralogical Group. In 1984, the collections were placed in the fifteenth-century Palazzetto delle Armi, placed at the Museum’s disposal by the Commune, and opened to the public the following year. On the occasion of structural interventions to the building, in 1998 the Museum was completely redesigned and opened again in 2001. Along with the Mining Museum, the Museum of Mining Art and History belongs to the Museum System of Massa Marittima, created by the Communal Administration and run by the Cooperativa Colline Metallifere.

The Palazzetto looks out onto the Candeliere tower. It has four rooms that host a rich photographic and cartographic documentation, a collection of minerals from the Metalliferous Hills, and a collection of mining instruments which include mining tools of various epochs (from antiquity to the 20th century), and objects tied to the everyday life of miners (work clothes, metal baskets for food). Also particularly interesting are the panels with the mining history of the area, the reproduction of the Massa Marittima Mining Code that regulated mining activity, and the wooden reconstruction of a headframe for a mineshaft.