The Museum was founded on the initiative of Professor Glauco Lombardi (1881-1970), to whom it is dedicated, and it exhibits an illustrious collection that revives the history of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza between the mid-18th-century and the mid-19th-century, paying special attention to Duchess Maria Luigia of Habsburg (1791-1847). The Museum keeps both official items of the short but sumptuous imperial era lived by Maria Luigia as Empress of France at Napoleon’s side, and personal items, textile products, jewellery, diaries and other testament of her official and private court life.
There are relevant sections of the Museum that are dedicated to the French architect Ennemond-Alexandre Petitot, to the typographer Giambattista Bodoni and to the engraver Paolo Toschi. We should also mention the rich documentary fund that is kept in the Museum archive.
The fact that the Museum is located inside the Palace of Riserva defines an essential continuity between a building that, during the Duchy period, had been destined for important representation services of the court and to the works of art kept in the Museum that are related to it.