[1] The museum is currently closed due to unusability following the serious damage caused by the 2012 Northern Italy earthquake and its collection has been temporarily moved to the Ducal Palace of Sassuolo.

[2] In 1668, during the period of greatest splendour of the Duchy of Mirandola, Duke Alessandro II Pico order to build the Galleria Nuova (New Gallery) in the centre of the castle of the Pico, frescoed by Biagio Falcieri and arranged to house the precious picture gallery composed of over 300 works of art by extraordinary artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Caravaggio, Titian, and many others, purchased in Verona in 1688.

The modern Civic Museum was founded in 1963, after the exhibition organized on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the birth of famous Renaissance philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, when for the first time they brought together many works of art and memorabilia previously split in various municipal offices or abandoned in the municipal warehouse and historical archive.

[5] Only few months later, on May 20, 2012, a violent earthquake severely damaged all the castle, making the Civic Museum unusable, which since then has been closed waiting to be recovered.

In the archaeological section there are numerous finds that document the human presence in the territory of Mirandola at least since the Bronze Age and the civilization of the Terramare, as well as in Roman times.