[4] The museum, set in a medieval castle in the village of Castelbosco, was created by a local dairy farmer whose herd of 2,500 (some reports say 3,500) cows produce 30,000 litres (7,900 US gal) of milk a day, which is used to make Grana Padano cheese.

The cows also produce around 100,000 kilograms (220,000 lb) of dung, which is transformed into methane, fertiliser for the fields, as well as raw material for plaster and bricks.

As the organization's website offers: "The idea for a new museum slowly took shape, emerging from manure to deal with the broader theme of transformation.

The museum would be an agent of change which, through educational and research activities, the production of objects of everyday use and the gathering of artefacts and stories concerning excrement in the modern world and throughout history, was to dismantle cultural norms and prejudices.

The museum commissioned artists David Tremlett and Anne and Patrick Poirier to transfigure the mechanical digesters "into a sign" mixing allegorical symbols with botany, thereby creating "a work of evolutionary land art".

[1] Within the Gazzola Castelbosco, exhibit spaces are designed to reinforce the themes, beginning with the museum's repeated use of the dung beetle – the Egyptian's considered the scarab to be divine as a symbol of the heavenly cycle and of the idea of rebirth or regeneration – and to provide proof that shit "is a useful and living material".

Thus, it combines historical references (including Pliny's Naturalis Historia) to point out that waste and recycled materials can be the basis for a better civilization.

[4] Part of the mission of the Shit Museum is to make tangible contributions: ideas and exhibits are purposed to lead to objects, innovation and projects.

[8] The Merdacotta was used in "simple, clean rural shapes", devoid of adornment and embodying "ancient principles", thereby making the first tangible products bearing the Museo della Merda brand.