Palazzo Diotti was purchased in 1837 by the neoclassical painter Giuseppe Diotti (Casalmaggiore, 1779 - 1846), who entrusted its renovation to the architect Fermo Zuccari and moved there after leaving the 30-year position he held at the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo. Respecting the wishes of its illustrious inhabitant and restoring the appearance of a private home, the museum that was set up here in 2007 is proposed not only as a picture gallery of the 19th century, but also as a house-museum aimed at reconstructing the image of the atelier and didactically restoring the artist's working method.

Giuseppe Diotti's house-atelier occupies the eight rooms on the main floor that address by themes every aspect of the painter's activity, from his years of study in Rome, through preparatory drawings of various frescoes that show the painter's attention to the study of the human figure, to works of his maturity. Along the exhibition route, a number of multimedia stations are available to the public through which Giuseppe Diotti himself welcomes visitors to his home, recounts his life and later developments in art in Casalmaggiore. In fact, the exhibition tour continues with the Gallery of Modern Art, set up in what were service quarters in Diotti's time, which brings together significant works by local and Lombard artists of the 20th century, with a focus on Existential Realism and the Po River landscape. The focus on the theme of the atelier also led to the reconstruction inside the Museum of the working environments of various painters (Goliardo Padova, Tino Aroldi, Palmiro Vezzoni) and sculptor Ercole Priori.