he National Museum of Oriental Art was founded in 1957 through a convention between the Ministry of Public Education and the former IsMEO (Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, Italian Institute for Near and Far East), now IsIAO (Istituto Italiano perl’Africa e l’Oriente, Italian Institute for Africa and Orient) that bestowed its collection on consignment, and it was inaugurated the following year. 

It is located in the palace of princes Brancaccio, a Renaissance style building designed in 1892-96 by the architect Luca Carimini. The collection was formed through public purchases, exchanges, donations, findings and artistic objects brought back by the archaeological missions of IsMEO in Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. 

The permanent exhibition consists of the following sections: Ancient Near and Middle East, India, Gandhara, Tibet, and Nepal, South-east Asia, and Far East. The Iranian and Pakistani handmadearticles of the fourth-first millennium BC, the Tibetan paintings on fabrics, the Buddhist, Khmer, and Indian sculptures, such as the famous marble Scorretti of the eighth-ninth century AD, representing the goddess Durga while she is killing the demon-buffalo; the ritual Chinese vases of the Shang and Zhou dynasties; the Japanese xylographs, are all of particular interest.