The Museo Paleontologico di Montevarchi, located in the spaces of a medieval Franciscan convent around the 15th-century Cloister of San Lodovico, is the result of the activities of the Accademia Valdarnese del Poggio, founded in 1805.

The initial core of fossils was formed with samples collected in the Valdarno area, one of the most important fossiliferous basins in Europe. In 1810, Georges Cuvier, founder of paleontology and comparative anatomy, studied the collection of fossils. In the following decades, the Museum, opened to the public in 1829, further increased its collection thanks to reports from citizens. Today the collection consists of approximately 3,000 specimens.

At the end of 2014, after a long period of restoration, the Museum reopened its doors with a new exhibition that allows visitors to discover, in a scientifically rigorous and educationally effective way, the evolution of the natural history of Valdarno starting from 3 million years ago. The new exhibition also includes the exceptional fossil of Mammuthus meridionalis recently discovered near Terranuova Bracciolini (AR), excavated and restored on-site, and placed in a dedicated room since December 2019.

In 2016, the Alvaro Tracchi Archaeological Section was inaugurated, where numerous Etruscan-Roman artifacts from Valdarno and Etruscan artifacts from the Viterbo area are exhibited.

The new section complements the paleontological path, offering an in-depth look at the historical characteristics of human presence in the territory.

The museum path includes the evocative Great Hall of the Academy, home to a rich collection of bibliographic materials including numerous incunabula and ancient editions from the libraries of the suppressed convents in the Valdarno territory.