The Villa is located outside the Guinigi walls of the thirteenth century, and was incorporated in the city of next boundary. The building consists of a single elongated body, with arcades supported by columns and a series of three lights on top. A perfect example for a late-Gothic stately home, almost entirely made of bricks.

After the death of Paul Guinigi the building became the Republic of Lucca and during the centuries was to serve different purposes. In 1924 the house became home to the Museo Civico. In 1968 the Museum was transformed into the National Museum. The museum documents the activities of visual artists, secular or religious, Lucca or foreigners in the city, from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century.

But there are also creations of applied art, as precious wood inlays of the fifteenth century.

The ground floor is home to a section of the archaeological museum with prehistoric, Etruscan and Roman ruins. The museum is divided into several rooms, each represented with its paintings, sculptures, but also fragments of fresco, the wood inlays, furniture, art for a given time in Lucca. Among these you can see, among others, works by Berlinghiero, Matteo Civitali, Fra Bartolomeo, Amico Aspertini, Pompeo Batoni.