The Museum is unique in its genre, the structure hosting it is of notable historical interest both for documenting tobacco cultivation and its manufacturing stages, and for the importance this has had on the economy of the territory. At first entirely dedicated to tobacco processing, the Museum was founded by the Foundation for the Historic-Scientific Museum of Tobacco, constituted in 1997 by all participants, such as businesses and associations acting in the tobacco productive chain, from farmers to tobacco shops.

The Museum presents the legislation on the subject, and reconstructs the various processing stages, divided into the three main ones of farming stage—growing and cultivation; raw-material treatment stage—sorting of the leaves, selection of quality and treatment;  manufacturing stage—the actual production of the final products—snuff, cigars and cigarettes. The Foundation also benefits from the involvement of the municipalities of the Upper Tiber Valley, where tobacco manufacture was imported for the first time in Italy, at the end of the 16th century, in the territory of the historic Republic of Cospaia, 1441-1826.