The National Museum of Montenegro in Cetinje is a complex institution that comprises five departments: King Nikola’s Museum (former State Museum), Art Museum, Historical Museum, Ethnographic Museum and the Museum of Petar II Petrović Njegoš. The departments are situated in Cetinje, in residences that are in themselves major cultural-historical monuments: King Nikola’s Palace, Government House (Vladin dom), Biljarda and former Serbian Embassy building. Besides the museum departments in Cetinje, the National Museum of Montenegro comprises also the birthplace of Petar II Petrović Njegoš, situated at Njeguši - a village some twenty kilometres from Cetinje, from which originated the Petrović Njegoš dynasty that ruled Montenegro between 1697 and 1916.

Collection of museum exhibits on the territory of present-day Montenegro can be traced back to the ancient past. In a modern sense, however, it is possible to record the traces as of late fifteenth century, the time when Cetinje was established as a political and spiritual centre of Montenegro. The residences of Ivan Crnojević and the Vranjine Metropolitan, built at the time, contained rich stores of cultural-historical treasure as well as archive and book collections. During the sixteenth and seventeenth century, collecting is to be associated chiefly with the Montenegrin Metropolitans, while the nature of the collected items relates primarily to church history. Since the end of the eighteenth century, especially since the great victories over the Turks at Martinići and Krusi in 1796, war relics were also collected, such as flags, arms, and decorations. It is precisely the collection of such objects, which was enhanced over the entire nineteenth century, that has an important place in the current exhibitions of the National Museum (King Nikola’s Palace, Historical Museum, Museum of Petar II Petrović Njegoš). As early as the rule of Petar II Petrović Njegoš, when Biljarda became the ruler’s residence in 1838, war relics – that is the most prominent ones – were displayed in some of the rooms in these residences, evidently on purpose. The initiative to establish a real museum in the modern sense of the word, however, dates back from the late 1870 ies, and was further defined in 1893, on the occasion of celebrating 400 years from the establishment of the Crnojevići printing house. The institution was officially founded in 1896, the year of enacting the Law on Royal Montenegrin Library and Museum. This museum complex, situated at the historical centre of the Montenegrin historical capital and the metaphysical core of this small country, contains the most important material and spiritual traces of the existence of Montenegrin people and in part that of the other nations inhabiting the territory of present-day Montenegro. The museum items, as can be seen from the "ID cards" of certain museum departments, are most different in their character: archaeological sources, written and printed documents, war relics (arms, flags, uniforms, coats-of arms), furniture, various types of ethnographic items covering the entire ethnographic subject matter of present-day Montenegro, art works (holy paintings - icons, paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, installations) originating from the medieval period to late twentieth century. The museum departments devoted to particular persons – Prince-Bishop and writer Petar II Petrović Njegoš and the last Montenegrin King Nikola I Petrović Njegoš - have special appeal. 

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