The Atestino National Museum, born in 1834 as a Lapidary Civic Museum, has been housed since 1902 in the prestigious sixteenth-century building built by the Venetian Mocenigo family, which incorporates a part of the walls of the fourteenth-century Carraresi castle in the facade.
The set-up, organized on two floors, follows a chronological and typological criterion. The first floor houses the most representative archaeological materials of the culture of the ancient Venetians, who inhabited the region throughout the course of the first millennium BC. These are thousands of finds, among which the prestigious grave goods that illustrate the evolution of the ancient Italic civilization, from the aristocracies of the Homeric tradition to the great families dedicated to flourishing merchant and craft activities. Among the many jewels are the famous Situla Benvenuti, masterpiece, in bronze foil, of the Venetian artistic craftsmanship of the seventh century BC, the princely tomb of Nerka, from the Hellenistic period, with a set of 120 objects, the bird-shaped vase aquatic of the tomb Pelà 2, the Alfonsi vase decorated with human and animal figures, painted in red, the Tavola da Este, on bronze sheet, the most important document written in the Venetian language so far received, significant ex voto, bronzes and plates above all, coming from the sanctuaries of Este, such as the statuette of the so-called "goddess of Caldevigo".
The finds of the ancient Venetian civilization are flanked by:
a considerable nucleus of prehistoric finds from the area around Este and in particular of the Euganean Hills; these include materials from the inhabited lake-dwelling of the small lake on the Costa di Arquà Petrarca, a UNESCO World Heritage Site;
the rich collections relating to the Roman center of Ateste, from the Romanization to the documentation of the finds that illustrate the public aspect of the city, to the necropolis, to the arts and crafts, to private life;
a conspicuous collection of local ceramic products, from the Middle Ages to the modern era, in particular the rich selection of fine 19th-century products from the Franchini manufacture.
An important painted panel closes the exhibition: this is the Madonna with Child, made in 1504 by Cima da Conegliano.

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