Housed in the sixteenth-century Franciscan monastery beside the Jardín Zenea, covering the region from its pre-Hispanic Otomí and Chichimeca inhabitants through the colonial period to independence and the brief empire. Querétaro's particular claim is the trial and execution of Maximilian here in 1867, and the museum holds objects from it, including the table on which the sentence was signed. The cloister is worth the entry on its own. Labelling is mostly Spanish.