The museum is housed in the palace of Alexander Baryatinsky, viceroy of the Caucasus, built in the 1850s. It presents unique examples of old and modern Georgian literature and of the cultural heritage of other countries: manuscripts (a 12th-century Athonite Four Gospels, philosophical-religious works of the 17th–19th centuries), paintings and graphic works by famous Georgian and foreign writers and artists, photographs and documents, books that have become bibliographic rarities, and audio and video recordings.