The Archaeological Museum of Asturias has been housed since 1952 in the old cloister of the San Vicente convent in the city of Oviedo / Uviéu. This building, whose rich history relates it to the origin of the city, was declared a national monument in 1934

A document copied in the 12th century, with obvious interpolations, attributes the origin of the monastery of San Vicente to the year 761 when, reigning Fruela I, Abbot Fromestano and his nephew Máximo settled in a deserted place called Oviedo.

Barely any remains of this primitive construction have come down to us, as well as the Romanesque-style building, from the late 11th century or the first half of the 12th century, of which we only know some remains found during various restoration works.

The current cloister was started in the 1530s, under the direction of the teacher Juan de Badajoz el Mozo. Juan de Cerecedo el Viejo and, upon his death, his nephew Juan de Cerecedo el Mozo completed the upper floor in the 1570s.

After the confiscation of ecclesiastical assets in 1837, the building became the property of the Oviedo Provincial Council, becoming offices and administrative units. In 1934 the old cloister of San Vicente was declared a historical-artistic monument and from 1939 its restoration began under the direction of Luis Menéndez Pidal, architect conservator of monuments in the northwest, and Manuel Bobes (father and son) .

The conventual church adjoining the cloister was segregated as the parish of Santa María de la Corte and, for its part, in 1969 the corridors of the service patio, the current Plaza de Feijoo, housed the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, today Psychology.

From 1952 until now it houses the Archaeological Museum of Asturias.