Inhabited since prehistory, it was an independent pilgrim community (Piqventvm), during the Antiquity, as can be seen from the ruins of Ancient Roman cremation necropolises, found at Fontana below the old town and at Pintorija, as well as many other stone monuments from the Antiquity. The collapse of the Roman Empire brought about drastic change to the life of locals, as confirmed by findings in the graves of arriving Slavs and the barbarised Roman population in the 7th and 8th century at the cemeteries Mejica below Buzet, Zajčji brč near Veli Mluna and Mejica at Drobežija (Sovinjak). During the Byzantine rule, a fortification (a tower) was mentioned in 804 at the Placitum of Riziano. By 1102, when it went to the Patriarchate of Aquileia, the fort had already been under the rule of King Henry IV, Margrave Ulric, and his son. In 1421 it passes to the Venetian Republic that makes it in 1511 the headquarters of the Captain of Raspor, a military governor with executive and judicial authority in Venetian Istria. The town had undergone significant changes during the rule of the Venetian Republic: town walls were renovated and reinforced, towers and the monumental town gates were built, and many public works (a small well and a granary) were undertaken, with town palaces, craftsmen and trader’s houses constructed during the Renaissance. Secular baroque architecture began to develop with the Bigatto Palace (1639). Until the fall of the Venetian Republic (1797), the baroque gardens, Bembo Palace, Church of the Assumption (Uznesenja Marijina), and the square with a baroque cistern were built. During the 19th century, a large, so-called Neoclassical Palace (Moretti Palace) was erected, and the promenade at Lopar with a row of Neoclassical houses and a lapidarium in the south-west tower, as well as the Šotojorta promenade below the baroque gardens, laid out from the Large to the Small Gate, were built. Of historical events which have marked this region, we must mention the construction of the railroad (1874-1876) during the Austrian rule, and the construction of the Istrian water supply network (1930-1940) during the Italian administration.

The Regional Museum opened in 1961 and is housed at the ancient Bigatto Palace, completed in 1639, in the Buzet old town centre. Valuable archaeological, ethnographical, cultural and historical artefacts, artworks and other material important for Buzet and the Buzet Region are kept at the museum. The archaeological collection with a lapidarium; the ethnographical collection with various farming tools, an old Buzet kitchen, folk costumes of Ćićarija and Buzet, and a weaver’s loom; the legacy of Slavomir Cerovac and Miro Blažinčić; the exhibition on the fight against fascism in the Buzet Region and om the Glagolitic script; and the gallery space where art and other exhibitions take place, are open to visitors. The old town smithy, bakery, horn comb workshop, and a collection of firearms and cold arms from the legacy of Slavomir Cerovac are located throughout the old town and can also be visited.