The article provides insight into musical sources, collections and instruments throughout the territory of Croatia today, and particularly in the historical province of Dalmatia. The aim is to discover new, previously completely unknown information about Dalmatian musical heritage, as well as European musical heritage preserved in Dalmatia, which testifies to the connection of Croatian musical sources to Central European and Mediterranean musical and cultural circles. Centred on instruments of art music preserved in Dalmatian museums, the research is a contribution to the evidence about the continuity of musical culture in the region. These instruments are a reflection of the rich and developed Dalmatian musical history, the complexity of which stems from a tradition of folk and sacred music that spans centuries and is permeated with various influences. On the other hand, they are evidence of close relations between Dalmatia and Europe, in the past and the present. This also highlights the relevance of the research presented here, in which instruments – as concrete results of intercultural interactions – have been analysed in a broader musicological and cultural context for the first time.