Franjo Horvatić was born in Novigrad Posavski in 1936. He graduated from general high school in 1955 in Koprivnica. He took a degree in history and sociology at the Faculty of Philosophy, Zagreb University, in 1961. From 1961 to 1963 he was a history teacher in the Economic School in Koprivnica. In 1963 he succeeded Dr Leander Brozović, first professional Koprivnica museum officer, and founder of the museum, in the job of history curator and acting director of Koprivnica Municipal Museum.
From 1964 he directed the move of Koprivnica Municipal Museum, of all the collections and moveable material, from their temporary location in the private house of Dr Stanko Sulimanović, to the building of the District court and worked on the inventorying and specialist study of the museum material.
Franjo Horvatić studied the cultural and historical heritage of central Podravina, above all of Koprivnica and surrounding settlements. As director of KCM he organised and ran numbers of field investigations and museum campaigns in the area of the former District (Kotar) of Koprivnica, and then in collecting museum material. He was a champion of the museum and museological concept in which museum collections and objects are exhibited in situ, and thus between 1965 and 1990 encouraged, or with expert advice, expertise and conceptions took part in, the foundation, museum treatment and establishment of a number of local, museum and gallery collections, separate units of the KCM in the general area of the former Koprivnica municipality.
From 1975 to 1995 he was editor of Podravski zbornik, and editor of Biblioteka Podravskog zbornika. In this latter function for twenty years he published and edited a number of books by important Croatian authors: by Leander Brozović, Nada Klaić, Dragutin Feletar, Zorko Marković, Mihovil Pavlek Miškina, Josip Turković, Vladimir Crnković and Marijan Špoljar, for example.

NB: facts taken from a questionnaire, material submitted form the Personnel Archives of MDC and data from the Koprivnica Municipal Museum.