Science museums in Italy

We would like to add some ideas to the readers’ “less-well-known museum” suggestions printed back in the June ’04 issue.

We spent nine days in Tuscany in May ’05. In Florence, the plethora of art museums may obscure the existence of the small, stunning Museo di Storia della Scienza (Museum of the History of Science). It is located just behind the Uffizi in the Palazzo Castellani, a building that dates to the 12th century. The Renaissance was an awakening of the sciences as well as the arts, and this small museum brings it all together.

In 21 rooms of exhibits, the Museo di Storia della Scienza displays scientific instruments from the private Medici collections of the 15th to 17th centuries, with the addition of instruments of the 18th and 19th centuries. It covers mathematics, astronomy, geography, microscopy, meteorology, mechanics, medicine and chemistry.

In Room IV, you can see the lens with which Galileo first saw the moons of Jupiter, along with several of his personal telescopes. An added attraction is an embalmed finger from Galileo’s right hand. The cartography room has stunning 16th- and 17th-century globes, both terrestrial and celestial.

Those following the science trail can also visit the Museo Leonardiano, housed in the 13th-century Guidi Castle in the village of Vinci. Vinci, just west of Florence, is where the great inventor was born in 1452. Samples of Leonardo’s voluminous notes (written right to left) are displayed with full-scale wooden models of many of his interesting inventions.

DON & NANCY EAGER
Hayward, CA