Description
The Museo Galileo is Florence's science museum, in Piazza dei Giudici, right behind the Uffizi: in Palazzo Castellani it holds one of the most important collections of scientific instruments in the world, with Galileo's telescopes and pieces from the collections of the Medici and the House of Lorraine.
The route runs through twenty rooms, by theme and in chronological order, from the Renaissance to the 1800s. You pass from astronomy and clocks to maps, navigation, chemistry, physics and instruments for teaching science.
The most famous pieces are Galileo's telescopes. In March 1610, in the Sidereus Nuncius, the scientist announced the new things the telescope had shown him in the sky. Here you can also see the instruments of his experiments: the military geometric compass, the thermoscope, the inclined plane and an early microscope.
In the globe room is the great armillary sphere in carved and gilded wood by Antonio Santucci, finished in 1593 and used for astronomical calculations. Another room is devoted to the instruments of the Accademia del Cimento, which between 1657 and 1667 carried out experiments on vacuum, sound and thermodynamics.
The museum also tells of science as spectacle: machines for optical illusions and games of lenses, which delighted the grand-ducal court.
The story begins with the Medici. Cosimo I kept the instruments in the Guardaroba of Palazzo Vecchio, Ferdinand I moved them to the Uffizi, and in the 1600s those of the Accademia del Cimento arrived. Then the collection grew under the House of Lorraine.
After the Unification of Italy it was broken up and distributed among various university institutes, until in 1930 it came back together in Palazzo Castellani, which in Dante's day was the Castello d'Altafronte, a fortress from the late 11th century. The museum took Galileo's name in 2010.
Before becoming a museum, from 1574 to 1841 the palace housed the judges of the Ruota, whose insignia are still set in the wall near the entrance. Outside, on the square's pavement, a large sundial from 2007 with a bronze gnomon shows the true solar time and the date.
The route runs through twenty rooms, by theme and in chronological order, from the Renaissance to the 1800s. You pass from astronomy and clocks to maps, navigation, chemistry, physics and instruments for teaching science.
The most famous pieces are Galileo's telescopes. In March 1610, in the Sidereus Nuncius, the scientist announced the new things the telescope had shown him in the sky. Here you can also see the instruments of his experiments: the military geometric compass, the thermoscope, the inclined plane and an early microscope.
In the globe room is the great armillary sphere in carved and gilded wood by Antonio Santucci, finished in 1593 and used for astronomical calculations. Another room is devoted to the instruments of the Accademia del Cimento, which between 1657 and 1667 carried out experiments on vacuum, sound and thermodynamics.
The museum also tells of science as spectacle: machines for optical illusions and games of lenses, which delighted the grand-ducal court.
The story begins with the Medici. Cosimo I kept the instruments in the Guardaroba of Palazzo Vecchio, Ferdinand I moved them to the Uffizi, and in the 1600s those of the Accademia del Cimento arrived. Then the collection grew under the House of Lorraine.
After the Unification of Italy it was broken up and distributed among various university institutes, until in 1930 it came back together in Palazzo Castellani, which in Dante's day was the Castello d'Altafronte, a fortress from the late 11th century. The museum took Galileo's name in 2010.
Before becoming a museum, from 1574 to 1841 the palace housed the judges of the Ruota, whose insignia are still set in the wall near the entrance. Outside, on the square's pavement, a large sundial from 2007 with a bronze gnomon shows the true solar time and the date.