The Museodella Specola in Florence reopens, after a redevelopment which also led to 13 new rooms, the first example in Europe of a scientific institution open to all.
Inaugurated on 21 February 1775 as the 'Imperial and royal museum of physics and natural history' by Grand Duke Peter Leopold, the museum became accessible again on his birthday, after being closed for works in 2019. The intervention covered 2,280 square meters and was financed by Tuscany Region (for 3.5 million euros) and by the University of Florence (for 2.5 million).
Now La Specola, which is part of the museum system of the Florentine university, offers new rooms dedicated to the beginnings of aceroplastic art, botanical waxes - which are visible again after a century - and mineralogy.
Of note is the Medici collection of worked stones: it also includes two cups in jasper and one in nephrite jade by Lorenzo the Magnificent, and the shell-shaped lapis lazuli cup by Cosimo I. The exhibition also illustrates the evolution of minerals with unique samples the world, from the tourmalines and hematites of Elba to the sulfur of Sicily, up to the topaz and aquamarine crystals of Brazil.
On the second floor there is the 'Art and Science' route dedicated to the genesis and evolution of Florentine wax modeling.
You will then once again be able to admire the historic zoological collection with animals from all over the world: 4,600 specimens, the eighteenth-century anatomical models, the Hall of Skeletons, the Tribune dedicated to Galileo Galilei and the Torrino.
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