Piazza dei Giudici 1 (Near the Uffizi Gallery).
Adults €9,
concessions (over 65s or groups of 15 people) €5.5, schools (6-15
years) €4.5, children (under 6) free.
Wed-Mon 9:30-18:00, Tue
9:30-13:00. Closed January 1st and December 25th
The Galileo Museum (formerly the Institute and Museum of the History
of Science) in Florence is located in Piazza dei Giudici, near the
Uffizi Gallery, in the Palazzo Castellani, a
building of very ancient origins (late 11th century), known in Dante's
time such as Castello d'Altafronte. It preserves one of the most
important collections of scientific instruments in the world, material
testimony of the importance attributed to science and its protagonists
by the exponents of the Medici dynasty and the Lorraine grand dukes.
On 10 June 2010, after being closed for two years for renovations,
the Museum of the History of Science reopened to the public with the new
name of "Museo Galileo". The inauguration coincided with the 400th
anniversary of the publication of Sidereus Nuncius (March 1610), the
work with which Galileo Galilei divulged his astronomical discoveries
obtained through the use of the telescope.
The Museo Galileo collects the precious scientific instruments from
the Medici and Lorraine collections (16th-19th centuries).
The
origin of the Medici collection is due to Cosimo I (1519-1574), who
placed it in the Wardrobe of Palazzo Vecchio (the current Hall of
Geographical Maps). In 1600 Ferdinando I (1549-1609) moved the
instruments to the Mathematics Room of the Uffizi Gallery. The large
armillary sphere built by Antonio Santucci in 1593 was housed in the
adjoining terrace. During the 17th century, the instruments destined for
the experiments of the Accademia del Cimento (1657-1667) were added, in
whose Palazzo Pitti the whole medical collection.
In 1775 the
Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo of Lorraine founded the Royal Museum of
Physics and Natural History: the entire Medici collection was
transferred to its headquarters in Palazzo Torrigiani (where the current
Museo della Specola is located). New instruments for mathematics,
physics, meteorology and electricity, many of which were built in the
Museum's workshops, formed the nucleus of the Lorraine collection. In
1841, at the behest of Leopold II of Lorraine (1797-1870), the Tribuna
di Galileo was built in the Royal Physics Museum, where instruments and
relics of the great scientist were exhibited, in addition to Renaissance
instruments and those of the Cimento Academy.
After the
unification of Italy (1861) the collections were dismembered and
assigned to various university institutes. In 1929, on the initiative of
the newborn Institute of the History of Science (1927), the First
National Exhibition of the History of Science was organised, which
highlighted the importance of Italy's historical-scientific heritage and
its poor state of conservation. In 1930 the Institute of the History of
Science was created with an annexed Museum, located in Palazzo
Castellani, to which the University of Florence entrusted the
Medici-Lorraine collections.
The exhibition itinerary inside the
museum is organized according to chronological and thematic criteria.
1930-1961 Andrea Corsini
1961-1981 Maria Luisa Righini Bonelli
1982-2021 Paolo Galluzzi
from 2021 Roberto Ferrari (executive
director)
from July to December 2021 Marco Ciardi (scientific
director)
from December 2021 Filippo Camerota (scientific director)
Castellani Palace
The Museo Galileo is housed in Palazzo
Castellani, the ancient Castello d'Altafronte, a fortification dating
back to the 11th century built on the right bank of the Arno. Passing to
the Ubertis in 1180, the building was completely restructured and
modified for use as a private residence after the flood of 1333. After
other changes of ownership, the palace was purchased by the Castellani
family. From 1574 to 1841 it was the seat of the Giudici di Ruota, as
the insignia of the magistrates in the entrance hall of the building
recall.
During the years in which Florence was the capital of
Italy (1865-1870), the building housed the State and Royal Ownership
Directorate. In 1885, the manuscript collections of the National Library
were transferred there, and remained there until the 1920s. Subsequently
it was the seat of the Accademia della Crusca and of the Deputation of
Homeland History for Tuscany.
Since 1930 it has housed the
Institute and Museum of the History of Science, founded by Andrea
Corsini and Prince Piero Ginori Conti, later called the Galileo Museum.
Room I - The Medici collections
Room II - Astronomy and time
Rooms III-IV - The representation of the world
Room V - Science and
the sea
Room VI - The science of warfare
Room VII - Galileo's new
world
Room VIII - The Accademia del Cimento: the art and science of
experimentation
Room IX - After Galileo: the exploration of the
physical and biological world
Room X - Lorraine collecting
Room XI
- The science show
Rooms XII-XIII - Science teaching
Room XIV -
The precision instrument industry
Rooms XV-XVI - Measuring natural
phenomena
Room XVII - Chemistry and the public utility of science
Room XVIII - Science at home
the multimedia laboratory
Aware
of the importance of information and communication technologies, in 1991
the Museo Galileo equipped itself with a Multimedia Laboratory. The
Laboratory deals with the production of offline and online interactive
applications for the Museum's dissemination and documentation
activities, relating to both the permanent collections and exhibitions
or other events, and with the construction of digital archives for
historical-scientific research.
Part of the Institute since its foundation, the Museum's library is
now located on the third floor in the old roof terrace of Palazzo
Castellani. The inauguration in the new architectural guise, which
earned it the Bibliocom Libraries in showcase award, was celebrated in
2002 by the then president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. Specialized in the
history of science, it holds about 170,000 works, of which about 5,000
belong to the ancient collections. Of particular interest is the
Medici-Lorraine Fund which includes scientific texts, mostly relating to
the physical-mathematical sciences, collected over the centuries by the
two Tuscan dynasties. The library also preserves archival collections
dating back to the 18th-20th centuries and a photographic archive
relating to the history of the Museum's collections, ancient instruments
and places of science. The modern fund, implemented annually by around
2,000 new acquisitions, covers editorial production in Italian and in
the major European languages.
All the material is analytically
cataloged and can be searched in the OPAC of the cumulative database.
The library's activities include the drafting of bibliographies (in
particular the Galilean Bibliography) and more generally the indication
in the catalog of documents of historical-scientific interest even if
not owned.
In 2004 the digital library was born, conceived as an
information system that preserves and publishes thematic digital
collections of historical-scientific interest.
In Piazza dei Giudici, on the corner with Lungarno Anna Maria Luisa
de' Medici, a large sundial was installed in 2007 on the initiative of
the Museo Galileo.
It consists of a large bronze gnomon that
stands on the sidewalk, on which brass and travertine inlays are placed.
"The shadow of the glass polyhedron placed on top of the large bronze
gnomon indicates the true solar time and the date. The hours are marked
on the floor by radial brass lines, while the date is indicated by
transverse travertine lines which mark the diurnal path of the Sun in
various periods of the year, highlighting the succession of months and
seasons".
The Museo Galileo has been promoting the dissemination of scientific
culture for many years; as part of this commitment, it organizes
exhibitions on topics relating to the history of science and the
relationship between science, technology and art, in Italy and around
the world. Among the most important:
Renaissance engineers. From
Brunelleschi to Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo's mind
Doctors and the
sciences
Galileo's telescope. The tool that changed the world
Galileo. Telescope images of the universe from antiquity
Vinum
Nostrum. Art, science and myths of wine in the civilizations of the
ancient Mediterranean
Archimedes. Art and science of invention
Nature's microscope water. Leonardo da Vinci's Leicester Codex
Leonardo and his books. The Library of the Universal Genius
Leonardo
da Vinci and perpetual motion
From Hell to the Empire. Dante's world
between science and poetry
Motus. Prehistory of the automobile
The Galileo Museum carries out research and documentation activities in the field of the history of science and technology, as well as the conservation and enhancement of the museum heritage. The resources of the library and the vast collection of digitized works, accessible from the Museum's website, are available to scholars. The Museum participates in numerous research projects in collaboration with important international institutions, such as the Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden, the Nobel Foundation, the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft institutes and Harvard University. It also organizes and participates in numerous conferences on scientific museology and the history of science and technology.
The Museum promotes the publication of historical-scientific works.
In particular, he edits two journals:
Nuncius, who deals with the
history of science
Galilaeana, which deals with Galilean studies and
topics relating to the cultural scenario of the early modern age
Two
series of studies are connected to these (Nuncius Library and Galilaeana
Library), to which are added the Archive of the Correspondence of
Italian Scientists, the Library of Italian Science and other
publications.
The Museum also publishes catalogs relating to its
collections and the temporary exhibitions it promotes.