Location | Piazza dei Giudici 1, Florence, Italy |
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Museo Galileo (formerly Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza; Institute and Museum of the History of Science) is located in Florence, Italy, in Piazza dei Giudici, along the River Arno and close to the Uffizi Gallery. The museum, dedicated to astronomer and scientist Galileo Galilei, is housed in Palazzo Castellani, an 11th-century building which was then known as the Castello d'Altafronte.
Museo Galileo owns one of the world's major collection of scientific instruments, which bears evidence of the role that the Medici and Lorraine Grand Dukes attached to science and scientists.
The Museo di Storia della Scienza has re-opened to the public under the new name Museo Galileo since June 10, 2010, after a two-year closure due to redesigning and renovation work. Its name change celebrates the 400-year anniversary of Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius (The Starry Messenger), first published in March of 1610.
The museum features the valuable scientific instruments from the Medici Collections which were first displayed in the Stanzino delle Matematiche (Mathematics Room) in the Uffizi Gallery. They were later on moved to the Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale (Museum of Physics and Natural History) founded by Grand Duke Peter Leopold in 1775. During the reign of the Lorraine Grand Dukes, new instruments were added to the scientific collections. In 1929, the First Italian Exhibition of the History of Science in Florence highlighted the importance of scientific collections within Italy's cultural heritage. As a consequence, in 1930 the University of Florence gave birth to the Istituto di Storia della Scienza con annesso Museo (Institute of the History of Science and attached Museum). The institute was housed in Palazzo Castellani and was entrusted with the instrument collections of the Medici and Lorraine dynasties. The permanent exhibition is arranged by chronological and thematic paths. [1]
1930-1961 Andrea Corsini
1961-1981 Maria Luisa Righini Bonelli
1982-2021 Paolo Galluzzi
since 2021 Roberto Ferrari (Executive Director)
from July until December 2021 Marco Ciardi (Scientific Director)
since December 2021 Filippo Camerota (Scientific Director)
The first floor's nine rooms are devoted to the Medici Collections, dating from the 15th century through the 18th century. The permanent exhibition includes all of Galileo's unique artifacts, among which are his only two extant telescopes and the framed objective lens from the telescope with which he discovered the Galilean moons of Jupiter; thermometers used by members of the Accademia del Cimento; and an extraordinary collection of terrestrial and celestial globes, including Santucci's Armillary Sphere, a giant armillary sphere designed and built by Antonio Santucci.
The nine rooms on the second floor house instruments and experimental apparatus collected by the Lorraine dynasty (18th-19th century), which bear witness of the remarkable contribution of Tuscany and Italy to the progress of electricity, electromagnetism and chemistry. The exhibits include obstetrical wax models from Santa Maria Nuova Hospital, Grand Duke Peter Leopold’s chemistry cabinet and the beautiful machines made in the workshop of the Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale to illustrate the fundamental physical laws.
Museo Galileo carries out research and documentation in the history of science and technology, as well as in the field of preservation and improvement of museum collections. The library's book collection and a number of online resources are available to scholars. The museum is partner with important institutions, such as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Nobel Foundation, the Max Planck Society’s institutes and the Harvard University, and co-sponsors several research projects. It also organizes and takes part in many conferences on scientific museology and the history of science and technology.
Museo Galileo has been enhancing and promoting the dissemination of scientific culture for many years. In order to meet this commitment effectively, it promotes exhibitions on the history of science and the relationship between science, technology and art. [2] Among the most important exhibitions in Italy and the world: Renaissance Engineers: From Brunelleschi to Leonardo da Vinci; The Mind of Leonardo: The Universal Genius at Work; The Medici and Science; Galileo’s Telescope: The Instrument that Changes the World; Galileo: Images of the Universe from Antiquity to the Telescope; Vinum Nostrum: Art, Science and Myths of Wine in Ancient Mediterranean Cultures; Archimedes: The Art and Science of Invention, and the most recent (2019-2020) Water as Microscope of Nature: Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester, Leonardo and His Books: The Library of the Universal Genius, Leonardo da Vinci and Perpetual Motion, The Art of Building a Masterpiece: Trajan Column.
Museo Galileo publishes historical scientific works and two journals, which are Nuncius: Journal of the Material and Visual History of Science , and Galilaeana , devoted to research about the figure, work and scientific findings of Galileo Galilei. The Nuncius Library series publishes the results of original research in the history of science and technology as well as editions of sources, while the Galilaeana Library series publishes critical essays, document collections and text editions related to Galileo and to the cultural scenario of the early modern period. To be mentioned also the Archive of Italian Scientists’ Correspondence and the Italian Science Library series. [3] In addition, the museum publishes catalogues relevant to its collections and the temporary exhibitions it promotes.
The library—which has been a part of the institute since its foundation—was completely remodelled in 2002, when it was moved to the third floor of Palazzo Castellani. The new architectural set-up was awarded the “Bibliocom Biblioteche in vetrina” prize. The library houses about 150,000 works concerning the history of science. The antique book collection consists of nearly 5,000 works. It includes the Medici-Lorraine Collection, made of scientific books mostly about physics and mathematics, gathered by Tuscan dynasties over five centuries. The library is also home to several 18th- to 20th-century archival collections and a photo archive related to the history of the museum's collections, ancient instruments and places of scientific interest. The contemporary collection includes books in Italian and the major European languages and has an annual growth of about 1,800 new acquisitions. [4] All of the library's material can be searched on the online catalogue. Among the library's activities are the compiling of bibliographies –notably the International Galilaean Bibliography– and the cataloguing of documents relevant to the history of science, even not in the library's possession. In 2004, a Digital Library was created to preserve and publish digital collections of historical scientific interest. [5]
Aware of the growing importance of information and communication technologies, Museo Galileo started its own Multimedia Lab in 1991. The Lab produces offline and online interactive applications related to the dissemination and documentation of both permanent collections and temporary exhibitions. It also creates digital archives for historical scientific research.
Sidereus Nuncius is a short astronomical treatise published in Neo-Latin by Galileo Galilei on March 13, 1610. It was the first published scientific work based on observations made through a telescope, and it contains the results of Galileo's early observations of the imperfect and mountainous Moon, of hundreds of stars not visible to the naked eye in the Milky Way and in certain constellations, and of the Medicean Stars that appeared to be circling Jupiter.
Cosimo II de' Medici was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1609 until his death. He was the elder son of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Christina of Lorraine.
Eustachio Divini was an Italian manufacturer and experimenter of optical instruments for scientific use in Rome.
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei, commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian (Florentine) astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. He was born in the city of Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence and present-day Italy. Galileo has been called the father of observational astronomy, modern-era classical physics, the scientific method, and modern science.
The Tribune of Galileo is a Neoclassic architectural addition, built to commemorate the famous Florentine scientist, Galileo Galilei and to house some of his scientific instruments.
Paolo Galluzzi is an Italian historian of science.
The writing hand is a mechanical automaton created by Friedrich von Knauss in 1764. A clockwork mechanism moves a hand which dips a pen into an inkstand and writes the phrase "Huic Domui Deus / Nec metas rerum / Nec tempora ponat" on a small card. On the silver-coating of the mechanism are the words "Pro patria".
Giovanni Battista Giusti was a scientific- instrument maker. Giusti worked as a scientific-instrument maker in Florence for the Grand Duke's workshops around the mid-sixteenth century.
Antonio Santucci (?–1613) was an Italian astronomer, cosmographer, and scientific instrument maker.
The jovilabe is a brass scientific instrument, undated and of unknown maker, currently in the collection of the Museo Galileo in Florence, Italy.
Galileo's objective lens is a specific objective lens held in the Museo Galileo, Florence, Italy. It was used by Galileo Galilei in the Galilean telescope with which he discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter in 1610. The lens has a diameter of 38mm and a gilt brass housing. The frame is made of ebony and ivory and has dimensions of 410mm x 300mm.
The Campani compound microscope is a microscope on exhibit at the Museo Galileo in Italy, thought to have been built by optical instrument maker Giuseppe Campani in the second half 17th century. For a time it was thought to have been built by Italian scientist Galileo Galilei but no longer bares that attribution.
The Quadrans Vetus is a medieval astronomical instrument.
The Tabula Affinitatum is a table of chemical affinities between substances.
The elastic and inelastic collisions apparatus is a large apparatus to study elastic and inelastic collisions.
The mechanical paradox is an apparatus for studying physical paradoxes. It consists of a trapezoidal veneered wooden frame with two brass rails, and a pair of brass cones joined at their bases by a wooden disk which rests on the rails. When the double cone is placed at the low end of the frame, it automatically starts to roll upward, giving the impression of escaping the universal law of the gravitational force.
The Reale Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale was an Italian museum founded on 22 February 1775 in Florence that survived until 1878, when its collections were split up in various Florentine museums.
Nuncius: Journal of the Material and Visual History of Science is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering the history of science, especially the "historical role of material and visual culture in science". The journal was established in 1976 by Maria Luisa Righini Bonelli as the Annali dell'Istituto e Museo di storia della scienza di Firenze. The journal changed its publisher in 2011. It is published by Brill Publishers and the editor-in-chief is Elena Canadelli of the University of Padua, Italy.
Maria Timpanaro Cardini was an Italian philologist who studied the history of ancient philosophy and history of science.
The middle finger from the right hand of Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) is a secular relic in the collection of the Museo Galileo in Florence, Italy. The finger was removed from his body after his death, and is encased in a gilded glass egg.