Museo Galileo

Museo Galileo – Institute and Museum of History of Science, Florence, was founded in 1927 as “Istituto e Museo di Storia delle Scienze.” It reopened in 2010 as “Museo Galileo” after a major restoration of the permanent exhibition. The website is http://www.museogalileo.it/en/. Note in particular “About Us” and “About Us>Mission and Objectives.”

For the hietory of the museum see:
Filippo Camerota (ed.), Displaying Scientific Instruments: From the Medici Wardrobe to the Museo Galileo, "Annali del Laboratorio Museotecnico Goppion 5", (Milan, Goppion S.p.A.: 2012).
and: Marco Beretta, "Andrea Corsini and the Creation of the Museum of the History of Science in Florence (1930-1961)", in Silke Ackermann, Richard Kremer, Mara Miniati (eds.), Instruments on Display, "Scientific Instruments and Collections 4", (Leiden, Brill: 2014), pp. 1-36.

Principal collections in history of science and technology include:
*Medici Collection http://www.museogalileo.it/en/aboutus/history/medicicollecting.html
* Hapsburg-Lorena Collection http://www.museogalileo.it/en/aboutus/history/lorenesecollecting.html
Also noteworthy are:
* Vincenzo Viniani’s (Galileo’s last pupil) collection of scientific instruments, partially on display http://catalogue.museogalileo.it/section/AstronomicalInstrumentsFromVivianiLegacy.html
* Anatomical waxes and clays on obstetrics (from the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, Florence), partially on display http://catalogue.museogalileo.it/section/MedicalScience.html
* Surgical instruments by Giovanni Alessandro Brambilla (from the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, Florence), only a few on display http://catalogue.museogalileo.it/section/MedicalScience.html
* Collections of surgical instruments between 19th and early 20th centuries, in store.

A multimedia catalogue of all the exhibited objects (ca. 1,000) is available on line http://catalogue.museogalileo.it/
A database of all of the museum’s objects (ca. 4,000) is available as an intranet source.

The Museo Galileo hosts a Photographic Laboratory that provides, among other services, images of objects. The images of the exhibited objects are searchable in the library catalogue: http://www.museogalileo.it/en/explore/libraries/library/iconographicarchive.html. Images of the remaining objects are available in the museum’s intranet.

Library holdings include collections of manuscript resources that are significant both for the history of science in general and for that of Florence in particular. Cataloguing of the archival material is ongoing.

The iconographical archives contain approximately 65,000 images (digital or analog format) related to the history of the scientific instruments of the Museo Galileo and to the rich iconography on the same subject.

Information about conferences hosted by the museum and museum publications can be found at
http://www.museogalileo.it/en/getinvolved/research.html.

For further information about conducting research in the museum contact any of the following:
Paolo Galluzzi, Director: p.galluzzi@museogalileo.it
Giorgio Strano, Curator: g.strano@museogalileo.it
Marco Berni, European and special projects coordinator m.berni@museogalileo.it

G. Strano, September 2014