Birth and life of Scientific Collections in Florence

Abstract

The paper focuses on the history of the scientific collections in Florence. In the age of Medici, Florence was an important centre of scientific research and collections. This aspect of Florentine culture is generally less known, but science and scientific collections were a consistent part of the story of the city. At the same time, collecting scientific instruments was an important component of the political strategies of the Florentine Grand Dukes, convinced thats cientific knowledg and technological control over nature would confersolidity and prestige on political power. From Cosimo I to CosimoIII, the Medici Grand Dukes best owed their patronage and commissions on generations of engineers and scientists, for minga collection of mathematical and astronomical instruments,
scientific models and natural products, displayed along side the more famous collections of art in the Galleria degli Uffizi, in Palazzo Pitti, and around the city of Florence and other places in Tuscany. This superb collection, still existing, is an expression not only of the ‘taste’ of the times but also of the multifaceted
interests of the Grand Dukes. After the end of the Medici age, the 18th century Lorraine Florence separated the artistic collections from the scientific collections: the latter were placed in the new Imperial and Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History, wanted by the Grand Duke Peter Leopold of Lorraine and opened in 1775. The founding of this museum by the Lorraine dynasty represented the new development and the consideration of the material of scientific interest in Florence. This paper describes the transformations between the 18th and 19th century and the cultural life in the Tuscan capital: the arts and sciences were promoted, and Florentine cultivated people were interested in the recent development in physics, in Italy and abroad. In that period
numerous, private and public scientific collections in Florence existed, which were less famous, but not less important than the Medicean and Lorraine collections. Finally, the paper describes how the Florentine collections continue their life. The founding of the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza gave
new attention to the ancient instruments of science. Its intense research activity had an impact on the organization of the Museum. New studies led to new attributions for scientific instruments, archival investigations contributed to a better knowledge of the collection, and the growing contacts with Italian and international institutions made the Museum an increasingly active node in a wide network of cooperative ventures on specific topics. The last change of its name (Museo Galileo) and a new, modern reorganization are the expression of a ‘continuity’ of the historical scientific heritage preserved by the Museum, and of the ‘Innovation’ to make it “speak” and render it intelligible to a contemporary public.