The first science museum

The Medici scientific collections were transferred to the Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale [Physics and Natural History Museum], founded by Grand Duke Peter Leopold in 1775. There, the collections were enriched by conspicuous acquisitions of new instruments and experimental apparatus. Under its first director, Felice Fontana, the Museum became an important center for research and diffusion of scientific culture.
In 1841, on the occasion of the Third Congress of Italian Scientists, the Tribuna di Galileo was built in the Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale. The more important instruments of the Medici collection were showcased there, together with those invented and used by Galileo and by the Accademia del Cimento.
In 1860, as a consequence of the unification of Italy, the Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale was shut down. Most of the collections were donated to the departments of the Istituto di Studi Superiori, the predecessor of the University of Florence. Only the ancient instruments and the zoology and anatomy collections remained in the original location.
Ownership of the ancient scientific collections passed to the University of Florence at its foundation in 1925. To ensure their conservation and proper display, the Medici-Lorraine collections of scientific instruments were handed over to the Museo di Storia della Scienza [History of Science Museum]. The Museum was opened in 1930 in Palazzo Castellani, which remains its home to this day.
Thanks to the commitment of its first directors, Andrea Corsini and Maria Luisa Righini Bonelli, the Museo di Storia della Scienza of Florence established itself as an internationally recognized center for conservation, popularization, and research.
In recent years the Museum displays have been completely redesigned; the Library has become the Italian reference center for studies in the history of science and technology and in scientific museology. The Institute has organized international meetings and seminars, training courses, and high-profile traveling exhibitions. It has published a wide range of works of scholarly and general interest. The Institute has developed educational programs as well as innovative multimedia products.