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From November 8, 2009 to May 9, 2010, the Museum of the History of Science houses a section of the “Firenze Scienza” exhibition, promoted by the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze in four different museum venues.
The purpose of the exhibition is to evoke the extraordinary period prior to the Unification of Italy when Florence was one of the European capitals of scientific knowledge. In the first half of the XIX century, technological development and interest for science profoundly influenced Italian and European society, with inedited progress in every field of science, from mathematics to physics, from chemistry to biology. Fuelled by the Enlightenment sensitivity for “useful” science, the Galilean tradition became an instrument of social, economic and cultural progress, and was cultivated thanks to the farsightedness of the Lorraine grand dukes of Tuscany.
The exhibition showing at the Museum of the History of Science, curated by Simone Contardi and Mara Miniati, is entitled La Fisica a Firenze nell’Ottocento. Strumenti e macchine da utilizzare (Physics in Florence in the 19th century. Instruments and machines for use). It deals, in particular, with the development of the physical disciplines in the Imperial and Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History, which grand duke Peter Leopold founded in 1775.
The ‘La Specola’ zoology section of the Museum of Natural History houses botanical and anatomical waxes, naturalist artefacts, telescopes, models and filmed sequences on the development of astronomy in the XIX century in the exhibition entitled La Tribuna di Galileo e la Specola fiorentina (The Galileo Tribune and the Florentine ‘Specola’), curated by Fausto Barbagli.
The Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica exhibits the nineteenth-century machines and equipment for teaching the sciences in the Physics Laboratory of the old Istituto Tecnico Toscana in the exhibition, La didattica delle scienze nell’800 (Teaching sciences in the 19th century), curated by Paolo Brenni, Anna Giatti and Guido Gori.
Finally, Palazzo Medici Riccardi (www.palazzo-medici.it/eng/home.htm) hosts Firenze 1829. Arte, Scienza e società (Florence 1829. Art, Science and Society), curated by Silvestra Bietoletti, where paintings, sculptures, drawings, knickknacks and scientific instruments from Italian museums and institutions, and from private collections, illustrate the development and urbanistic progress, the collecting interests and taste of pre-Unification Florence.
For informations and booking: 055 2346760.
Link: www.firenzescienza.it
Inauguration pictures
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