The Specola Museum, part of the Natural History Museums of the University of Florence, has been completely renovated and reopens on the occasion of the institution's 249th birthday.
The Museum's collections are directly descended from the Medici collections, which did not only cover art but also exhibits of naturalistic interest and mirabilia. The Specola takes its name from the astronomical observatory established here by Grand Duke Peter Leopold of Lorraine in the in the observation tower (specola).
Among the museum halls that can be visited by appointment is the Tribuna di Galileo, dating back to 1841, decorated with frescoes and marbles illustrating Italian scientific discoveries from the Renaissance to Alessandro Volta.
The museum is unique because of its collections: an extraordinary zoological collection that offers an almost complete view of existing animals, as well as extinct ones; the anatomical wax halls made in the museum's workshop in the 18th-19th centuries include the works of Gaetano Zumbo and Clemente Susini; and the Hall of Skeletons, an evocative space dedicated to vertebrates large and small. These exhibitions are complemented by two new visit routes - Botanical Waxes and Mineralogy.
A science-themed museum that boasts an extraordinary wealth of interest, both for adults and children, for the zoology section and for the minerals, some of them large, from all over the world.
Museo di Storia Naturale dell'Università di Firenze - Zoologia - La Specola
Via Romana, 17, 50125 Firenze FI, Italia
The Hall of skeletons is located at the ground floor and it's completely accessible (reservation required). Thanks to the elevator, people in wheelchairs can access the collections of mineralogy and Galileo's Tribune (reservation required) on the first floor and the collections of Zoology and Art and Science - including part of the waxworks - on the second floor. It is possible to visit only the lower floor of the astronomical tower (reservation required) by elevator, to reach the upper floor of the tower, stairs are too narrow.
