Museo Zoologico La Specola General History
Scientific and Natural History Collection
Firenze,
50125
Italy
+39 055 228 8251
Overview
The museum's oldest core collection, like all of the Florentine museums, comes from the Medici collections. The Medici collected many natural treasures like fossils, animals, minerals and exotic plants. It was Pietro Leopoldo of Lorena who acquired the buildings and who created the Natural History Museum complete with its own library. At present the museum is more of a research institute, exhibiting to the public only a small part of the collection with examples of taxidermy and the prestigious collection of anatomical wax works. The most important parts of this collection come from an exponent of Florentine wax working, Clemente Susini (1754-1814).Open Hours
Th to Tu from 09:00 AM to 01:00 PM
I visited this remarkable exhibit right after the war. Once the Germans surrendered, the Fifth Army created the Army Student Training Program , with American instructors providing college level courses to selected American GIs at the University of Florence. During this program, which ran July and August, 1945, students were housed in the Central Train station. Beds were provided, dormitory style, on the second floor of the station. I elected for two classes: Basic Italian Language and Commercial Law. We had no assigned duties, leaving me with 22 hours of free time in the most beautiful city in the world, Florence. A good part of my time was spent visiting the many museums, with repeated visits to Museo La Specola Florence. I was 20 at that time, and facinated by the display of these beautiful replicas of human anatomy. Imagine my pleasure, when just this week I discovered and purchased: ENCYCLOPAEDIA ANATOMICA, the story, with pictures, of this exhibit. The next-best thing to this would be a re-visit to the scene. Sorry to take so much of the reader's time with this dialogue,but the exhibit has left such an impression, that I felt compelled to share this information. Rating: Five Stars-Plus.
