Grand Tour

The architectural and engineering skills on which the city's monuments were, literally, founded were neither unimportant nor incidental, although less conspicuous. The bridges, the towers, the great dome that dominated the city, the streets, even the fanciful plays of water at the villa of Pratolino, were the proof of a great ability in the sphere of the applied sciences. Coming across these more strictly technical aspects, some of the more attentive travelers found them fascinating and joined the not inconsiderable number of travelers, whether dilettantes or professionals, who made the journey for this very purpose. As Mara Miniati has rightly pointed out (Miniati, 1993), «this second aspect [with respect to the merely aesthetic one] has not always emerged with the same force as the first, and yet Florence possessed them both in equal measure and only an artificial separation has subordinated one to the other, impoverishing the image of the city». Names like Brunelleschi, Toscanelli, Leonardo and Galileo are proof of the groundlessness of such a dichotomy. The link with the birth of the new science and the still fervent activity in the field made an impression even on non-specialist travelers, like Grosley (1758) who spoke of the homes of Galileo and Viviani and the gnomon in the cathedral (constructed by Toscanelli in 1468). This last was the object of prolonged attention, right up to Valéry (1828) and passing through Delpuech de Comeiras (1804) for example, not to mention the recognition given to it by Lalande (1765), who declared it to be the largest astronomical instrument in the world.

On the other hand, material for the cultivation of scientific interests was plentiful in the city, given the interest the Medici had always shown in collections of such curiosities and rarities as herbaria, maps and globes, stuffed animals or measuring instruments. In fact the fascination of the gallery, as Miniati again underlines, stemmed «from the mixture of art and science, from that happy union which made it the supreme place for the exaltation of art, but also the place in which scientific practice and its instruments were concretely represented,» before the setting up of the new Lorraine Museum of Physics and Natural History, inaugurated in 1775, created a sharp distinction between the artistic and scientific spheres.

On his visit to the Uffizi, de Brosses (1740) was impressed by the anatomical wax models, the extraordinarily powerful magnet and the numerous mathematical and astronomical instruments.

Lalande (1765), for whom interest in science was a much stronger motivation, given that the main reason for the celebrated French astronomer's journey was to establish relations with other scientists, drew up a really comprehensive report on what the gallery had to offer: not just the wax models of Gaetano Zumbo, which he found stunning, and the remarkably powerful magnet, but also mathematical instruments of great beauty, a large burning glass, organs that operated by clockwork and Niceron's famous optical toy (in which a painting of a series of deformed faces turned into a portrait of Ferdinand II when viewed through a prismatic lens). He found a number of interesting scientific curiosities at Palazzo Pitti as well, some of them connected with the activity of the Accademia del Cimento, including thermometers and hydrometers of unrivaled elegance and beauty. He noted the astronomical instruments that Egnazio Danti had installed on the façade of the basilica of Santa Maria Novella in 1572 and drew attention to several private collections, including those of Mesny, then the director of the apothecary's shop at Pitti, Targioni, the great scientist and naturalist who has left us such effective descriptions of Florence, and Menabuoni, the librarian of Palazzo Pitti.

The creation of the Imperiale e Regio Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale (“Imperial and Royal Museum of Physics and History Natural”), set up by Grand Duke Peter Leopold in 1775 on the premises of Palazzo Torrigiani at the suggestion of abbé Felice Fontana, who organized the collection, served as a catalyst for interests that had hitherto been limited mainly to specialists. Its reputation, based in part on the fact that it was mentioned in the tourist guidebooks, grew to the point where it challenged the preeminence of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, in particular with regard to minerals, gems and Zumbo's now celebrated anatomical wax models which, at the end of the 18th century, attracted around 20,000 visitors a year (Miniati, 1993).

A great deal of interest also surrounded the figure and myth of Galileo, ranging from admiration for his scientific instruments (the telescopes, the lens framed in ivory) to curiosity about the more macabre and no less famous finger of the scientist, which was removed from his body at the time of its transfer to the mausoleum erected in Santa Croce. In 1841 the Tribuna di Galileo was inaugurated inside the museum to house, amidst commemorative stuccoes and decorations, all the oldest instruments, the relics of Galileo and the display cabinets of the Accademia del Cimento.