Museo di Storia Naturale di Firenze

Collections

• Giardino dei Semplici - Europe's third oldest botanical garden, established in 1545, now containing some 9,000 plant specimens.
• Museo di Botanica - a large herbarium of approximately 4 million specimens, including the historic collections of Andrea Cesalpino, claimed to be the first scientific herbarium, Philip Barker Webb, and Odoardo Beccari.
• Museo di Geologia e Paleontologia - About 200,000 specimens from the collections of noted geologists and paleontologists. The vertebrate fossil collection is of particular interest, with mammal fossils from the Pliocene and Pleistocene, primarily recovered from Tuscany and Valdarno, including Oreopithecus bambolii, anthropoid primates, and early elephant skeletons. The paleobotany collection includes a further 8,000 items.
• Museo di Mineralogia e Litologia - About 50,000 specimens in a number of collections. Of particular interest are the earliest items from the Tribuna degli Uffizi, and the collection of Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti, cataloged in 12 manuscript volumes.
• Museo Nazionale di Antropologia ed Etnologia - About 15,000 ethnological items and 6,100 anthropological items, with a photographic collection containing a further 26,000 prints and 7,000 negatives. The original collection was a cabinet of curiosities containing items such as an ivory horn from the Kingdom of Kongo, Persian insignia of command, and bows and arrows from the upper Amazon. It was notably augmented by items from Captain James Cook's voyages in the Pacific.
• Zoologia "La Specola" - A major collection of some 3 million zoological specimens, of which about 5,000 are on public display, with a further 3,000 specimens in the hall of skeletons. The collection of wax anatomical models is of particular interest. It was begun in 1771 by Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo and is said to be the largest such collection in the world; about 1,400 models are currently on public display.