Museum of Natural History – Geology and Paleontology Section

Few museums in Italy can rival, in quantity and quality, the collection of fossils and rocks at the Museum of Natural History – Geology and Paleontology Section (Museo di Geologia e Paleontologia), the most important museum of its kind in Italy.  It houses about 300,000 specimens of animal and vegetable fossils, fossil imprints and rock specimens from the collections of noted geologists and paleontologists (Alberto Fucini, Giotto Dainelli, Olindo Marinelli, Carlo De Stefani, Giuseppe Stefanini, Cesare d’Ancona and Vittorio Pecchioli).

Museum entrance

They include shells from Tuscan hills described by Leonardo da Vinci, the fossils that belonged to Nicolas Steno, the grand-ducal collections and those of Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti studied by Georges Cuvier, and the Central Paleontology Collection established by Igino Cocchi to serve geology in a finally united Italy.

Medici interests again were responsible for its founding. The initial paleonthologic and geological collections were put together by the Medici Grand Dukes in the 16th century and placed among the works of art in the Galleries of the Palazzo Pitti and the Uffizi.  In the seventeenth century, Grand Duke Ferdinando II spurred on the collecting of the remains of vertebrates in the Monte Amiata area and other Tuscan neighborhoods of geological interest.

Grand Duke Peter Leopold, on the other hand, sponsored the sciences and was the leader of the Observatory Museum, then the Imperial Royal Museum of Physics and Natural History, which formed the nucleus of the collection of fossils.

They were further increased by the Lorraine family when a specific section was created in the great Museum of Physics and Natural History. In 1870, subsequent to the establishing of the Institute of Higher Studies, the collections were moved to the “Geology Cabinet” in Piazza San Marco.

It was then removed to”La Specola” (Via Romana, 17), with all the scientific instruments, and it was only in 1925 did it find a resting place in its present day location. The museum’s collection was progressively incremented through the purchase of the collections of Pier Antonio Micheli, Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti (in 1845) and Strozzi (in 1895).

The material held in the museum was also continuously enriched with new fossils recovered during recent excavations in numerous ambitious voyages of exploration and study of the kingdom and then the Republic of Italy.  The collection was rearranged in 1963.

Our visit here allowed us to reconstruct, with evolutionary criteria, the entire paleontological history of Italy. Starting from the stromatolites (a finely laminated sedimentary structure, thanks to the activity of the first microorganisms, which date back to 3.5 billion years ago in the Precambrian Era), we switch to marine invertebrates of the Paleozoic Era; then on a journey through time through the Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras, showing the first vertebrates, algae and ferns, the first amphibians and reptiles and dinosaurs and, finally, the coming of the mammals.

Arsinoitherium zitteli

Some display stands and panels illustrate the paleonthobiogeography of the Mediterranean region (in particular that of Italy) during the upper Miocene, the theses on the origin of life and the evolution of vertebrates and, in particular, of primates. The museum has four main collections.

Horned cranium of Eucladoceros dicranios from the upper Valdarno

Of particular interest and of great importance in the vertebrate fossil collection of around 27,000 specimens, originating from the Medicean and Lorraine collections, are the lavish collection of Villafranchian mammal fossils from the Pliocene and Pleistocene, primarily recovered from Tuscany and upper Valdarno (with impressing Proboscidea). The most interesting curiosities are particularly “African” (antelopes, crocodiles, monkeys, the wolf-like Canis etruscus, etc.).

A mastodon skeleton

There are two mastodons – gigantic early elephants with long tusks from the Pleistocene Epoch. The first, Anancus arvernensis, was a gomphothere found at the monastery of Monte Carlo by Filippo Nesti in 1826. The second, an almost complete Archidiskodon meridionalis, was nicknamed Pietro (“Peter”) and recovered by Prof. Augusto Azzaroli at Borro al Quercio (San Giovanni Valdarno) in 1953.

The author with Pietro, an almost complete skeleton of a male, 3.95 m. tall Archidiskodon meridionalis. It had an estimated body weight of 12 tons.

The museum holds a place of national and international importance due to the famous skeleton of the anthropoid primate Oreopithecus bamboliii, found in 1958 by Prof. Hurzeler of Basel in a lignite mine in Baccinello, a mining town 30 kms. east of Grosseto, in the Tuscan Maremma area.  Looking like a gibbon it was, for long, erroneously thought to be the missing link between man and monkeys.

Oreopithecus bambolii

The museum is also rightly famous for its collection of Equidae.  A whole room is dedicated to the evolution of horses and all the main representatives of the family are exhibited, from the small Eohippus Eocene to Oligocene Mesohippus, reaching up to Merychippus, from the Miocene Epoch, and current Equus spread from the Pliocene Epoch.

Evolution of horses

In addition to Italian vertebrates, the collections include several extraordinary examples such as remains coming from various places outside Italy such as the non-flying Moa bird from New Zealand; dinosaurs from North America; a small Cretaceous marine reptile from northwestern Nigeria; small, Late Cretaceous mammals from Mongolia; birds from Africa; glyptodont and giant ground sloth from Argentina; canids from China; and woolly rhinoceros and mammoth remains from Siberia.

Skeletons of flightless moas from New Zealand

Besides displaying vertebrates, the museum also offers a wide collection of invertebrates and plants that have been arranged in chronological order in the central gallery of the museum.

Leptobos etruscus (a large antelope)

On the second floor, open to the public by appointment only, is also a collection of around 175,000 samples of fossil invertebrates from all continents and all the geological ages – trilobites, graptolites, brachiopods, ammonites and shellfish. Particularly rich is the collection of Pliocene molluscs from Tuscany, donated by the Dalmine Company, and of notable interest are the Fucini, De Stefani, Dainelli, Marinelli, Stefanini and Seguenza collections.

The Strozzi Collection

The Paleobotany collection has about 8,000 items coming mainly from Tuscany that show the evolution of the plant world from the marsh flora to that of the large trees up to today’s forests. The collection of phyllites from Monte Pisano, the Strozzi collection, and the collection of plant remains from the Santa Barbara mine (early Villafranchian period) are especially important.

Skeleton of Hippopotamus antiquus

The generic rock collection, of about 5,000 specimens, is composed of rocks coming from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Tibet and Caracorum, and of rocks collected along the Sempione (Simplon) and San Gottardo (Gotthard) tunnels.

Ursus spelaeus (cave bear)

Today, in addition to recovery and exposure and its educational and research function, the Section carries out salvaging and restoration initiatives. Restoration, carried out in the laboratory, consists of a series of delicate operations aimed at removing the artifact from the rock, cleaning it and consolidating it with special substances. The museum also organizes didactic activities, guided tours, lessons and temporary exhibitions.

Sus strozzii (similar to the extant Java warty pig)

A new, beautifully designed and permanent exhibit is “Tales of a Whale,” a product of 9 years of effort. Seemingly set in a deep blue sea, it centers around a 10 m. long, 3 million year old skeleton of a whale discovered in the hills of Tuscany.  The skeleton is surrounded by fossils of other marine life that were found in the same field.

Tales of a Whale

Museum of Natural History (Geology and Paleontology Section): Via Giorgio La Pira, 4 – 50121, Florence, Italy. Tel: 055-2757536. Website:  www.msn.unifi.it.  Open Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, 9 AM to 1 PM, and Saturdays, 9 AM to 5 PM. Closed on  Wednesdays, January 1, Easter,  May 1, August 15 and December 25.

National Archaeological Museum of Florence

The National Archaeological Museum of Florence (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze) was inaugurated in 1870 in the presence of King Victor Emmanuel II  in the buildings of the Cenacolo di Fuligno on via Faenza. At that time it only comprised Etruscan and Roman remains. As the collections grew, a new site soon became necessary and, in 1880, the museum was transferred to its present location within the Palazzo della Crocetta, a palace built in 1620 for princess Maria Maddalena de’ Medici, daughter of Ferdinand I de Medici, by Giulio Parigi.

Museum entrance

Kyle, Cheska, Grace and Jandy

The collection’s first foundations were the family collections of the Medici and Lorraine, with several transfers from the Uffizi up to 1890 (except the collections of marble sculpture which the Uffizi already possessed).

Base of a statue of Prince Merneptah, son of Ramses II

The Egyptian section, known as the Egyptian Museum, is the second largest collection of Egyptian artifacts in Italy, after that of the Museo Egizioin Turin. It was first formed in the first half of the 18th century from part of the collections of Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany (Pierre Léopold de Toscane), from another part of an expedition promoted by the same Grand Duke and Charles X of France from 1828 to 1829 and directed by Jean-François Champollion (the man who first deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphic script) and Ippolito Rosellini (the father of Italian Egyptology, friend and student of Champollion who represented the Italian interests). During the expedition, many artifacts were collected, both from archeological diggings and via purchases from local merchants. On their return, these were evenly distributed between the Louvre in Paris and the new Egyptian Museum in Florence.

Statue of a pharoah

Officially opened in 1855, the museum’s first director was Ernesto Schiaparelli (who later went on to become director of the larger Egyptian museum in Turin) from Piedmont who, by 1880, had catalogued the collection and organized transportation of the antiquities to the museum.  Under him, the collection expanded with further excavations and purchases carried out in Egypt. Many of the artifacts were, however, later transferred to Turin.

Part of the statue of Uahibra, governor of the southern districts

After this time, the Florentine collection continued to grow with donations from private individuals and scientific institutions. Expeditions to Egypt between 1934 and 1939, by  the Papyrological Institute of Florence, provided one of the most substantial collections of Coptic art and documents in the world.

Pillar from the tomb of Seti I

The museum, with a permanent staff including two professional Egyptologists, houses more than 14,000 substantially restored artifacts distributed in 9 galleries and two warehouses. A new, chronological and partly topographical system replaced the old classification system devised by Schiaparelli. The remarkable collection of stele, mummies, ushabti, amulets and bronze statuettes extends from the prehistorical era right through to the Coptic Age. There are statues from the reign of Amenhotep III; a chariot from the eighteenth dynasty; a pillar from the tomb of Seti I; parts of the burial equipment of Tjesraperet (a wet nurse of king Taharqo); a New Testament papyrus; and many other distinctive artifacts from many periods.

Spoked Egyptian chariot from the 18th Dynasty (1550–1292 BC) (2)

In 1887, a new topographic museum on the Etruscans was added but was destroyed during the 1966 floods. In 2006, the organisation of the Etruscan rooms was reconsidered and reordered and restoration was carried out on over 2,000 objects damaged during the 1966 floods.

Chimera of Arezzo

Notable items on display include the Chimera of Arezzo (discovered in 1553 at Arezzo during the construction of a Medici fortress), the statue of the Arringatore (1st century BC), the funerary statue Mater Matuta (460–450 BC,  returned to Chianciano Terme), the sarcophagus of Laerthia Seianti (2nd century BC) and the sarcophagus of the Amazons (4th century BC).

Bronze statue of Arringatore

Etruscan sarcophagus of Laerthia Seianti

Notable objects in the Roman Collection include the “idolino of Pesaro” (a 146 cm. high bronze statue of a young man, a Roman copy from a classical Greek original, found in fragments in the centre of Pesaro in October 1530); the “torso di Livorno” (a copy of a 5th-century BC Greek original); the so-called “Gallo Treboniano” (a late 3rd-century statue of a cockerel); and the Minerva of Arezzo (a bronze Roman copy of a 4th-century BC Greek model attributed to Praxiteles).

Idolino di Pesaro

Torso di Livorno

Early 3rd century BC statue of Minerva of Arezzo (St. Lorenzo Church)

The huge Greek Collection of ancient ceramics is located in a large room with numerous cases on the second floor. Generally the vases, evidence of cultural and mercantile exchange with Greece, and particularly Athens (where most of the vases were made), come from Etruscan tombs and date to the period between the 4th century BC and the present.  The most important of the vases is the “François vase,” named after the archaeologist who found it in 1844 in an Etruscan tomb at fonte Rotella, along the Chiusi road.  This large black figure krater (c. 570 BC), signed by the potter Ergotimos and the painter Kleitias, shows a series of Greek mythological narratives on both sides.

The François vase

Other notable objects on display include the red figure hydria signed by the Meidias painter (550–540 BC); the cups by the Little Masters (560–540 BC), named after their miniaturist style of their figures; the sculptures of Apollo and Apollino Milani (6th century BC, named after the man who gave them to the museum); the athlete’s torso (5th century BC); the large Hellenistic horse’s head (known as the Medici Riccardi head after the first place it was displayed, in the Medici’s Riccardi palace), fragment of an equestrian statue, which inspired Donatello and Verrocchio in two famous equestrian monuments in Padua and Venice; and two Archaic marble kouroi, displayed in a corridor.

Head of horse (Roman, 2nd.century.BC.)

National Archaeological Museum of Florence: Piazza Santissima Annunziata 9 B, Florence, Italy.  Open Mondays, 2 PM – 7 PM; Tuesdays and Thursdays,  8:30 AM – 7 PM; Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturday, 8:30 AM – 2 PM; Holidays and Sundays,  8:30 AM – 2 PM. Admission: €4.00.

Museum of Dante House beside the Torre della Castagna

The Museum of Dante’s House was established in 1965 on the occasion of the seventh centenary of the birth of the Dante Alighieri, the greatest Italian poet and the father of the Italian language. The Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia), his masterpiece, has influenced the love poetry, theology and symbolism and was, for centuries, the basis of the idea of collective Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio) and Paradise (Paradiso).

Libro del Chiodo (Book of sentences of families rebelling against Florence)

Dante was born, between May and June, 1265, in the shadow of the Badia Fiorentina in the neighborhood of Florence.   In 1868, after completion of several studies and researches of reports in many old documents, the house of the Alighieri family, near the Torre della Castagna, was identified. However, very little remains of the original building but it was rebuilt in 1911. Tucked into the labyrinth of medieval alleys that tangle between the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and Piazza della Signora, it is a fine example of a private upper-class home from Dante’s era, but Dante never actually lived here though there is evidence his brother might have owned it.

Death mask of Dante

A museum, designed and installed by the Unione Fiorentina, was opened to the public in May 1965. In 1990, the museum closed for restoration and, on June 1, 1994, was reopened to the public. From 2002 to 2005, the building was reinforced structurally and architectural barriers were removed resulting in the museum’s reopening on September 27, 2005. 

Plastic model representing the historic Battle of Campaldino

The modest exhibition path, arranged on three floors according to the three most important stages in his life, touches the issues in the life of Dante through the events of the Alighieri, the subsequent exile and the features of Florence in the XIV century. A portrait of the poet, of mysterious origin, is engraved on the floor of the square in front of the house.

Dante’s alleged dagger

The first floor displays a series of documents on some of the aspects of 14th century Florence and on the youth of Dante, on his christening in the Baptistery of San Giovanni (the “beautiful San Giovanni”), on his public life, on his election in the office of prior of the town and the realities experienced by the poet – his participation in political and military struggles, notably the conflict between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, the Battle of Campaldino and the division of Florence into “sestrieri.”

Reproductions of the weapons used at the time

There’s a room dedicated to the art of doctors and apothecaries (Dante’s Florentine guild) as well as a reconstruction of a typical medieval master bedroom.  There’s also an audio-visual room dedicated to the Divine Comedy, a reconstruction of the streets of medieval Florence and an exhibition of traditional costumes of the fourteenth century.

Traditional costumes of the fourteenth century

The second floor exhibits documents relating to his painful exile of 1301, the year of his condemnation. After visiting several cities (Forli, Verona and Bologna), the poet decided to spend his last years at Ravenna where we would die (1321) in the home of Guido da Polenta.

Typical Medieval master bedroom

The third floor offers a collection of documents concerning the iconography and fortune of Dante over the centuries.  There are also excellent reproductions of works of art, ranging from the 14th century to the present-day, painted by important artists  such as Giotto, Fra Angelico, Andrea del Castagno, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Luca Signorelli, Raphael and Michelangelo.

Dante’s family tree

The museum’s predominantly historical and educational exhibit introduced me to the figure of the “great poet”Dante and the medieval Florence in which he lived. The plastic model representing the historic Battle of Campaldino (attended by Dante) and the reproductions of the weapons used at the time were very interesting.

Museum of Dante’s House: Via Santa Margherita 1, 50122 Florence, Italy. Tel: + 39 055 219 416. E-mail: info@museocasadidante.it. Open Tuesdays, 10 AM – 4 PM; Wednesdays and Fridays, 10 AM – 3 PM; Saturdays, 10 AM – 5 PM, holidays and Sundays,  10 AM -5 PM. Closed on Mondays and Thursdays. Admission: €4.00.

How to Get There: Take Via dei Calzaiuoli from Duomo to the river and turn left after the third street (Via Dante Alighieri).