Museo Galileo
The Medici collected paintings and scientific instruments with equal seriousness — this is where the instruments survived.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Florence offline.
One of the world's major collections of historic scientific instruments, built up by the Medici and Lorraine grand dukes across the 15th through 19th centuries. Housed in Palazzo Castellani — an 11th-century building on Piazza dei Giudici along the Arno, steps from the Uffizi — the permanent exhibition runs chronological and thematic paths through five centuries of patronage. The museum was renamed in 2010 to mark the 400th anniversary of Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius.
What to look for
- Nine rooms on the first floor devoted to the Medici Collections, dating from the 15th century
- Instruments that originally stood in the Stanzino delle Matematiche — the Mathematics Room — inside the Uffizi Gallery, before being moved here
- The building itself: Palazzo Castellani, dating to the 11th century, when it was known as the Castello d'Altafronte
On Piazza dei Giudici along the River Arno, a short walk from the Uffizi Gallery.
Museo Galileo is one of 38 sights worth the detour in Florence, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Florence pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Florence
- Michelangelo's DavidCarved for a cathedral roofline, then conscripted into politics — a 5.17-metre marble figure that became a republic's defiant face.
- Uffizi GalleryGiorgio Vasari built this as government offices in 1560; the Medici moved their art collection upstairs, and the last heiress gave it all to Florence under a formal family pact when the dynasty died out.
- Florence Cathedral (Duomo di Firenze)Brunelleschi's dome has been the largest masonry dome ever built since 1436 — and nothing has beaten it.
- Palazzo PittiA banker's act of one-upmanship that the Medici, Napoleon, and Italian kings all ended up calling home.
- Ponte VecchioThe only bridge in Florence spared from destruction during World War II — and it has been lined with shops since the Middle Ages.
- Palazzo VecchioFlorence's 1299 town hall was built on a Ghibelline rival's rubble — and the battlements were engineered to drop boiling liquid on anyone who showed up uninvited.