Museo Galileo

This overlooked museum is right in the heart of historic Florence, near the Ponte Vecchio and Piazza della Signoria. It is also referred to as the Institute and Museum of the History of Science, but the Galileo Museum is really dedicated to the Pisan who changed the world. The mathematician, astronomer and physicist was responsible for ground-breaking discoveries and world-rocking theories. He was excommunicated for his theory of heliocentrism, that the planets revolved around the sun. With his custom-built telescope he discovered the moons of Jupiter and the mountains and craters of the moon, and proved that the appearance of the Milky Way was due to millions of stars invisible to the naked eye. Galileo was popularized for dropping objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa and writing about the laws of gravity and the impact of an object's weight on its speed of descent.

The Galileo Museum pays homage to the man and the science and his influence through the ages. It houses Galileo's telescope along with weights and measures, thermometers, microscopes, meterological equipment, compasses, sundials and much more. The scientific collections of two dynasties are displayed here, as well - from the Medici and the Lorraine rulers. The museum was created in 1927 by the University of Firenze and is found in Piazza dei Giudici.