One of the world's great science museums, housed in a medieval palace on the Arno a short walk from the Uffizi. The collection centres on Galileo's own instruments — two of his telescopes survive, along with the objective lens from the telescope with which he discovered Jupiter's moons. The broader collection covers the Medici and Lorraine dynasties' patronage of science, with astrolabes, armillary spheres, thermometers, mathematical instruments, and anatomical wax models.
Santucci's armillary sphere (1588), enormous and covered in intricate celestial reliefs, is the centrepiece of the planetary room. Far less crowded than the major art museums and genuinely fascinating for anyone with an interest in the history of science. Allow 1.5 hours.