STORIA DELLA SCIENZA, MUSEO DI

(Italian: Museum of the History of Science), in Florence, collection of scientific instruments and maps begun in 1929 to show the progress of science from ancient times. Much of the collection formerly belonged to the Medici. There is a model of an alchemist's studio, a water clock, and a collection of weighing machines. Other exhibits include collections of clocks, compasses, quadrants and sextants, calculators, globes, sundials, and surgical instruments of the 18th century. Preserved there are the telescope with which Galileo discovered the satellites of Jupiter and other instruments used by him, as well as one of the first cylinder phonographs built by Edison in 1890.