Address: Via La Pira, 4
This museum too has as its basis part of the Medici
collection. Ferdinando II encouraged the Danish Niels Stensen to
add his vast collection of minerals to the already existing
Medici collection. Both the Medici and the Lorraine enlarged this
collection from being purely of aesthetic pleasure to a group to
be studied, compared and classified.
Nowadays there are 325,000 mineral samples in the collection,
which can be divided into five main sections; the "General
Collection" whose finest piece is a topaz of 151 kilos,
755,000 carats. There are various noble metals and jewels, gold
and platinum nuggets weighing up to 1,300 grammes and many
diamonds besides an exceptional collection of about 3,000
Brazilian samples including beryls, tormelines and amethists of
great value for their shape and size. The "Italian Regional
Collection" may appear inferior in its number of samples but
nonetheless has great scientific value and includes among its
various pieces the so-called "5,000 elbani" (various
minerals from the Island of Elba) some of which are extremely
rare on account of their colour and formation.
There is also a section of meteorites from various locations,
some of the landing dates are known, and the lithological
collection made up of numerous examples classified under
subdivisions of the rocks.
The last section is made up of stones which have been worked, but
this is of greater historical and aesthetic interest than
minerological. All the pieces are from the Medici collections and
are documented in old inventories some of which mention the
master engravers called from Milan by name to work in the Grand
Ducal workshops; Milan was famous for its stone-working. Among
these objects some are extremely precious, as in the case of the
enormous quartz boat or the snuff-boxes of malachite or azurite,
little vases in jasper, jade statues and many stones cut to
reveal their differing colours.
