When most folks think of the Italian Renaissance, they think of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, et. al. But the post-Middle Ages rebirth of knowledge was much more than art. It included philosophy, architecture and science. Most historians agree that the "Father of Modern Science" as we know it, was a man from Pisa named Galileo Galilei. One of Florence's many terrific museums is dedicated to him.
Playing a major role in the scientific revolution of the time, he is best know for his improvements in the telescope, the development (and mass production) of a military compass and his astronomical observations that led him to support Copernicus' theory of a 'heliocentric' universe; the controversial refutation of the then-current Catholic opinion that the earth was the center of the universe.
This was one of my favorite museums in Florence - especially nice on a wet, stormy day. It had oodles of telescopes, planetary globes and scientific oddities collected over the centuries by the Medici family, eventually winding up here for our edification. Here is a random sampling of some of the many things I saw:
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| The clock moves, the earth rotates |
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| Louis XXIV's bedside clock |
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| The first pendulum clock |
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| Can you guess? |
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