Bringing Galileo to life
The revamped website of the Institute and Museum of the History of Science (IMSS), housed in one of the oldest palaces in Florence, the Palazzo Castellani, will be as valuable in its own way as the museum's collection.
The physical collections are heir to five centuries of acquisitions by the powerful florentine Medici and Lorraine families. They include innumerable scientific instruments and anatomical models — as well as Galileo's finger, which is famously displayed alongside many of the instruments he used (for a fuller description see Nature 425, 128; 2003). They are among the most important collections in the world.
The new website animates the individual instruments, as well as describing and cataloguing them. For example, it describes how Galileo's compass came to be developed (see picture), and shows, through clever simulations, how it actually works.
The website, launched on 24 March, is a work in progress, which will bring more life to more instruments — and to the museum itself — in the coming years.
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Abbott, A. Website. Nature 428, 699 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/428699b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/428699b
