Florence: Museo Galileo, Trattoria da Tito, and Basilica di Santa Croce

Aristotelian planetarium, Italian ca. 1600

Day Six was a full day of sightseeing! With only two days left, we really needed to narrow down what we still wanted to do and make choices.

First things first – a cappuccino

Inside Caffeino

The day started at the Museo Galileo after hearing about it from Tamar. From the museum’s site: “The Museo Galileo is one of the foremost international institutions in the History of Science, combining a noted museum of scientific instruments and an institute dedicated to the research, documentation and dissemination of the history of science in the broadest senses.” The Medici and Lorraine families of Florence gave a lot of importance to science and the scientists of their era. The museum is a result of their support and collecting.

Museo Galileo

“Optical Trick” Ludovico Buti, 1593 (Man below, woman reflected above in the mirror)

“Quadrant” Carlo Renaldini, 1667

“Armillary Sphere” Antonio Santucci, 1588-1593

Sundials – The shadow falled on a set of hour lines that showed the time

“Trattato sopra la nuova invenzione della sfera armillare” Antonio Santucci, 1582

Globes made by the Venetian cosmographer Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, originally built for King Louis XIV of France

Another globe made by the Venetian cosmographer Vincenzo Maria Coronelli

“World Map” Murano, 1457-1459

“Bust of Amerigo Vespucci” Giovan Battista Foggini, 17th-18th cent.

“Bust of Galileo Galilei” Carlo Marcellini, 1674-1677

Telescopes made by Galileo in 1610

Right: Galileo’s index finger and thumb of right hand and a tooth; Left: middle finger of Galileo’s right hand

Galileo’s middle finger of his right hand

Thermometers

Evolution of the telescope

Optical trick from the 17th century

“The Writing Hand” Friedrich von Knaus, 1764

The Medical Science Room

Beautiful wooden telescopes

After the Museo Galileo, we headed back to where we had our first lunch – Trattoria da Tito. We needed to have that Bistecca alla Fiorentina one more time and of course share the experience with Grayson, Tamar, and Edward! We paired the meal with another Super-Tuscan wine, of course!

Trattoria da Tito

Our Super-Tuscan

Koen’s ravioli with meat sauce starter

My pappardelle with wild boar as starter

Edward’s enjoying his pasta, too

The main course: Bistecca alla fiorentina

Mom’s excited!

Perfection!

My plate: Steak with a bit of the house seasoning, potatoes, and porcini mushrooms!

Ending our huge lunch with a glass of homemade limoncello – and the owner gave Koen and me a bottle to take home!

Keeping Edward entertained

Trying to get Edward to sit still for a photo

Edward with his favorite aunt and uncle

Now time for dessert. We all did a bit of research about where we can find the best gelato in Florence and we still needed to try Gelateria dei Neri. I think Edward also started developing a taste for a gelato…even though he was only allowed a few bites!

Ready for dessert!

So many flavors to chose from!

My caramel and vanilla gelato

Oops – Grayson and Tamar got mad at us for feeding Edward gelato

Didn’t want to give back the little spoon

Yum!

Keeping Edward entertained

We went for a little walk while the others finished their gelato

Still holding on to the little spoon

Edward with the ladies

We all had our lists of things still to do, so at this point we split again. Koen and I headed to the Basilica di Santa Croce, also known as the Temple of the Italian Glories because Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli, amongst others, are buried there.