Museum of Natural History, La Specola

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"Florence’s natural history museum that’s dear to me from childhood visits; it’s been remodeled, but I still love the old collections of birds and wax bodies." - Laura Rysman

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"The largest and best-known wax anatomical collection, La Specola is part of the Museum of Natural History in Florence and also houses some wonderful taxidermy, including now extinct specimens and a very questionable-looking hippopotamus. La Specola is the oldest public museum in Europe, having started as the personal collection of the Medici family. It was opened to the public in 1775. Anyone could attend as long as they “looked clean.” The wax anatomical models were a huge hit, and the museum was attended by luminaries such as Goethe (who later wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther) and Emperor Leopold who funded the museum. Of special interest are the wax anatomical Venuses, wax models of naked women posed in old-fashioned semi-erotic poses, but with their rib cages and stomachs pulled open to the world. These gutted female forms were a favorite of the Marquis de Sade. Clemente Susini’s wax models, painstaking to produce and incredibly fragile, can be seen in only a few other locations throughout the world, including the Semmelweis Museum in Budapest, and the Josephinum in Vienna, and the Wax Anatomy Museum at University of Cagliari. The overlooked collection is surprisingly empty in the tourist-packed Florence. While there, you can also check out its zoological collection. Update as of September 2019: The La Specola Museum is closed for refurbishment work and is expected to reopen in the next 18 months." - ATLAS_OBSCURA

"La Specola, one of the oldest science museums in Europe, contains a collection of specimens of the natural world—some of which date back to the 16th century. It includes strange and wonderful objects ranging from tiny iridescent green beetles and multicolored butterflies to whale and rhinoceros skeletons. There's even a hippo, preserved by taxidermy, that was once pet to the Medici family and lived in the Boboli Gardens! The extraordinary, if slightly creepy, anatomical waxes filling the last four rooms of the museum were once used to train Florentine medical students. The frescoes and elaborate pietra dura inlays that decorate the walls and ceilings detail Italian scientific achievements."