La Specola

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Wax anatomical models in the Zoologia "La Specola"

The Museum of Zoology and Natural History, "La Specola" is located in Florence, next to the Pitti Palace. The name "Specola" means observatory, a reference to the astronomical observatory founded there in 1790. It now forms part of the Museo di Storia Naturale di Firenze.

The museum has deep ties to history; parts of the collection trace back to the Medici Family. It is known for its collection of wax anatomical models from the 18th century.

This museum is located in one of the side wings of the Pitti, one of the first parts of the palazzo to be opened to the public, and is housed in a suite of rooms constructed in 1771 to publicly display the large collection of natural curiosities such as fossils, animals, minerals and exotic plants acquired by several generations of the Medici. At the time of its opening, and for the first years of the 19th century, it was the only scientific museum or Wunderkammer of its kind specifically created for the public to view.

Today the museum spans 34 rooms and contains not only zoological subjects, such as a stuffed hippopotamus (a 17th-century Medici pet, which once lived in the Boboli Gardens), but also a collection of anatomical waxes, an art developed in Florence in the 17th century for the purpose of teaching medicine. This collection is very famous world wide for the incredible accuracy and realism of the details, copied from real corpses. Also in La Specola on display are scientific and medical instruments. Some of the rooms of the museum are, like the principal rooms of the palazzi itself, decorated by frescoes and pietra dura representing some of the principal Italian scientific achievements from the Renaissance to the late 18th century.

The visit to this part of the museum inspired the creators of the Hollywood movie Hollow Man by Paul Verhoeven, especially in those scenes when the protagonist gradually turns from invisibility to visibility, first showing veins, then organs and muscles under the skin. It is also used in Eleanor Updale's Montmorency and the assasins as the centre for anarchists.