The Natural History Museum of Florence and its contribution to the knowledge of the Mediterranean.

The Florence Natural History Museum was promoted in the 18th century by the enlightened Grand Duke Peter Leopold. Its opening to the public in 1775 represented an unprecedented event as, until then, natural history museums were viewed as places exclusively reserved for nobles and scholars. During its long history, many of the Museum staff have contributed to the exploration and scientific documentation of the Mediterranean. The Museum’s sections, which house a large quantity of scientific material, collected from throughout the Mediterranean region, bear witness to the role played by the institution in exploring and expanding our knowledge of this interesting geographical area. The origin of the collections from the Mediterranean can be ascribed to two different sources. The first, constituted by material collected during several scientific institutional expeditions, focused on the study of peculiar sites largely to document their natural history; the second, the specimens, objects, and other items accumulated, donated or exchanged by private researchers. Although the latter were not collected by Museum staff as a result of their own explorations of the Mediterranean area, they are, nonetheless, significant inasmuch as they are the voucher materials upon which numerous chorologic and biogeographic studies have been based. The present work considers the contributions of each of the sections of the Natural History Museum of Florence University to the scientific exploration and understanding of the Mediterranean basin, with short accounts of the main personalities involved.