Torrino della Specola

Museum of Natural History, Florence Opens 7 November

Newly restored, an elegant eighteenth-century astronomical observatory in Florence, Italy, reopens to the public this week after 135 years.

Stuccoed storks flank one of the Florence observatory's rooms. Credit: S. BAMBI/MUSEO DI STORIA NATURALE, FLORENCE

Its builder, Italian polymath Felice Fontana, had rushed from Pisa across the hills of Tuscany, bursting with zeal. The Grand Duke Pietro Leopardo had chosen him to direct his new Museum of Physics and Natural History in Florence, which opened to the public in 1775. Fontana now had carte blanche to realize his Utopian dream: a museum in which all that was known of nature could be brought into a single building for the edification of the people, and for scientists to make yet more discoveries. It would be a pinnacle of Enlightenment endeavour, and Fontana intended it to be on a par with Florence's unequalled fine-art collections.

The Grand Duke commissioned the restructuring of the medieval Torrigiani palace for the museum, ensuring its prominent position between two Renaissance landmarks: the monumental Pitti palace and the formal, sculpture-filled Boboli gardens.

Fontana threw himself into acquiring collections based on natural history, botany, mineralogy and more — as well as commissioning the wax anatomical and botanical models for which Florence is justly famous (see Nature 452, 414; 2008). Astronomy, neglected by the city since Galileo's death there in 1642, was to be a major activity. So the Torrigiani palace was reinforced to bear the weight of a 35-metre-high observation tower, the Torrino della Specola.

This was an unpopular move. Even the observatory's first director, Domenico de Vecchi, was outspokenly critical of its logistical virtues. “For all its elegance, it is not the most favourable for observations, nor the most comfortable for observers,” he wrote in 1808, a year after he was appointed director.

Indeed, few astronomers approved. The modern trend was to build observatories away from towns and above the mist, on top of hills where there was plenty of space. The observatory tower was simply cramped — the architect had built it without consulting astronomers and had failed to provide space for them to retire to their books or writing tables. Annoyingly, the perfect hill was there for the taking — Arcetri, overlooking Florence, where Galileo had made his last home. Galileo's residence, known as Il Gioiello, or The Jewel, was restored and reopened earlier this year.

But Fontana was unshakably wedded to his vision of the all-encompassing museum and science centre. He resisted incessant calls to relocate the observatory. Fontana died in 1805, but more than 60 years passed before pragmatism finally won out and in 1872, the astronomers moved to a new observatory on Arcetri, which still operates today. By then, Fontana's Utopia was being broken up, with many collections being distributed to other sites in Florence, including the university. Only the natural-history and anatomical collections remained in the museum.

The observatory tower remained closed, but has now been renovated to its original glory. It reopens as an extension to the museum on 7 November, in this International Year of Astronomy that marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first observations with a telescope.

There are three good reasons to visit. First is the exhibition. Paying homage to Fontana's vision of the all-inclusive scientific centre, the tower displays representative artefacts from the original collections — ornaments acquired by Captain James Cook; two bewilderingly life-like magnolia and lotus flowers made of wax; a Medici collection of worked gemstones; an ancient herbarium; some fossils, a pair of taxidermically prepared lion monkeys; a few historic telescopes and a couple of still-life paintings by Bartolomeo Bimbi. The displays are not extensive — the space hasn't got any larger in the past two centuries — but they are fine examples.

Second, the architecture is a work of art — octagonal rooms, gracious windows and elegant, narrow spiral staircases. Most astounding is the Meridian Room, whose supporting arches are stuccoed with slender storks in the act of taking flight. A marble meridian inlaid into the floor, decorated in copper and silver, indicates the hour and time of year. When astronomers used this room for observations, a narrow slit in the walls and roof could be opened to expose a 180° slice of the sky. Eight large windows and an outside terrace allowed an unobstructed view of the whole sky.

The third reason to visit the tower is its superb location. Its elevation allows a unique and commanding view of one of the world's most beautiful cities — a panorama that has not been seen by the public for 135 years.