Friday, January 4, 2008

La Specola – Part II

 La Specola La Specola
We went back to the Museo di Storia Naturale Zoologia ‘La Specola’ and picked up where we left off last time. In the previous post I was a bit negative about the lady who shooshed us out of the museum. Well this time she was there again and when we walked in we said “ritorniamo” – we’ve returned – with a devilish smile. She smiled and let us in for free!

We continued from room 14 onwards and to be truthful, still didn’t finish. (We only saw half of the wax models.) The real stars this time were the birds. Incredible displays of birds – almost too much to take in. The picture above is from room 19, the “Grandi Ucelli” – big birds. It’s incredible to think that the diversity displayed in this museum is just a sliver of a sliver.
What we did see of the wax models was also interesting if not a little tough to get into. These models were important for teaching medicine in the 17th century in Florence. From wikipedia, the “collection is very famous worldwide for the incredible accuracy and realism of the details, copied from real corpses.”

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