Inside Firenze

Bicycled into Firenze again and headed to Santa Croce (of which yesterday's post shows an external large-scale picture). It's good that we arrived early because we were second in line for the 9:30 opening.  Here is Richard waiting outside and what the church looks like inside before the tourist throngs (often Chinese tour groups with lots of selfie sticks) picked up.

There are a ton of tombs and/or memorials, including the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo and many others.  Take a look and read who is who in the following.










Next stop was the Galileo Museum, which is not a museum about Galileo but rather about the history of science of which Galileo shows up as a small part.  Lots of pictures were taken though we skipped the graphic medical part.

The above celestial globe was very impressive because the caption read, "Celestial Globe, Ibrahim 'Ibn Said as Sahli, Valencia, 1085" and it looked pretty accurate for that medieval date, at least from what we could see. Below is Richard in front of a rather complicated, and large, armillary sphere. On the right is an 'Aristotelian planetarium' circa 1600.

Amerigo Vespuzzi and some 18th century Newtonian telescopes.


Below left are two of Galileo's own telescopes and, at the right is a replica of his inclined plane.


All manner of apparatus could be seen, but lest we be guilty of the sentiments expressed below, we will leave you for today.