| The Archaeological Museum |
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Address: Via della Colonna, 36
Like many other Florentine Museums, the Archaeological Museum's
sources lie in the Grand Ducal Collections, both of the Medici
and the House of Lorraine. Originally shown with other art
treasures in the Uffizi, the
museum's collections have been shown in their present setting
since 1888, slowly building on the richest section, that of
Etruscan civilization. As early as the fifteenth century, Cosimo
the Elder de' Medici had begun the collection of works in marble
and bronze together with humble terracotta crockery, urns and
other curiosities.
Again it was Cosimo I who first seriously began to collect such
things in the sixteenth century. His successor added such notable
works as the Chimera of Arezzo, the Minerva of Arezzo and the
Orator. Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici in the seventeenth century
was a particularly assiduous collector who persistently enriched
the collections. The House of Lorraine
continued, and to them we owe the formation of the very important
Egyptian section made up in the main of objects recovered on a
Franco-Tuscan expedition early in the nineteenth century.
The Austrian Grand Dukes devoted them selves to the Etruscan
section, which was already at that time ordered in series and
studied by their court antiquarian. Collecting continued
throughout the nineteenth century with important additions like
the Sarcophagus of the Amazons or that of Larthia Seianti. To
this period belong the initial arrangement of the section of
Etruscan topography, of Etruscan sculpture and of the bronzes
large and small. Also in the Museum are found glass, precious
gems, numerous Greek ceramics and a mixed collection of coins.
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