Museo Galileo owns one of the world's major collection of scientific instruments, which bears evidence of the role that the Medici and Lorraine Grand Dukes attached to science and scientists.

The museum features the valuable scientific instruments from the Medici Collections which were first displayed in the Stanzino delle Matematiche (Mathematics Room) in the Uffizi Gallery.

They were later on moved to the Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale (Museum of Physics and Natural History) founded by Grand Duke Peter Leopold in 1775.

As a consequence, in 1930 the University of Florence gave birth to the Istituto di Storia della Scienza con annesso Museo (Institute of the History of Science and attached Museum).

The permanent exhibition includes all of Galileo's unique artifacts, among which are his only two extant telescopes and the framed objective lens from the telescope with which he discovered the Galilean moons of Jupiter; thermometers used by members of the Accademia del Cimento; and an extraordinary collection of terrestrial and celestial globes, including Santucci's Armillary Sphere, a giant armillary sphere designed and built by Antonio Santucci.

The nine rooms on the second floor house instruments and experimental apparatus collected by the Lorraine dynasty (18th-19th century), which bear witness of the remarkable contribution of Tuscany and Italy to the progress of electricity, electromagnetism and chemistry.

The exhibits include obstetrical wax models from Santa Maria Nuova Hospital, Grand Duke Peter Leopold’s chemistry cabinet and the beautiful machines made in the workshop of the Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale to illustrate the fundamental physical laws.

Museo Galileo carries out research and documentation in the history of science and technology, as well as in the field of preservation and improvement of museum collections.