'La Galleria dei cetacei' Museo di Storia naturale (D. Battaglia)
Natural History Museum of Calci
Museo Storia Naturale Camera delle Meraviglie (S. Battaglini)The museum was born as Galleria del Giardino dei Semplici, the current Botanical Garden of Pisa, at the end of the 16th century, thanks to the Grand Duke Ferdinando I de'Medici. Over the centuries it has been enriched with new purchases or donations, animals, archaeological finds and precious treasures. With the addition of the collection of cetacean skeletons, the largest in Europe, the need to move from the centre of Pisa grew and the museum was transferred to the Certosa di Pisa, in Calci. The museum is now one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the world, in addition to having a strong impact on the visitor thanks to the frame in which it is inserted. The historical gallery (16th-19th century) and the Wunderkammern open the first section, which continues with the reptile gallery, the carnivores and the large Barbero collection with more than 5000 specimens of animal species. For hundreds of meters you can walk among cetaceans, dinosaurs, birds and minerals until getting lost in the largest freshwater aquarium in Italy.
