La Specola is the oldest public museum in Europe, having started as the personal collection of the Medici family.

Today the museum spans 34 rooms and contains not only zoological subjects, such as a stuffed hippopotamus, a collection of anatomical waxes, an art developed in Florence in the 17th century for the purpose of teaching medicine.

This collection is very famous worldwide for the incredible accuracy and realism of the details, copied from real corpses. Also in La Specola on display are scientific and medical instruments. Parts of the museum are decorated with frescoes and pietra dura representing some of the principal Italian scientific achievements from the Renaissance to the late 18th century.

The wax anatomical models were a huge hit, and the museum was attended by luminaries such as Goethe (who later wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther, a book about wax models) and Emperor Leopold who funded the museum.