In 1839, Vincenzo Antinori, director of the Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale, came across a discarded collection of scientific glassware in a storeroom of the Palazzo Pitti. The objects—mostly thermometers, barometers, and hydrometers—had been used by the Accademia del Cimento. This type of glassware had been produced in Florence since the arrival of the Venetian master Bortolo d'Alvise, summoned in 1569 by Cosimo I de' Medici to establish a high-quality glassworks. The visit by Prince Francesco de' Medici to Bortolo's glasshouse is shown in the painting by Giovanni Maria Butteri for the Studiolo in the Palazzo Vecchio. The Accademia del Cimento collection includes glasses and stands, plates, and bowls whose designs are similar to the style of the Veneto. Technical virtuosity and the use of highly individualized forms and molds characterize the sumptuous court tableware known as "trionfi da tavola." Along with "bicchieri di capriccio" [fancy glasses], they were chiefly produced—using experimental methods—in the small glasshouse of the Boboli Gardens, which functioned between 1621 and 1670. The ornamental glassware shows similarities with the patterns reproduced in Giovanni Maggi's Bichierografia and with some models by the designer of the Medici glassworks.