Museo Galileo
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Box for mining instruments
    • Setting:
      Room VI
    • Maker:
      unknown
    • Place:
      German
    • Date:
      16th cent.
    • Materials:
      instruments: brass; box: wood
    • Dimensions:
      270x190 mm
    • Inventory:
      683
    • Box for mining instruments (Inv. 683)
    • Box for mining instruments (Inv. 683)

This German-made box comprises three levels containing instruments and accessories (some missing). On the first level are six wrought brass feet and four graduated brass rods. The second level carries a graduated disk with two small magnetic compasses forming the horizontal base of a mining theodolite. The third level contains the following: the vertical part of the mining theodolite, consisting of a graduated circle attached to a rod ending in a hook and fitted with an index, also hook-shaped; a clinometer, a plummet, a magnetic needle, and a plumb bob. Brought to Florence from Germany by Prince Mattias de' Medici in the first half of the seventeenth century.