Museo Galileo
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Tripod legs
    • Setting:
      Room VI
    • Maker:
      unknown
    • Place:
      German
    • Date:
      16th cent.
    • Materials:
      wood, gilt brass
    • Dimensions:
      length 420 mm
    • Inventory:
      2538
    • Tripod legs (Inv. 2538)

Three extensible legs that, with the horizontal base inv. 2538, formed a tripod for holding one or more measuring instruments. Each leg consisted of two square-section rods and two moving and telescoping parts. They carry steel tips to be driven into the ground, and a threaded section for screwing into the corresponding openings in the horizontal base. The ornamentation suggests the item formed part of a box of mining instruments. Brought to Florence from Germany by Prince Mattias de' Medici in the first half of the seventeenth century.

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