Peter Leopold’s Chemistry Cabinet
The so-called "chemistry cabinet" formed part of the private laboratory ordered by the Grand Duke, who left it to the Museum of Physics and Natural History when he departed from Florence in 1790. Like other objects in the Museo Galileo, the cabinet was severely damaged in the flood of 1966, and some parts of it were irreparably lost. Many phials containing substances and specimens, each of them labelled in the Grand Duke's handwriting, survive as well as the extremely elegant ivory mortars, the inkstand and the candelabra, the tongs and springs. Among the objects that were part of the cabinet's accessories, one was especially curious: the phosphorus extracted by Peter Leopold himself from the urine of soldiers quartered in the Florentine Belvedere Fortress.
Chemistry cabinet
Inv. 319, 824, 1605, 1616, 1623, 1632, 1642, 1645, 1686, 1687, 1688, 1689, 1690, 1691, 1692, 1693, 1694, 1695, 1730, 1739, 1758, 1759, 1760, 1813, 1815, 1822, 1823, 1824, 1827, 1828, 1829, 1830, 1831, 1832, 1833, 1836, 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1843, 1846, 1848, 1850, 1858, 1859, 1871, 1877, 1878, 1879, 1880, 1883, 1890, 1892, 1893, 1900, 1901, 1904, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1933, 1934, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1999, 2066, 2080, 2081, 1082, 3537, 3559, 3785, 3788, 3791, 3793, 3917, 3918, 3919, 3920, 3921, 3922, 3923, 3924, 3925
Maker unknown, 18th cent.