Galileo Factory museum

The Galileo Factory museum, established in 2006, is located at the Leonardo SpA (formerly Officine Galileo) Electronics Division plant in Campi Bisenzio.
 
Officine Galileo was an important part of Florence's industrial history between the 19th and 20th centuries, with specialised production of optical and scientific measuring and precision instruments.

The museum, dedicated to the history of high-precision optical instruments, is organised by technological sectors: precision mechanics, photography, heavy mechanics, hydraulics and radar.

One can admire the ancestors of many modern objects: from radar to optical visors, from instruments for space applications to avionic apparatuses, and small curious objects, such as cameras from the turn of the century, generators for carriage lighting and theatre binoculars. A sort of time machine, where the advances in science and technology of the last century and a half are displayed.

The museum houses the revolutionary Galileo astronomical pendulum clock, made in 1884 by Officine Galileo. It was donated in 2013 by the Institute for the Ximenian Geophysical and Meteorological Observatory in Florence, where for years it was used to synchronise all the other clocks in the Institute and sometimes even the RAI time signal.