Displaying more than 500 pieces, Giazotto collection is one of the most important and famous collection of crystals, thanks to its extraordinary variety and aesthetic richness of items arriving from all over the world. Among the wonderful pieces of this peculiar collection, you can find crystals of tourmaline, aquamarine, topaz and quartz surprising for their colours and nuances, agglomerates of eccentric shapes that evocate living creatures or suggest the idea of motion.

The history of the collection coincides with that of its creator. A particle physicist, head of important scientific projects and globe-trotter, Adalberto Giazotto is enraptured by the magic of crystals since his first childhood and, like many other children, begins a collection that, in the course of time, will become a “wonderful” obsession. Looking for the “beautiful” and the “unique”, he expends much of his energies, travelling all over the part of the world, to take possession of a rare item. He buys a single item from anonymous colliers Pakistani, Brazilian, Chinese, or he buys entire collections or parts of them, such as, for instance, the one of Titta Ruffo (son of the great singer) in 1984, initially made of 1500 pieces, among which emerged silver of Kongsberg, a chrysoberyl, many tourmalines and beryls. An important acquisition dates back to 2001, it’s the collection of Gerlando Bennardo who had worked several years in the Giumentaro mine. Besides the sulphurs, the collection was made of exceptional blue celestite on orange sulphur from the mine La Grasta, incredible crystals of gypsum on sulphur and aragonites of Cianciana similar to aquamarine in shape and colour. As from 2003 Giazotto dedicated more and more attention and time to minerals and since then, a certain number of exceptional pieces has entered the collection: minerals from Russia, China, Pakistan, Brazil, Afghanistan.

The show displays the best of the collection with items of extraordinary quality. Among them, we can cite: the piece of cuprite of Onganja, Namibia; the big fascicolated elbaite of Paprok, Afghanistan, the elbaite of Coronel Murta, Brazil; the crystal of gypsum of Niccioleta, Tuscany.

In occasion of this show it will be reopened the railing between Giardino di Boboli of Palazzo Pitti and the Specola, restoring, not only virtually, that pathway of art and science that, at the time of Leopoldo of Lorena had much splendour. The historical agreement has been signed by the University of Florence and the superintendency of Polo Museale Fiorentino.