Quick Announce

Italy is regarded by all to have left a world imprint in arts and literature. Italy’s high place as a contributor to scientific knowledge has come to be better appreciated, but in spite of all this there remains the thought that Italians are, after all, an impractical people in the sense of having no great facility in applying their knowledge and their genius to the ordinary facets of life. One tour company in Italy offers custom tours allowing to discover all facets of Italian history, including industrial heritage and science history tours. After all, if we have nowadays the prestige of Ferrari, the espresso coffee machine or the thermometer, it’s all because of Italians.

The Institute and Museum of Science History in Florence is one of these places where your private tour guide in Italy will take you and comment on little known aspects of this Italian past.

The surprise for anyone who digs even a little into the history of inventions is to find that in spite of Italy’s preoccupation with so many other interests, Italians must be credited with more inventions than any other people. In every department of science, there are marvelously useful instruments and universally appreciated appliances in use which we owe to Italians. Some of these are now so commonly employed and have been with us so long that we do not think of them at all as inventions, or of their discoverers as inventors.

The inhabitants of the Italian peninsula began very early to make useful inventions. We do not know much about the old Etruscans, the earliest inhabitants of the central portion of the Italian peninsula, of whom we have definite records, but there has been dug up from their tombs some striking evidence of their inventive ability. Their pottery and its forms and the designs for its decoration, as well as the decoration of their tombs is eminently original and beautiful. Some of the most beautiful jewelry ever seen has also come from these tombs. An even greater surprise for the modern time is the remains of the dentistry of the Etruscans. They did fine bridgework in gold, cut from the jaws of young calves, and generally did cosmetic work of great value in a very practical way on the teeth. All that some six or even seven centuries before Christ.