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Paleontological Museum of Empoli

A scientific museum such as the Paleontological Museum of Empoli offers multiple insights into our planet, through collections of fossils, reconstructions, and educational tools, and a closer look at the Tuscany area and the Valdarno. The museum itinerary is divided into five rooms. The "Earth Sciences" room is dedicated to the paleontological discipline, or what fossils are and how a paleontologist works. After the hall of "Geological Eras", which traces the main stages of the formation of life on land, the "Hall of the Pliocene in Tuscany" informs us about when this sector of the Valdarno was entirely covered by sea water. The room on the "Evolution of Man" illustrates the climatic and environmental changes of the last geological eras and the appearance of man. An impressive life-size diorama depicts a struggle between two dinosaurs.

In the hall of the Pliocene in Tuscany, important collections are presented of Pliocene mollusks from various fossiliferous locations. One of the places included among these is the former clay quarry of Spicchio sull'Arno. The fossils of Spicchio conserved in the museum's collection are the same as those observed by Leonardo in the so-called "Collegonzi cut", an exposed geological section that was located near Spicchio and which Leonardo described in various passages of the Codex Leicester. In fact, Leonardo had observed the different layers of the geological formations of the Valdarno, recognizing therein the results of the action of the Pliocene sea on what were, at that time, its ancient shores. In particular, he recognized the succession of geological strata of different compositions, from coarsest to finest: "minute gravel", "sand", and finally "mud", the thinnest and lightest, which once formed the bottom of Pliocene sea. The raising of the seabed and its subsequent drying up had given rise, for Leonardo, to that particular formation composed of alternating layers of bluish mud and nichi, the fossil shells he observed and found in great quantity in the area of ​​Spicchio. The reconstruction of the geological stratigraphy of the Middle Valdarno, exhibited in the "Hall of the Pliocene in Tuscany", evokes Leonardo’s descriptions of the layers of gravels, sands, and muds rich in marine fossils from his studies of geology and paleontology in the Codex Leicester.
Texts by
Silvia Leporatti / English translation by John Venerella
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