Italy

Museo Stibbert

B Byrd, A Byrd, F Byrd, J Byrd

— 4 min read
Museo Stibbert
Entrance to the European armour room; off to a good start according to the boys.

On Wednesday, our second full day in Florence, we walked from our lovely apartment in the Le Cure district to the Stibbert Museum. This was right up the boys' alley!

What was at the Stibbert Museum?

J: Paintings, armour, interesting words (things that you read) and weapons and stuff.

F: Lots of awesome armours and weapons.

Who did it belong to?

F: It belonged to Mr Stibbert, who collected it all, and he was able to due to his giant amount of money that he got from his grandad.

What were the best things you saw?

J: The knight armour and weapons and the Japanese armour and weapons.

F: My favourite area was probably — hmm — the Japanese area with all the samurai gear.

Who should visit this museum?

J: People who like weapons and armour and interesting facts about them.

What's an interesting fact you learnt?

J: To make chain mail, they had to make the individual tiny rings and then loop them together. And then it just got torn instantly in battle. Wasted work.

F: That Japanese warriors wore their family animal on their helmet. So sometimes they'd have a five-pound octopus on their head, made of gold.

J: Japanese samurai also sometimes wore demon masks on their helmets to give their enemies bad luck.

Dress-ups at the museum entrance. (J says: Not real chain mail or iron!)
The main European armour room. The first of many discussions of which armour we would pick started here.
This floor mosaic was incredible!
Close-up showing the teeny-tiny mosaic tiles (A's hand for reference).
As above.
One of the many rooms with incredible furniture and decorations. Apparently Stibbert employed some of the best artists and artisans of his day when building and fitting out his house/museum.
The "Egyptian-tomb-under-the stairs" (literally).
The Middle Eastern armour room.
Peacock of unknown purpose (by me anyway) with matching helmet and shield.
The Japanese armour room(s). Apparently one of the oldest and largest (in Europe anyway).
The octopus helmet.
Incredibly detailed carvings on this hilt and scabbard.
The horse room (it had a fancier name that I can't remember).
Many, many muskets. Stibbert apparently kept meticulous receipts and records of all his purchases and travels, which is very handy for research and painting a picture of Stibbert's time. But he sometimes bought in bulk, so descriptions weren't always helpful (20 swords... no further details).

The park around the museum...

The Egyptian temple.

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