On a business trip to Florence, I incidentally found that, despite the well-known Mineralogical gallery of the Natural History Museum is [sadly enough] currently closed for renovation, a special exhibition entitled “Cristalli – The world’s most dazzling [mineral] exhibition” is taking place at La specolla (Zoological dept, Natural History Museum, Florence)
http://www.mostracristallifirenze.it
The exhibition gathers in two rooms a few hundred specimens, among the most spectacular, from the Adalberto Giazotto collection. Although I am not especially a fan of “visually spectacular” specimens, I have to admit that this is the most attractive exhibition I had the chance to see thus far. First, the quality of the two main exhibition rooms, with dedicated large cabinets, very well exposed and lighted, makes the visit extremely pleasant. Second, and above all, the quality of the [all quite large] specimens shown is clearly high, sometimes very very high. Among the ones which did impress me much, some amazing Namibian cuprites, Chinese and Italian stibiconites/metastibnites/stibnites, a fantastic Chilean proustite, [unsurprisingly] Sicilian sulfurs, You can have a snapshot at some of these following the above link. But this does not compare with a real visit.
So, if you have the chance to go to Florence within the next months, do not miss this opportunity (for 6 euros). I have no clue whether or not the exhibition is intended to travel.

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