The exhibition aims to introduce the often surprising history of the discovery of fossils from the Valdarno and how the fossil heritage of this small area has attracted the attention of the scientific community over the last few centuries.

The exhibition opens with some eighteenth-century publications, which testify to the interest in the knowledge of landscape and geology in eighteenth-century culture, up to the journey to Valdarno of Georges Cuvier, founder of paleontology. We then witness the birth of the fossil collection now known as the Palaeontological Museum of Montevarchi, with the publications of the early 19th century by the scholars gathered in the Valdarnese Academy of Poggio, up to the series of Congresses of Italian scientists, which between Pisa and Florence in 1839- 1841 marked the start of a decisive scientific communication to anticipate the events of the Risorgimento.