Museo delle Porcellane, Porcelain museum in Boboli Gardens, Florence, Italy

The Museo delle Porcellane is a small museum at the upper end of the Boboli Gardens in Florence, displaying porcelain from European manufacturers of the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection includes serving dishes, teapots, figurines, and tableware arranged in groups within a series of compact rooms.

The museum opened in October 1973 in the Casino del Cavaliere, after more than three years of research on the collections by Svend Eriksen and Sheila K. Tabakoff with Kirsten Piacenti. The over 2,000 pieces reflect Florentine rulers from the last Medici through the Unification of Italy, with major holdings collected by the Lorraine, especially Peter Leopold and Ferdinand III, and by the Savoy, who united collections from Parma and Piacenza.

European courts once used fine porcelain as a way to signal status, and this collection shows exactly how that worked in practice. Walking through the rooms, you can see how each piece was chosen to make an impression on guests at the table.

The museum sits within the Boboli Gardens and can only be reached on foot by walking through the park, so comfortable shoes are a good idea. The rooms are small, and a visit outside of peak season gives you more space to look at each piece without crowds.

Among the pieces on display are animal-shaped serving dishes and figurines from the Meissen factory that look more like sculptures than tableware. They show how 18th century craftsmen enjoyed bringing humor and invention into objects made for formal meals.