Director of the Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale of Florence from 1829 to 1859, Antinori was among the promoters of the Congresses of Italian Scientists in Pisa (1839) and Florence (1841). He invited Giovanni Battista Amici (1786-1863) to Florence to teach astronomy, and Leopoldo Nobili (1784-1835) to teach physics; with the latter, he performed experiments on electromagnetism. In 1839 he set up the Italian Meteorological Archive, aiming to give an orderly presentation of all the atmospheric observations made until his day. A member of the Accademia della Crusca, he wrote many scientific entries for the Crusca dictionary. He devoted important historical studies to the Galilean heritage.