Pistoia is the location of the birthplace of Filippo Pacini, one of the city’s most illustrious men of science. He studied at the School of Medicine and Surgery adjoining the Ceppo Hospital with its anatomy theatre where he laid the bases for his future discovery of the Pacinian corpuscles, which he then communicated to the Society of Medicine and Physics of Florence. He conducted his first anatomical and histological studies in the Villa di Scornio, using a microscope built by Giovanni Battista Amici and placed at his disposal by Niccolò Puccini. Thereafter, with the help of Amici, Pacini himself designed several microscopes for his observations. Specimens of these instruments are today conserved in the Institute and Museum of History of Science in Florence.