In 1872 the Regio Istituto Tecnico [Royal Technical Institute] with specialisation in agricultural studies was founded, following the successful initiatives that, since 1844, had promoted the spread of technical education in the Arezzo area. In 1874 it was reorganised to become the present-day Istituto Tecnico, made up of four sections: physics-mathematics, land surveying, agriculture and commerce. The school occupied premises in the fourteenth-century former Convent of Santa Flora and Lucilla which, for nearly a century, had housed other institutions as well, such as the Accademia Petrarca. Only after 1967 was it occupied exclusively by the "Buonarroti" Institute.

Along with a well-furnished library, a computer centre and laboratories, the Institute possesses an important collection di instruments that had previously belonged to the Royal Institute, including numerous nineteenth-century machines and apparatuses. Noteworthy among these are the galvanometers signed Paggi, Santarelli, and Dr. Sthorer, a Ramsden machine, Crookes tubes, Geissler tubes and Roentgen tubes, acoustical instruments (including two Cagniard de la Tour sirens and a phonograph), as well as numerous other apparatuses for physics experiments. The institute also has a naturalist collection with samples of minerals and rocks, an ornithological section and fossils of various kinds.