The School, instituted through a decree of the Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopoldo II on October 19, 1852, was endowed from the start with efficient scientific laboratories, and purchased instruments and apparatus as teaching aids. In recent years it has dedicated special attention to salvaging, cataloguing and organising the earliest collections in its museum.

The collection of physics instruments, begun in the early years of the 20th century, includes around one hundred instruments used in various disciplines: Fluid Mechanics, Electromagnetism, Optics, and Thermodynamics. The school also conserves invoices for the purchase of the instruments, old inventories of its possessions, and manufacturers' catalogues dating from the first half of the 20th century.

Among the School's outstanding pupils were Federigo Enriques and Ulisse Dini, two famous mathematicians active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.