Antonio Santucci's Armillary Sphere

Antonio Santucci built this huge gilded armillary sphere in Florence between 1588 and 1593 for Grand Duke Ferdinando I de' Medici. It is a model of the universe as Ptolemy described it, with the Earth at the center and rings standing for the circles and orbits of the heavens around it. Built only a few decades before Galileo's telescope helped bring down that picture, it now stands in the Museo Galileo in Florence.