Giorgio Roster's Elba

In 2021 a multimedial museum dedicated to the scientist Giorgio Roster was inaugurated inside the English Fort.

Giorgio Roster (1843-1927) was a doctor, a professor and a hygienist and was also one of the important figures in the nineteenth century scientific world of culture. His complete collection of photographs is considered a major contribution as well as an almost necessary technical support for studying

He was keen on photography ,mineralogy and botany, and he stayed in Elba during the summer of 1875; from 1875 onwards in the villa in Ottonella in Portoferraio he planted one of the first gardens in Italy for exotic plants.

The exhibition in the English Fort gives you a good idea of a different and interesting way of reading about the changes in the scenery in Elba through his photographs. Roster kept a close eye on everything around him and his photographs show not just a mere representation of nature and the surrounding environment but also prove to be a scientific instrument in the hands of a scientist who dares to try something new.

As well as viewing hundreds of photographs, or Roster's personal objects, you can also watch the video of the people around him, and if you wish, you also have the use of a touch screen than enables you to visit Roster's vast collection of books in a digital library in the Galileo Museum that is part of the Museum System at the University of Florence as well as in the Foresi Public Library in Portoferraio.