Born in Florence in 1875, Andrea Corsini studied Medicine at the University of Florence, graduating in 1899. After working as assistant to Bufalini at the Istituto di Materia Medica [Institute of Medical Topics] he was asked by Giorgio Roster to collaborate with the Istituto di Igiene [Institute of Public Health]. In 1909 he was appointed vice director of the City of Florence Sanitation Department, where he was later to become the director. Corsini began to take an interest in the history of science in the 1910s, focussing his attention in particular on historical/scientific collections. A promotor of the founding of the Gruppo per la tutela del patrimonio scientifico nazionale [Group for the safeguarding of the national scientific heritage], he was appointed first director of the Istituto di Storia delle Scienze dell'Università [University Institute of the History of Science], which he had founded, and then of the Museo Nazionale di Storia della Scienza [National Museum of the History of Science]. He held this position up to 1961, the year of his death.
