The historical archives of the Italian Astronomical Observatories contain valuable information on their institutional and scientific life. Due to the lack of proper inventories, however, the wealth of historical data contained in the archives has not always been used to its full extent. A joint effort started in 1999 by the former Ufficio Centrale Beni Archivistici (now Direzione Generale per gli Archivi) of the Italian Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, Società Astronomica Italiana and the former Consorzio Nazionale per l'Astronomia e l'Astrofisica, aimed at the inventorying and preservation of the archives. Seven years after its start, the project has reached the second of four planned phases

MANDRINO, Agnese

RANDAZZO, Donatella

SCHIAVONE, Luisa

OA@INAF - Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica

2007Publication Year2020-06-22T15:35:26ZAcceptance in OA@INAFSpecola 2000: A Project for the Preservation of the Historical Archives of the Twelve Italian Astronomical ObservatoriesTitleMANDRINO, Agnese; RANDAZZO, Donatella; SCHIAVONE, LuisaAuthorshttp://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12386/26175HandleASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF THE PACIFIC CONFERENCE SERIESSeries377NumberLibrary and Information Services in Astronomy VASP Conference Series, Vol. 377, 2007S. Ricketts, C. Birdie and E. Isaksson (eds.)Specola 2000: A Project for the Preservation of theHistorical Archives of the Twelve Italian AstronomicalObservatoriesAgnese MandrinoINAF – Brera Astronomical Observatory, Via Brera 28, 20121 Milano,ItalyDonatella RandazzoINAF – Palermo Astronomical Observatory “G.S. Vaiana”, Piazza delParlamento 1, 90134 Palermo, ItalyLuisa SchiavoneINAF – Turin Astronomical Observatory, Via Osservatorio 20, 10025Pino Torinese (TO), ItalyAbstract. The historical archives of the Italian Astronomical Observatoriescontain valuable information on their institutional and scientific life. Due to thelack of proper inventories, however, the wealth of historical data contained inthe archives has not always been used to its full extent. A joint effort started in1999 by the former Ufficio Centrale Beni Archivistici (now Direzione Generaleper gli Archivi) of the Italian Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, SocietàAstronomica Italiana and the former Consorzio Nazionale per l’Astronomia el’Astrofisica, aimed at the inventorying and preservation of the archives. Sevenyears after its start, the project has reached the second of four planned phases.1. The Italian Astronomical Observatories and Their HeritageThe astronomical observatories in Italy are among the oldest institutions devotedto scientific research. In Milan, for example, the University was founded in thefirst half of the 20th century, but the Brera Observatory dates back to 1764 andis thus the oldest research body in town. See Table 1 for the years of foundationof the twelve Italian astronomical observatories.Such a striking difference in the age of the institutions results from the factthat, prior to 1861, Italy was not a single nation, its territory being divided intoabout ten separate and independent states, each having its own government andadministration in charge of scientific and cultural matters.Some of the institutions are, and have always been since their foundation,housed in historical buildings: the Royal Palace in Palermo, the Brera Palacein Milan, the Pozzi Palace in Bologna, the Torlonga Tower in Padua. TheCapodimonte Observatory in Naples represents the first purpose-built edifice tohouse an astronomical observatory (see Figures 1–3).The observatories contain treasures, such as archives, libraries and scientificinstruments, whose historical and scientific value is huge. This heritage mirrorsthe activities carried out by the institutions, which extended from the field of361362 Mandrino, Randazzo, and SchiavoneFigure 1. The Royal Palace in Palermo, (photo by Giuseppe Vitale, INAF– Osservatorio astronomico di Palermo) and The Torlonga Tower in Padua.(Photo by Enrico Giro, INAF – Osservatorio astronomico di Padova)science into civil life: an example is given by the meridian lines installed in theBologna, Milan and Palermo Cathedrals, for the purpose of marking noon.But the astronomers’ work until the end of the 19th century also had someimpact on civil society, with the compilation of ephemerides for navigation, col-Table 1. Years of foundation of the Italian astronomical observatoriesObservatory YearBologna 1711Torino 1759Brera (Milano) 1764Padova 1767Palermo 1790Roma 18th century, 2nd halfNapoli 1819Arcetri 1872Catania 1880Collurania (Teramo) 1882Trieste 1898Cagliari 1899Specola 2000 363Figure 2. Left: the Brera Palace in Milan. (Photo by Cristina Bernasconi,INAF – Osservatorio astronomico di Brera) Right: the Poggi Palace inBologna. (From Enrica Baiada, Il Museo della Specola e l’astronomia aBologna, in Storia Illustrata di Bologna, vol. 7, Bologna, AIEP, 1988)Figure 3. The Capodimonte Observatory in Naples. (Photo by INAF –Osservatorio astronomico di Capodimonte)laboration with engineers to draw geographical maps, correction of mechanicalclocks, preparation of calendars, and supply of data as supporting evidence tojudicial authorities.The series of meteorological observations kept in the historical archives pro-vides an invaluable contribution to the field of climatology: an Italian projectlaunched by the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) is based on the anal-364 Mandrino, Randazzo, and Schiavoneysis of the series produced by the astronomical observatories, which acted as thefirst meteorological network in Italy.The archives also contain photographic material, such as plates and prints.It is worth mentioning the collections held at the Catania and Torino observa-tories which include the plates of the Carte du Ciel project, and also the fonds1in the Trieste, Bologna and Brera observatories.2. The Importance of Archival Material as the Foundation of theSpecola 2000 ProjectThe need for an adequate conservation program, arrangement and inventory ofobservatory archives has been brought to the fore, in Italy and elsewhere, sincethe early 1980s by the growing attention being paid to the subject of history ofscience. The value of the archival material held in all astronomical observatorieshas been officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union.In 1991 at the General Assembly in Buenos Aires, IAU Commission 41 forthe History of Astronomy, while forming an Archives Working Group,2 adopteda resolution supporting the following initiatives (see North 1991):• To establish a register of the whereabouts of extant astronomical archivesof historical interest;• To impress on observatories and other institutions their responsibility forthe preservation, conservation, and where possible, cataloguing of sucharchives;• To search for an institution that will allocate space and funds for main-taining such a register and publishing it.The interest in historical archives on the part of the astronomical communityled to the organization of a special session (see Stephenson & Orchiston 2003,p. 445) on “Inventory and preservation of astronomical archives, records andartifacts” at the 2000 IAU General Assembly in Manchester, UK.In the same year, Prof. Giorgia Foderà Serio and Agnese Mandrino launchedSpecola 2000 (see Foderà Serio & Mandrino 2000), which for the newly formedIstituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) represented one of the first nationalprojects involving all the Italian astronomical observatories.3 Up until thattime, the difficulties due to logistics and shortage of staff had impaired anyintervention on the archives. The first Italian observatory to enact a program ofprotection and evaluation of its archives has been Brera, where the documents1Fond is an archival term, explained in the glossary of terms published in ISAD(G) [GeneralInternational Standard Archival Description, 2nd ed.], page 10 as “The whole of the records,regardless of form or medium, organically created and/or accumulated and used by a particularperson, family, or corporate body in the course of that creator’s activities and functions.” See:http://www.ica.org/biblio.php?pdocid=12The Archives Working Group website is http://www.le.ac.uk/has/c41/wgarc.html3The full text of the project is available online, in Italian, at:http://www.archivi.beniculturali.it/servizioIII/progetti/specola/progspecola.htmlSpecola 2000 365have been arranged up to 1917. The interest aroused by this work has producedan increased awareness of the importance of the historical archives as a majorresource for the study of the history of astronomy. Following the Brera exampleand also thanks to the local efforts made by the librarians, the archives at Torino,Naples, Bologna, Palermo, Catania and Rome, have been partially or almosttotally arranged, though not in the organic and coordinated manner typical ofprojects on a national scale.3. The Concept of ArchivesBy archives we mean an organic whole of documents which provides the record ofthe history of the institution to which they belong. Archives are not a collectionof documents put together in an artificial, a posteriori manner; on the contrarythey originate from the natural organization of the documents produced by orsent to an institution (the observatories in our case) throughout its history.Italian historical archives hold documents older than forty years. Accordingto Italian legislation, the collections must be arranged and held indefinitely.Inactive records less than forty years old and no longer used in current practice,are held in a temporary repository (deposito in Italian) until the forty yearsexpire and they can be transferred to the historical archives. If the records arestill in use, they are considered “current archives”.The only arranging method which is widely accepted and recognized is basedon “historical” criteria, i.e. archives which through time have lost their orderfor any reason should be brought back to the organization they had when theyfirst originated. Their original form in fact enables us to understand how a giveninstitution worked and thus to reconstruct its history.Archives can “expand”. In some cases the original collections have grownthrough donations; for instance the historical archives at the Bologna Observa-tory have very recently been given the private collections belonging to its formerDirector Guido Horn D’Arturo (1879–1967), by his heirs.In other cases, observatory archives can contain the papers relating to sci-entific associations, such as in the case of the archives of the Società Urania heldin the Torino Observatory, or part of the archives of the Società AstronomicaItaliana in Brera, or the archives of the Copernican and Astronomical Museumin the Rome Observatory.4. Overview of the Project4.1. AimsThe Specola 2000 project, named after the year of its start, aims to:• arrange and produce an inventory of the historical archives of the twelveItalian astronomical observatories• create appropriate searching tools (inventories, indexes, subject catalogues)and make them accessible via the internet• open the arranged archives to the public366 Mandrino, Randazzo, and Schiavone• encourage the utilization of the historical documents held in the archives,thus increasing their value4.2. The Institutions Behind the Project• The twelve Italian astronomical observatories, promoters of the project co-ordinated by Giorgia Foderà Serio, professor of History of Astronomy atthe University of Palermo (after her retirement in 2003, Fabrizio Bonoli,professor of Astronomy at the University of Bologna) and Agnese Man-drino, archivist and librarian at the Brera Observatory. With the creationin 2002 of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) the project iscarried out within the Libraries and Historical Archives Working Group.• The Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, Direzione Generale pergli Archivi, the Italian institution in charge of archive preservation andlegislation, is financing almost the entire project. The people taking care ofSpecola 2000 are Maria Grazia Pastura, director, and Micaela Procaccia.4• The Società Astronomica Italiana, supporter of the project (with the co-ordination of Salvatore Serio, professor of Astronomy at the University ofPalermo).4.3. Hands-on WorkNow a few words on how the project actually works. In each Observatory there isa figure, often the librarian, in charge of the Specola 2000 project. This person isnot supposed to arrange the archives (this task requires a great deal of technicalknowledge and a lot of additional time) but to act as a supervisor.The arrangement and inventory production work is carried out by an ex-perienced archivist, selected and paid by the Ministero per i Beni e le AttivitàCulturali. The project has not indicated a preferred software to utilize duringthe arrangement of the single archives. In the end, the format of the various in-ventories will be “standardized” and fed into SESAMO, an archives-specializedsoftware.4.4. Phases of the ProjectSpecola 2000 is being carried out in 4 phases:• Phase 1: Census of the archival materials held in each observatory.Through this initial operation the extent of the documents kept through-out the centuries has been verified. The information recorded for eachobservatory has included the history of the institution, a summary of thearchives contents and their conservation status.• Phase 2: Archive arrangement and production of an inventory includingall records up to 1960.This applies to those archives for which an inventory had never been made4The website of the Direzione Generale per gli Archivi, Servizio III ishttp://www.archivi.beniculturali.it/servizioIII/.Specola 2000 367(Rome, Padua, Cagliari, Teramo and Trieste) and to those for which apartial one already existed (Bologna, Catania, Palermo, Brera, Arcetri,Torino and Naples).• Phase 3: Realization of a catalogue of the correspondence items.It is not yet known if this phase will take place in all the observatories(owing to lack of funds) but in some places such as Arcetri, where theGiorgio Abetti correspondence represents the majority of the documents,this work is at a very advanced stage.• Phase 4: “Virtual” recovery of documents produced by the Italian Obser-vatories and held by other institutions.For this last phase to be started, it is mandatory that the three previousones have been carried out in their entirety, enabling us to gain a morecomplete picture of the history of each institution and the extent of thearchives.5. ResultsSo far, thanks to global or partial funding, the following archives have beenarranged: Arcetri, Brera, Catania, Padova, Palermo, Roma, Bologna. Thearchives of the Torino and Naples Observatories had already been arrangedbefore the start of the Specola 2000 project.The arranging and cataloguing of the documents has enabled us to iden-tify some common (though different in structure) archival series, which can beregarded as the skeleton of the observatory archives. When we consider them,we notice that these series reflect the scientific work carried out in this type ofscientific institution:Meteorological observationsAstronomical observationsClock observationsMagnetic observationsTopographic observationsProtocol registersAdministrative recordsAccounting recordsScientific correspondenceAstronomers fondsIconographic fondsThe archives of each observatory have been arranged respecting their orig-inal structure. The information about the institutions where the archives orig-inated, and the body where the same are held, will be fed into the SIUSAportal.5 Realized by the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali, this portal5Complete and detailed information on the SIUSA project is available online at the followingaddress: http://www.archivi.beniculturali.it/servizioIII/progetti/siusa.html. TheSIUSA portal is online at http://siusa.signum.sns.it.368 Mandrino, Randazzo, and Schiavonegives information on lots of different types of Italian archives (public, private,ecclesiastic, school, borough councils, firms).To end with, we would like to point out that as a result of the Specola2000 project, and also thanks to the work done previously, the inventories offive Observatory archives are entirely or partially searchable via the web:• Torino:http://www.oato.inaf.it/archivio• Arcetri:http://www.arcetri.astro.it/BIBLIO/storico• Brera:http://www.merate.mi.astro.it/docM/OAB/Biblio/biblio e.html• Napoli:http://vivara.na.astro.it:8081/tomcat/biblio/ida.html• Bologna:http://www.bo.astro.it/∼biblio/Archives/copertina.htmlReferencesFoderà Serio, G., & Mandrino, A. 2000, Specola 2000: progetto nazionale per il riordinodegli archivi degli Osservatori astronomici e astrofisici,http://www.archivi.beniculturali.it/servizioIII/progetti/specola/progspecola.htmlNorth, J. D. 1991, J. Hist. Astr., 22, 329Stephenson, R. F., & Orchiston, W. 2003, in Reports on Astronomy, ed. H. Rickman(San Francisco: IAU), 441

Specola 2000: A Project for the Preservation of the Historical Archives of the Twelve Italian Astronomical Observatories

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Specola 2000: A Project for the Preservation of the Historical Archives of the Twelve Italian Astronomical Observatories

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