History of the Library
The history of the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory library is linked to that of the Specola Tower of Florence. The Specola (from the Latin specula : look out , observe) or the Imperial Observatory, was built in 1775 on the highest part of the Torrigiani Palace, where the Royal and Imperial Museum of Physics and Natural History of Florence was hosted. The museum had no library and in 1807 Abbott Felice Fontana, the director, founded the main library. He acquired the most important European scientific texts and merged them with the historical holdings of the Cesarea Lotaringia Palatinian Library and the Lorenese Palatina Library. This marked the birth of the new library.
In 1872 when the Specola "moved" to the Arcetri hills, much of the book heritage dedicated to astronomy formed the basis of the collection of the Arcetri Library. In the following years the library holdings were connected with scientific interests and biographies of the observatory's directors, starting with Wilheim Tempel whose name is linked to his beautiful drawings of celestial objects. In 1879 Tempel with his drawings won the H.M. Umberto I Prize for Astronomy of the Royal Academy of Lincei. When Tempel died (1889) the Arcetri building and library were neglected for years.
In 1894 Antonio Abetti (1846-1928) became the director of the Observatory. One of his aims was to reorganize the Library. The first catalog was created in 1906. At this time the library had about 1860 items including ephemerides, serials, observatory annals, stellar catalogs, celestial atlases, books of astronomy, mathematics, geodesy, geography and the complete works of Galileo Galilei. Abetti published the Memorie del R.Osservatorio di Arcetri (1896/1962), the first observatory serial publication devoted to research activity of the "arcetrini"astronomers.; But it was with Giorgio Abetti (1882-1982), director from 1921 and with Guglielmo Righini (1908-1978) that the library became an important center of preservation, storage and access to the international studies of astronomy and astrophysics. The personal events of Guglielmo Righini, who in 1965 married Maria Luisa Righini Bonelli, director of the Museum of the History of Science in Florence, had an impact on the ancient book heritage of the library, largely on loan to the Museum, where it is still preserved.
Nowadays the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory Library holds modern publications consisting of about 13.000 books and a wide collection of periodicals. The holdings cover international astronomical and astrophysical research starting from about 1950. The collection includes theoretical and observational studies of the solar system, stellar physics, external galaxies, interstellar medium, high energy astrophysics and modern optics.
The paper heritage is joined by a wide collection of electronic resources (e-books, databases, electronic magazines). The library is part of the Libraries and Archives Service of the National Institute of Astrophysics. This is an information system, geographically distributed across the institute's offices, which makes this documentary heritage of undoubted importance available for scientific and historical researchers.