ANCIENT BOOKS
The Library collection of the Observatory originates from the testamentary legacy of Giuseppe Piazzi’s personal library, which includes publications essential for conducting the Observatory’s academic and research activities, as well as works of interest, education, and personal cultural enrichment of the astronomer. The legacy comprises approximately 400 works (1650 volumes) dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries, mainly of a scientific nature. These include periodicals, star atlases, and geographical maps, but also feature Latin classics, dictionaries, encyclopedias, grammars, and works of a religious and philosophical character.
Piazzi’s books, together with approximately one thousand volumes acquired mainly during the tenure of the second director, Niccolò Cacciatore, forms the ancient collection (pre-1830 prints) of the Library.
After Piazzi, in line with the continuous succession of discoveries in the field of physical sciences and the development of new areas of study and disciplines, the initial core of the library continued to be enriched with significant publications supporting research. Evidence of this are the substantial number of journal subscriptions made between 1863 and 1880, during the appointment in Palermo of the Astronomer Pietro Tacchini, a pioneer of astrophysics.
A significant contribution to the growth of the Library's collection has been derived from the practice of exchanging publication series, particularly at the end of the 19th century, with astronomical and meteorological observatories worldwide.
Today, this bibliographic material, together with monographs and periodicals (over a thousand titles) published up to the 1950s-1960s, constitutes the historical section of the Library, supporting research in the history of astronomy and science in general. In addition to physical and astronomical sciences, the collection also provides a well-represented array of natural sciences, geography, medicine, and chemistry. However, it also includes works on other subjects that reflect the preferences of individual directors. An example of this is the literary publications acquired during the long permanence of Filippo Angelitti, in the early decades of the 20th century. Unable to engage in observational work due to a vision problem, he dedicated himself to Dantean astronomy, offering original contributions, including research on the year in which the Divine Comedy takes place, based on the descriptions of the sky provided by Dante.
The historical collection contains 50 works from the sixteenth century, 80 from the seventeenth century, approximately 650 editions from the eighteenth century, over 1500 editions from the twentieth century and more than 2000 works published up to the 1960s. The oldest editions include works on classical astronomy by Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, Giovanni da Sacrobosco, Alessandro Piccolomoni, but also those by Sicilian astronomers, perhaps less known but equally illustrious, such as Francesco Maurolico and Giovan Battista Hodierna. There are also mathematical works by Archimedes and Euclid, commented by Cristoforo Clavio and Federico Commandino, texts on the construction and use of scientific instruments and sundials, as well as editions of other sciences such as the natural history of Pliny, the hydraulic engineering of Heron of Alexandria and Carlo Fontana, the medicine of Aulus Celsus, the architecture of Vitruvius
Among the periodicals, the acts and memoirs of illustrious Italian academies such as the Società dei XL of Verona and the Accademia Gioenia of Catania, and of foreign academies, including the Royal Society of London with its Philosophical Transactions and the Académie royale des science of Paris with its Mémoires de mathematique & de physique, are worth mentioning.
The historical section also features numerous series of ephemerides, both national such as the Effemeridi di Milano, and international such as the Astronomical Almanac, the Connoissance des Temps, the Berliner Jahrbuch.
A particular type of serials is represented by the publications of the observatories, from the study of which it has been possible to derive the lines of research pursued in the various scientific structures.