Museum La Specola

A thousand years of history, two hundred and fifty years of astronomy at the Padua Observatory.

According to a false tradition, for a lot of Paduan citizens, and not only them, the tower of the Observatory is the tower of Galileo, the place from which the famous scientist performed his extraordinary astronomical discoveries and revealed, first among men, stars peculiarities hidden in the secrets of the firmament. Thanks to these discoveries, he revolutionized not only astronomy, but also the whole science.
Despite this widespread belief, the Astronomical Observatory of Padova was never attended by the famous scientist, because its institution - and thus its construction on the pre-existing main tower of the old castle of the city - was not implemented until 1767, that is, about 150 years after Galileo left Padua and moved to Florence, at the Medici court.

Although deprived of this myth, the Specola's visitor is still not disappointed, because he encounters a place full of charm, and a dense atmosphere steeped in history, art and science. Since 1776, in fact,the Astronomical Observatory of Padua produces high-quality research and since 1994 has opened to the city its oldest part, just the tower, transforming it into an astronomical museum. The museum now runs through the whole tower, crossing all the work rooms used by Paduan astronomers of the past centuries, where the ancient instruments are on display.

 

Informations and Schedule

Head

• Dr Valeria Zanini
• Astronomical Observatory of Padova





• The entrance to the Museum is permitted only through a guided tour. The tour lasts about an hour.
  Tour is not possible for wheelchair users. We strongly advise against visiting the Specola tower, for anyone with difficulties walking or heart ailments.
  Children under the age of 6 must be accompanied by an adult and held by the hand for the entire tour. Parents or legal guardians are responsible for the children and their actions throughout their visit to the tower
  
  Ticket sales, admission, and guide services are provided by the Torlonga Association.
  Attention, please: Visitors are required to follow the instructions of the guides throughout their entire stay at the Observatory.
• 
  Museum is closed on Mondays (except holidays), on 1 January, 1 May, 13 June and 24, 25 & 26 December

Visiting times

• Daytime tours - single visitors, families or small groups
  Visits (only in Italian) will take place on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, at 4:00 pm (from October to April) or 6:00 pm (from May to September), by advance booking.
  
  Check days and times available and book your visit using the appropriate Daytime visits Booking Form.
  
  Visitors have to go to the Oratorio S. Michele (Piazzetta S. Michele, 1 - 50 meters from the Specola) at least 15 minutes before the booked visiting time, to purchase tickets (Single ticket: 8 Euro/each, cash; Family ticket, 2 adults and 3 kids under 14 years: 20 Euro, cash; Reduced ticket: 5 Euro/each, cash - for children up to 14 years old; over 65; disabled people and their companions)
  In case of delay, the right of access is lost and the tickets will be made available to the public not booked.
  Any tickets that will remain available will go on sale 10 minutes before each visit.
  
  Evening tours (May-October) - single visitors, families or small groups
  Visits (only in Italian) will take place on Wednesday or on Fridays, at 8:30 pm, by advance booking.
  
  Check tours available and book your visit using the appropriate Evening visits Booking Form.
  
  Visitors have to go to the Oratorio S. Michele (Piazzetta S. Michele, 1 - 50 meters from the Specola) at least 15 minutes before the booked visiting time, to purchase tickets (Single ticket: 10 Euro/each, cash)
  In case of delay, the right of access is lost and the tickets will be made available to the public not booked.
  Any tickets that will remain available will go on sale 10 minutes before each visit.
  
  Guided tours for groups
  Guided tours in English (for groups of 20 up to 25 people, only) must be booked directly with La Torlonga Association.
  
  

• Address

  • Museo La Specola
  • INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova
  • Vicolo dell'Osservatorio, 5
  • I-35122, Padova
  • museo.laspecola@oapd.inaf.it mail

SHORT HISTORY OF THE ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY OF PADOVA FROM FOUNDATION TO THE FIRST WORLD WAR - 1

On May 21 1761, the Senate of the Republic of Venice issued a decree instituting an astronomical observatory at the University of Padova. This decision followed a suggestion by the Riformatori dello Studio, the Venetian magistrates responsible for the proper government of the University of Padova, and had matured within the framework of a complex program of reform of the University, with new teaching chairs and the constitution of new scientific ‘establishments’, the role of which, in modern terms, was to be that of allowing professors to ‘experiment’ and to instruct their students in the practice of experimentation.

It was not until four years later, in September 1765, that the professor of astronomy, geography and meteors, the abbé Giuseppe Toaldo (1719-97), was ordered to visit the main Italian observatories to gather information on how to build an observatory and on the instruments necessary for an astronomer’s work.

On his return, Toaldo was required to present a budget and a project, and in December 1765, the architect Don Domenico Cerato (1715-92) was summoned from the nearby city of Vicenza. Cerato was a friend of Toaldo’s and had been a fellow student with him at the episcopal Seminary at Padova, and the abbé believed, with good reason, that Cerato was one of the best architects of the time.

As the best place on which to build the observatory, Toaldo proposed the high tower of the Castel Vecchio, the old castle, with its thick, solid walls. This tower was eminently suitable for such a transformation: in addition to allowing much money to be saved, it was on the southern outskirts of the city, and from its top the eye could range freely across the whole of the southern horizon. It was an ideal place for future astronomers to work in. And indeed, it is to the south, on the celestial meridian, that stars ‘culminate’, that is, they reach their highest position above the horizon during their apparent daily motion, and may thus be observed more easily.
Thus it was that the old Medieval castle was transformed into an astronomical specola (specula is the Latin word for observatory). Building work was begun in 1767 and continued for ten years. 

SHORT HISTORY OF THE ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY OF PADOVA FROM FOUNDATION TO THE FIRST WORLD WAR - 2

A lower observatory was planned, flanking the east wall of the tower at a height of 16 metres from the ground, and a higher one, at 35 metres, on the battlements. Above these were two small domes housing other instruments, and another tiny tower containing a staircase allowing access to the domes. The lower observatory was later called the Meridian Room. Here, the local time at midday was measured along the meridian line carved in the floor, and the stars in their transit across the celestial meridian were observed. The upper observatory had an octagonal plan, walls 8 metres high, and six large windows almost 6 metres high, with special blinds which were originally made to slide into the walls. This room was for observations with telescopes of various types, which could be turned in all directions of the sky and could even be moved outside, to the surrounding terrace. This was the room which came to be known as the Figures Room (Sala delle Figure) because of the frescoes which decorated it. The terrace above the meridian room was devoted to the meteorological observations: in fact up to the beginning of 20th century it was a duty of astronomers to record, day by day, temperature, pressure, rain quantity, sky condition and winds.

Vincenzo Chiminello (1741-1815), Toaldo’s nephew and assistant astronomer at the Specola, became director and professor of astronomy when his uncle died in 1797. With the fall of the Venetian Republic in the same year, difficult times began for the Specola. Eight times French and Austrian armies took turns in governing the city, generating political and administrative confusion together with economic decay, which was partly eased in 1805 with creation of the new Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. Chiminello, alone, made both astronomical and meteorological observations, and paid for the running of the Observatory out of his own pocket, thus saving it from an obscure destiny.

He was succeeded by Giovanni Santini (1787-1877) in 1817. The determined young astronomer worked from right from the beginning for renewing the by now inadequate and obsolete instruments of the Specola. In 1836 in the terrace above the Meridian Room, a small octagonal pavilion was built for a meridian circle, a more precise instrument to measure the positions of the stars. In 1858 a third small dome was built at the highest point of the tower. Here a new telescope - a Starke equatorial refractor - was placed.

After Santini’s death, Giuseppe Lorenzoni (1843-1914), his favourite pupil, was appointed director of the Observatory. He further improved the equipment with a second larger equatorial, which was placed in a cylindrical pavilion built for the purpose on the bank of the Bacchiglione where it branches off, near the Specola; this refractor was the last large telescope bought for astronomical observations in Padova.

In 1913 Lorenzoni was succeeded as director by Antonio Maria Antoniazzi (1872-1925), who petitioned in vain for financial support to improve the old astronomical instrumentations. But when the first World War broke out, the old tower was commandeered by the army for the purpose of sighting enemy aircraft, since the city of Padova was only a short distance from the theatre of war and Supreme Headquarters were located in it. A few years after the end of the war, on December 31 1923, the Observatory administration was separated from that of the University by ministerial decree.

After Antoniazzi’s premature death, Giovanni Silva (1882-1957) was appointed director of the Observatory. From the 1930s onwards, he worked on equipping the Observatory of Padova with a large reflector telescope, necessary for research in modern astrophysics. At this point a new history begins for the Astronomical Observatory of Padova - that of the large telescopes at the branch at Asiago.

Papers and pubblications:

Pigatto Luisa, Giuseppe Toaldo. Cronologia della vita e delle opere, in fascicolo allegato al fac-simile Giuseppe Toaldo, Dei conduttori per preservare gli edifizj da´ fulmini, Venezia, presso Gaspare Storti, 1778, stampato nel novembre 1997 per la Banca Popolare di Marostica, in occasione del Convegno internazionale Giuseppe Toaldo e il suo tempo (Padova 10-13 novembre 1997).

Pigatto Luisa, L’eclisse totale di Sole del 22 dicembre 1870. La prima spedizione scientifica del nuovo Regno d'Italia, «Coelum», giugno 1998, 32-36 - luglio 1998, 32-34.

Pigatto Luisa, La "Sala delle Figure" della Specola di Padova, «Padova e il suo territorio», 1998, 76, 28-35.

Pigatto Luisa, L'insegnamento dell'astronomia e la realizzazione della Specola, in Istituzioni culturali, scienza, insegnamento nel Veneto dall'età delle Riforme alla restaurazione (1761-1818), Atti del Convegno (23-25 maggio 1998), «Contributi per la storia dell'Università di Padova», 31, Padova, Lint, 2000, 93-111.

Pigatto Luisa, Giuseppe Toaldo: profilo biobibliografico, in Giuseppe Toaldo e il suo tempo, Nel bicentenario della morte, Scienza e Lumi tra Veneto ed Europa, Atti del Convegno, Padova 10-13 novembre 1997, a cura di Luisa Pigatto, presentazione di Paolo Casini, «Contributi per la storia dell'Università di Padova», 33, 1033, Cittadella, Bertoncello Artigrafiche, 2000, p 5-100.

Pigatto Luisa, Zanini Valeria, Lunar maps of the 17th and 18th centuries. Tobias Mayer's map and its 19th-century edition, in Earth-Moon Relationships Proceedings - 8/10 November 2000, Padova, Italy, 2001 Kluwer Academic Publisher, 365-377.

Pigatto Luisa, Zanini Valeria, Spectroscopic observations of the 1874 transit of Venus: the Italian party at Muddapur, east India, «Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage», 2001, 4, 43-58.

Zanini Valeria, Antonio Cagnoli, in Professori e scienziati a Padova nel Settecento, «Contributi del Centro per la Storia dell'Università di Padova», Profili Biografici 3, 2002, Treviso, Antiglia ed., 671-684.

Pigatto Luisa, Gian Alberto Colombo, in Professori e scienziati a Padova nel Settecento, «Contributi del Centro per la Storia dell'Università di Padova», Profili Biografici 3, 2002, Treviso, Antiglia ed., 85-99.

Zanini Valeria, Giovanni Graziani, in Professori e scienziati a Padova nel Settecento, «Contributi del Centro per la Storia dell'Università di Padova», Profili Biografici 3, 2002, Treviso, Antiglia ed., 671-684.

Pigatto Luisa, Zanini Valeria, Giambattista Rodella, in Professori e scienziati a Padova nel Settecento, «Contributi del Centro per la Storia dell'Università di Padova», Profili Biografici 3, 2002, Treviso, Antiglia ed., 671-684.

Pigatto Luisa, Giuseppe Toaldo, in Professori e scienziati a Padova nel Settecento, «Contributi del Centro per la Storia dell'Università di Padova», Profili Biografici 3, 2002, Treviso, Antiglia ed., 101-122.

Pigatto Luisa, Zanini Valeria, Opposition of Eros (433) of 1900-01 and the contribution of Padova Observatory to solar parallax determination, «Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage», 2002, 5(2), 141-153.

Pigatto Luisa, La Specola, il Castel Vecchio e dintorni, in «Padova e il suo territorio», 2003, 105, 15-19.

Pigatto Luisa, Zanini Valeria, The 1882 transit of Venus observed in Italian observatories, «Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage», 2004, 7 (1), 18-24.

Pigatto Luisa, Salmaso Maurizio e Zanini Valeria, The Lorenzoni-Tacchini Correspondence at Padova Observatory Archives: the «True» History of Italian Astronomy of the Second Half of the Ninetennth Century, «Journal of Astronomical Data», C. Sterken and H.W. Duerbech eds., Vol. 10, 2004, 79-92.

Pigatto Luisa., Xausa Francesca eds, Astronomi del territorio marosticense alla Specola di Padova, Vincenzo Chiminello (1741-1815) - Francesco Bertirossi-Bustata (1778-1825), Cittadella, Bertoncello Artigrafiche, 2006

Pigatto Luisa, Vincenzo Chiminello secondo direttore della Specola di Padova, in Astronomi del territorio marosticense alla Specola di Padova, a cura di Pigatto, L. & Xausa, F. Cittadella, Bertoncello Artigrafiche, 3-69.

Zanini Valeria, Francesco Bertirossi-Busata, alunno e collaboratore di Chiminello, in Astronomi del territorio marosticense alla Specola di Padova, a cura di L. Pigatto e F. Xausa, Cittadella, Bertoncello Arti Grafiche, 71-94.

Pigatto Luisa, Zanini Valeria, Antonio Maria Antoniazzi astronomo, Pieve di Soligo, 2007.

Zanini Valeria, Gli strumenti degli astronomi alla Specola di Padova, in «Le scienze astronomiche nel Veneto dell’Ottocento. Atti dell’ottavo seminario delle Scienze e delle Tecniche», a cura di M.C. Ghetti, Venezia, Istituto Veneto di SS.LL.AA., 2007, pp. 141-167.

Pigatto Luisa, La Specola di Padova. Da torre medievale a museo, Padova, Signum Editore,2007

Zanini Valeria, Gli strumenti della Specola. Catalogo, in Pigatto L., La Specola di Padova, pp. 147-174.

Pigatto Luisa; Satta Antonello; Zanini Valeria, Comete nell'arte e nella scienza: da Giotto a 'Giotto'. Catalogo della mostra (2008)

Zanini Valeria, Lo spettroscopio a visione diretta e le ricerche astrofisiche sul finire dell’800 all’Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, «Giornale di Astronomia», 2010, 1, pp. 13-20.

Zanini Valeria, L’Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova e l’Unità d’Italia, «Giornale di Astronomia», 2011, 4, pp. 2-6.

Zanini Valeria, 1910: la cometa di Halley osservata dalla Specola padovana, «Giornale di Astronomia», 2012, 4, pp. 52-54.

Zanini Valeria, Tullio Levi Civita e Bruno Rossi. Due eccellenze ripudiate dall’Italia fascista, «Giornale di Astronomia», 2015, 2, pp. 42-52.

Zanini Valeria, Toniolo Claudia, Satta Antonello, The “Giovanni Santini” Library, Padua Astronomical Observatory: The Adapting Library, «ASP Conference Series», Vol. 492, 2015, pp. 262-266.

Zanini Valeria, Giuseppe Lorenzoni: l’uomo, l’astronomo e il maestro, in «Atti e Memorie dell'Accademia Galileiana di Scienze Lettere ed Arti in Padova già dei Ricovrati e Patavina», Vol. CXXVII (2014-2015), pp. 73-103.

Turatto Massimo, Zanini Valeria, La tesa parigina dell’Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, in «Giovanni Antonio Rizzi Zannoni, scienziato del settecento veneto», Atti del Convegno, Venezia, Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti, 2015

Zaggia Simone, Zanini Valeria, Padova, Silva e i «calcoletti» dell'orbita di Plutone, «Giornale di Astronomia», 2016, 1, pp. 34-39.

Zanini Valeria, Zaggia Simone, An italian scientific Society for Astrophysics / Una Società scientifica italiana per l’Astrofisica, in Starlight la nascita dell’astrofisica in Italia / the origins of astrophysics in Italy. Catalogo della mostra. A cura di I. Chinnici, Napoli, Ed. Arte’m, 2016, pp. 104-111.

Zanini Valeria, The Padua Observatory and the Merz Workshop Under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in Merz Telescopes. A global heritage worth preserving (I. Chinnici Ed.), Springer 2017, pp. 69-86.

Zanini Valeria, Zaggia Simone, Giovanni Santini, the Meridian Circle and the Paduan Catalogues: the top of classical astronomy in the XIX century in Italy, «Atti del XXXVI Convegno annuale della SISFA», Pavia University Press, 2017.

Zanini Valeria, 250 anni di Specola, «Giornale di Astronomia», 2017, 3, pp. 42-45.

Zanini Valeria, Satta Antonello, L’astrologia convinta di falso di Geminiano Montanari. Ristampa anastatica con saggi introduttivi di Bònoli F. e Zanini V., Padova, Ed. Cleup, 2017.

THE ENTRANCE

In the 18th century, the main entrance to the Specola was in the east wall of the great staircase, entry being possible across the large court-yard of the remaining portion of the Old Castle, which became a prison in 1806. A small bridge was therefore built over the Naviglio branch of the Bacchiglione river, south of the Specola. The great iron gate (left), separating the Observatory from a private court-yard during the 18th century, became the visitors’ main entrance.

After the gate, in the east wall of the tower, there is a small door (right) giving access to the ground floor. Above it, in 1771, Abbé Toaldo carved some beautiful lines which he had composed during the visit of the Riformatori to the University:

MCCXLII / QUAE QUONDAM INFERNAS TURRIS DUCEBAT AD UMBRAS/NUNC VENETUM AUSPICIIS PANDIT AD ASTRA VIAM / MDCCLXVII

(1242 / This tower, which once led to infernal shadows, now, under the auspices of the Venetians, opens the way to the stars / 1767)

THE STAIRCASE

In the 18th century, an architectural modification involved a landing (top) built in order to open a door on the east side of the tower and to allow entry to the room in which the old dungeon of the tyrant Ezzelino had its opening. We start our visit in this room, where now instruments of time measure are stored.

THE INSCRIPTION ROOM

The room is so named because of the stone plaque mounted on the wall. The plaque reminds that the entrance of the terrible Ezzelino's prison was a trapdoor in the floor. In the 14th-century the same room and the whole tower were incorporated in the castle of the new lord of Padova, Francesco da Carrara. In the vault of the room and in the walls are conserved the painting of a cart, the coat-of-arms of the Carrara family, and traces of geometrical decoration, recently restored.

Instruments of time measure are stored in the Inscription Room now. There are pendulum clocks, chronometers and chronographers, used for 150 years by the Paduan astronomers.

THE COLUMN ROOM

The Column Room is so named because of the pillar almost in its centre, which support the vault.

This room was the ante-chamber to the Meridian Room, where illustrious visitors could rest on the stone seats (now demolished) after having climbed the great staircase.

In the south niche and in that of the west windows, carved in tower wall, the portraits of Giovanni Santini, Giuseppe Lorenzoni and Antonio Maria Antoniazzi (third, fourth and fifth director of the Observatory respectively) are on display.

In the north niche there is the most antique movable quadrant of the Paduan Observatory. Nearby, small instruments and accessories are on exhibit on the writing-tables and on the two old glass cases used by the 19th-century astronomers.

THE MERIDIAN ROOM

The Meridian Room is so named because it was here that celestial bodies were observed during their transit at the celestial meridian, the ideal circle going through the zenith and the celestial pole. A meridian line is carved on the floor: here, the true midday of Paduan Observatory was observed.

On the west wall is a mural quadrant made by the famous English instruments-maker Jesse Ramsden. This great instrument was first sent from London to Venice by sea, then transported from Venice to Padova by boat along the river, and installed in 1779.

It was originally fixed on a wall (now demolished) in order to point the telescope through a long thin aperture running south to north across the room. Its structure is still visible, although it was walled in 20th century.

On the east wall, a large fresco very precisely illustrates the geometric structure of the solar system as it was known in Toaldo’s time.

After the Meridian Room, 104 more steps lead to the Sala delle Figure ('the room of the figures').

THE FIGURES ROOM

The upper observatory was decorated with frescoes painted between 1772 and 1773 by Giacomo Ciesa from Vicenza, a minor artist in 18th-century Venetian art. Following Prof. Toaldo's suggestions, eight life-size full-length portraits of famous personages in the field of astronomy and meteorology were painted all around the walls. They are, in chronological order from right to left: Ptolemy, Copernicus, Tycho, Galileo,Kepler, Newton, Montanari and Poleni.

 

Above each portrait, in smaller frames, are monochrome chiaroscuro scenes and figures, almost all taken from Greek mythology, according to the tales of various Greek and Latin authors. The symbolic meaning of these scenes is connected with the below personages' opera.

On the vault the zodiac, with the figures of its twelve signs and the stars which accompany them was painted.

In 1860, Giovanni Santini (1787-1877), the third director of the Specola after Toaldo and Vincenzo Chiminello (1745-1815), had the room repainted because of damage caused by water leaking in from the terrace above it. Only the whole high part of the vault was decorated, while the eight big portraits disappeared under a paint wash. In 1998 the room was restored, so the 18th-century frescoes were almost all recovered.

Here, from the top of the Specola, you enjoy the most impressive sight of the buildings of the city: the beautiful domes of St. Anthony’s basilica and St. Giustina’s church, the Palace of Justice and the high dome of the Cathedral. A wonderful sight are also the Rivieras, where the water of the river Bacchiglione flows towards the city.