SPECOLA 2000 a project for the preservation of the historical archives of the twelve Italian Astronomical Observatories Agnese Mandrino, INAF - Osservatorio

SPECOLA 2000

a project for the preservation of the

historical archives of the twelve Italian Astronomical Observatories

Agnese Mandrino, INAF - Osservatorio astronomico di Brera, MilanoDonata Randazzo, INAF - Osservatorio astronomico di Palermo G.S. Vaiana

Luisa Schiavone, INAF - Osservatorio astronomico di Torino

LISA V (Library and Information Services in Astronomy), Cambridge, MA – June 18-21 , 2006

LISA V, 18-21 June 2006 SPECOLA 2000 - A. Mandrino, D. Randazzo, L. Schiavone

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Contents

• Overview of the project • The Italian astronomical observatories • The concept of “archives”

– The meaning of the word “archivio” – Archives can “expand” – Which documents are held in Italian historical archives – Criteria for archive arrangement

• The status of the Italian observatory archives before Specola 2000

• The Institutions behind the project – Hands-on work – Phases of the Project – Results

• Web searching


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Overview of the project

The project, started in the year 2000, aims to: arrange and produce an inventory of the

historical archives of the twelve Italian Astronomical Observatories

create appropriate searching tools (inventories, indexes, subject catalogues) and make them accessible via Internet

open the arranged archives to the public encourage the utilization of the historical

documents held in the archives, thus increasing their value


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The Italian astronomical observatories

The astronomical observatories in Italy are among the oldest institutions devoted to scientific research. In Milan, for example, the University was founded in the first half of the XX century, but the Brera Observatory dates back to 1764 and is thus the oldest research body in town.These are the years of foundations of the 12 Italian Observatories:Bologna 1711Torino 1759Brera (Milano) 1764Padova 1767Palermo 1790Roma XVIII century, 2nd halfNapoli 1819Arcetri 1872Catania 1880Collurania (Teramo)

1882Trieste 1898Cagliari 1899

Such a striking difference in the age of the institutions depends on the fact that, prior to 1861, Italy was not a single nation, its territory being divided into about ten separate and independent states, each having its own Government and administration in charge of scientific and cultural matters.


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The observatories contain treasures, such as archives, libraries, scientific instruments, whose historical and scientific value is huge. Moreover, some of the institutions are, and have always been since foundation, housed in historical buildings:

the Royal Palace in Palermo the Brera Palace in Milan


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the Capodimonte Observatory in Naples, the first purpose-built edifice to house an astronomical observatory.

the Torlonga Tower in Padua

the Poggi Palace in Bologna


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The concept of “archives”

1.What we intend by “archives”2.What are historical archives3.On which criteria are archives arranged


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The meaning of the word “archivio”

By archives it is intended an organic whole of documents which provides the record of the history of the institution to which they belong.

Archives are not a collection of documents put together in an artificial, a posteriori manner.

On the contrary they originate from the natural organization of the documents produced by or sent to an institution (the Observatories in our case) throughout its history.


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Archives can “expand”

In some cases the original collections have grown through donations.

For instance the historical archives at the Bologna Observatory have been very recently given the private collections belonging to its former Director Guido Horn D’Arturo (1869-1967), by his heirs.

In other cases, observatory archives can contain the papers relating to scientific associations, such is the case of the archives of the Società Urania held in the Torino Observatory, or part of the archives of the Società Astronomica Italiana in Brera, or the archives of the Copernican and Astronomic Museum in the Rome Observatory.


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Which documents are held in Italian historical archives

Italian historical archives hold documents older than forty years.

According to the Italian legislation, the collections must be arranged and held indefinitely.

Inactive records dating less than forty years and no longer used in current practice, are held in a temporary repository (=deposito) until the forty years expire and thy can be transferred to the archives.

If the records are still in use, they are considered “current archives”.


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http://www.archivi.beniculturali.it


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Criteria for archive arrangement

The only arranging method which is widely accepted and recognized is based on “historical” criteria.

i.e archives which through time for any reason have lost their order should be brought back to the organization they had when they first were originated.

Their original form in fact enables us to understand how a given institution worked and thus to reconstruct its history


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The status of the Italian observatory archives before Specola 2000

Before the onset of this project, some observatories, aware of the importance and value of their archives, had partially arranged them (Brera, Torino, Palermo, Bologna, Naples, Catania and Rome), but only with Specola 2000 could their arrangement be carried out in an organic and coordinated manner.


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The Institutions behind the project

• The twelve Italian Astronomical Observatories promoters of the Project coordinated by Giorgia Foderà Serio, professor of History of Astronomy at the University of Palermo (after her retirement in 2003, Fabrizio Bonoli, professor of Astronomy at the University of Bologna) and Agnese Mandrino, archivist and librarian at the Brera Observatory. With the creation in 2002 of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) the project is carried out within the Libraries and Historical Archives Working Group.

• The Società Astronomica Italiana, supporter of the project (with the coordination of Salvatore Serio, professor of Astronomy at the University of Palermo)


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• The Ministero per i Beni e Attività Culturali, Ufficio Centrale per i Beni archivistici, the Italian institution in charge of archive preservation and legislation, is financing almost entirely the project (the people taking care of Specola 2000 are Maria Grazia Pastura, director, and Michaela Procaccia).

• http://www.archivi.beniculturali.it/divisione_III/interventi.html


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Hands-on work

• Now a few words on how the project actually works. • In each observatory there is a figure, often the librarian, in

charge of the Specola 2000 project. This person is not supposed to arrange the archives (this task requires a great deal of technical knowledge and a lot of additional time) but to act as a supervisor.

• The arrangement and inventory production work is carried out by an experienced archivist, selected and paid by the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali.

• The project did not indicate a preferential software to utilize during the arrangement of the single archives. In the end, the format of the various inventories will be “standardized” and fed into SESAMO, an archives-specialized software.


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Phases of the Project

Specola 2000 is being carried out in 4 phases:

1. Census of the archival materials held in each observatory. This operation has enabled us to verify the extent of the documents kept throughout the centuries. The information recorded for each observatory has included the history of the institution, the contents of the archives and their conservation status

2. Arranging and producing an inventory of all the records up to 1960 and held in the observatory archives. This applies to the archives which had never had an inventory (Rome, Padua, Cagliari, Teramo and Trieste) and to those which had a partial one (Bologna, Catania, Palermo, Milano, Arcetri, Torino and Naples)


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Phases of the Project (cont.)

3. Make an inventory of the correspondence items. It is yet unknown if this phase will take place in all the observatories (owing to lack of funds) but in some places such as Arcetri, where the Giorgio Abetti correspondence represents the majority of the documents, this work is at a very advanced stage

4. “Virtual” recovery of documents produced by the Italian observatories and held by other institutions. For this last phase to be started, it is mandatory that the three previous ones have been entirely carried out, enabling us to gain a more complete picture of the history of each institution and the extent of the archives


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Results Up until now, the project has financed, either partially or

totally, the arrangement of the archives held by the following observatories:

Arcetri Brera Catania Padova Palermo Roma Bologna

The archives of the Torino and Naples observatories had already been arranged before the start of the Specola 2000 project.

The arranging and cataloguing of the documents has enabled us to identify some common (though different in structure) archival series, which can be regarded as the skeleton of the observatory archives.


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Results (cont.)

When we consider them, we notice that these series reflect the scientific work carried out in this type of scientific institution:

Meteorological observations Astronomical observations Clock observations Magnetic observations Topographic observations Protocol registers Administrative records Accounting records Scientific correspondence Astronomer fonds Iconographic fonds

The archives of each observatory have been arranged respecting their original structure.


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Results (cont.)

• The information about the institutions where the archives originated, and the body where the same are held, will be fed into the SIUSA portal:

http://siusa.signum.sns.it/ • Realized by the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività

culturali, this portal gives information on lots of different types of Italian archives (public, private, ecclesiastic, school, borough councils, firms)

http://siusa.signum.sns.it/




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Web searching

To end with, I would like to point out that as a result of the Specola 2000 project, and also thanks to the work done previously, the inventories of five observatory archives are entirely or partially searchable via web.Torino http://www.oato.inaf.it/archivioArcetri http://www.arcetri.astro.it/BIBLIO/storico/Brera http://www.merate.mi.astro.it/docM/OAB/Biblio/biblio_e.htmlNapoli http://vivara.na.astro.it:8081/tomcat/biblio/ida.htmlBologna http://www.bo.astro.it/~biblio/Archives/copertina.html

http://www.oato.inaf.it/archivio

http://www.arcetri.astro.it/BIBLIO/storico/

http://www.merate.mi.astro.it/docM/OAB/Biblio/biblio_e.html





http://vivara.na.astro.it:8081/tomcat/biblio/ida.html








http://www.bo.astro.it/~biblio/Archives/copertina.html







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http://www.oato.inaf.it/archivio


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http://www.arcetri.astro.it/BIBLIO/storico/


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Authors’ references

• Agnese Mandrino [email protected] INAF-Osservatorio astronomico di Brera, Milanohttp://www.mi.astro.it/docM/OAB/Biblio/biblio_e.html

• Donata Randazzo [email protected] INAF-Osservatorio astronomico di Palermo “G.S. Vaiana”http://www.astropa.unipa.it/Library/index.html

• Luisa Schiavone [email protected] INAF-Osservatorio astronomico di Torinohttp://www.oato.inaf.it/archivio/ (Archives)http://www.oato.inaf.it/biblioteca/en/index.html (Library)

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.mi.astro.it/docM/OAB/Biblio/biblio_e.html



http://www.oato.inaf.it/archivio/

http://www.oato.inaf.it/biblioteca/en/index.html

Documents

SPECOLA 2000 a project for the preservation of the historical archives of the twelve Italian Astronomical Observatories Agnese Mandrino, INAF - Osservatorio