Bologna - Il Museo della Specola

The astronomical Museo della Specola of the Department of Astronomy of the University of Bologna was created in 1979, when a first group of instruments was restored on the occasion of the exhibition I materiali dell’Istituto delle Scienze. In the following years, further restorations have interested both instruments and rooms. At present the museum is located in the same rooms which were devoted to observations in the ancient tower, i.e. the meridian room (sala meridiana) and the turret room (sala della torretta), and also in the recently created globe room (sala del globi). The instruments used by the Bolognese astronomers from the early 18th century to mid-19th, at first in the «Specola marsiliana» and later in the «Specola» of the «Istituto delle Scienze», have been brought back to these rooms, with their original placing in mind. These rooms are nowadays part of the Department of Astronomy of the University of Bologna, and of the Astronomical Observatory. Being almost entirely formed by original equipment of the observatory, the collection represents an extremely complete and organic whole. More than one third of the about 30 major instruments used by the astronomers for more than a century, with the exception of the clocks, has been recovered. Almost all of them have undergone varying degrees of restoration, with regard to both original appearance and function.