HISTORY OF THE SIENA COLLECTION OF PHYSICS
One of the most beautiful and richest historical collections of scientific tools of Siena University Museum System is certainly that of Physics. Its almost 400 tools, its chronological homogeneity and good state of maintenance, represent also a precious collection for Physical Sciences historians.
The origins of the Chair of Physics in Siena blends itself with Siena Studium dating back to the XII century ;
particularly the Chair of Physics intertwines since the beginning and over the centuries with that of Medicine. The first known physicist in Siena was a man called Master Pietro Ispano or Pietro Spagnolo who assisted the physician Giovanni di Mordente from Faenza in 1247.
The teaching of Physics continued in a regular and continuous way until the professorship of Domenico Bartaloni from Roccastrada in 1769.
After the Napoleonic period, the Siena Atheneum was equipped with a Laboratory of Physics that, over time, acquired numerous tools necessary for carrying out experiments in the different fields of the discipline.
In 1935 The University Rector Giovanni Petragnani stated “The institute holds many instruments, among which a refractometer of Jamin, some instruments for high pressures, abundant tools for electric oscillations, as well as a recent device capable of reaching up to 10.000 volts of continuous tension..... the laboratory possesses besides some interesting heirlooms, like the perpetual pendulum of Zamboni, the horizontal microscope, the optometer and the polarizer microscope of Giov. Baptist Amici." while in 1937, Michele Della Corte wrote in one of his notes : " the institute of Physics of this Royal University holds some tools for optics whose historical importance is notable as they still belong to the limited series of existing heirlooms of G.B. Amici."
Go to Virtual Tour of Physics, University of Siena Collections
