In 1993, the Institute and Museum of History of Science of Florence (now Museo Galileo) announced the realization of a standardized layout for cataloguing historical scientific collections. The layout, called STS (Strumenti Scientifici), arrived at the end of a process started in 1987, when the Museum, in accord with the Tuscany Region, began cataloguing scientific instruments of historic interest. As Mara Miniati, one of the leading members of the work group, recalled, discussions about the necessity of cataloguing standards for scientific instruments began in the early 1980s, “when it became a necessity not only to index our own holdings, but also to communicate and exchange information with other institutions.”1 Since its publication by the ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione), the STS became a national standard, and still is today in the revised form of PST (Patrimonio Scientifico e Tecnologico). The realization of the STS in 1993, however, represented not only the result of ten years’ work but also the achievement of a goal outlined some 70 years before by Andrea Corsini, the very founder and first director of the Institute and Museum of History of Science.
A pioneer of History of Science in Italy, Corsini was in many respects an outsider: his interest in scientific collections, his insistence on the necessity of captivating the general public, and his practical approach towards organizational issues differentiated him from the majority of historians of science of his generation. At its earliest stage, history of science in Italy was largely dominated by history of medicine (Corsini himself was an historian of medicine). Historians of medicine could count on university chairs, institutional entrenchment, and a substantial number of followers. Being often cultivated by scientists and collectors “who lacked cognizance of the methodological and empirical problems of historiography,”2 history of medicine rested at an amateurish level and mostly dealt with priority claims and erudite curiosities. Discussions and debates were strictly confined within the boundaries of “semi-clandestine periodicals” with no audience whatsoever outside the narrow circle of historians of science.3
Championing the idea of scientific collections as ‘cultural objects’ and somehow anticipating the “material turn” in the history of science,4 Corsini proposed a comprehensive protection and promotion policy for scientific collections centered on the necessity of making the general public aware of the role of science in history and society. In order to attract the public, he maintained, history of science should look to history of art and acknowledge that staging exhibitions and establishing museums/libraries should be preferred over organizing conferences and setting up ‘scientific sanctuaries’ of the kind of Galileo’s Tribune. This view found its most articulated expression in the First National Exhibition of History of Science held in Florence in 1929. With more than nine thousand items on display – instruments, machines, books, portraits, and memorabilia variously related to the history of science – coming from 80 Italian cities and over 200 institutions, the Exhibition was in many ways a unique event that marked the culmination point of two decades’ work for the protection of the historical heritage of science. Its main goal was to offer the fullest possible overview of the Italian contribution to scientific progress; at the same time, however, it was meant to urge the Italian fascist Government to implement an effective protection policy. The Exhibition shows Corsini’s amazing ability to come to terms with a complex environment, as Italy was dominated by a centralist regime which was rapidly getting mass popular consensus through its nationalism and, at the same time, shaken by subterranean centrifugal drives triggered by the Italian long-standing tradition of localism. Its unexpected success made it possible to establish in Florence a National Museum of History of Science (1930) which would soon become one of the world’s leading institution in the field; the commitment it generated among a wide spectrum of Italian cultural institutions helped to put the issue of the protection and evaluation of scientific collections on the Italian Government’s political agenda, and its design contributed to legitimize history of science as an academic discipline.
My aim in this essay is to examine the First Exhibition of History of Science in its cultural and political context as a case study to show how complex and ambiguous the relationships between cultural enterprises and political ideologies in 20th century Italy could be, and how the cause of science and history of science could be endorsed and preserved even underneath the layers of political propaganda spread on it at both local and national level. The idea that guided me was that, given that events such as exhibitions both match and contribute to reshape the cultural environment they are in, the First National Exhibition of History of Science could offer both a privileged perspective on the Italian history of science’s encomiastic and anecdotic character fed on political and ideological nationalism, and, at the same time, an insight into the progressive development of a new kind of discipline, more devoted to material and visual questions and more attentive to the general public. From this perspective, the Exhibition allows us to take a close look at the coexistence of local and national values, myths, and narratives embodied in cultural enterprises in fascist Italy, and at the mutualistic interaction between the latter and the regime, a factor of paramount importance in shaping the Italian cultural panorama at institutional level.
Even though the Exhibition failed to achieve its primary objectives – that is, special superintendencies for the history of science were never established and no general catalogue of Italian scientific relics was ever produced – it nonetheless contributed to the understanding of scientific collections and artefacts as an integral part of the Italian cultural heritage. In other words, scientific collections, once dismissed as useless and hence stashed in warehouses, began to be regarded as cultural objects. Before the Exhibition, the issue of conservation and display of scientific memorabilia had been almost exclusively addressed by a narrow circle of specialized journals and discussed in largely theoretical terms by a handful of historians of science. Thanks to the Exhibition, these issues were covered by the general press and attracted the attention of the public at large. The notion that the founding of a “National” Museum of the History of Science in Florence should be the logical – and, in a sense, expected – outcome of the Exhibition was accepted even outside the city itself and the circle of Florentine historians of science. The Exhibition therefore succeeded in demonstrating to the whole Nation the importance of protecting and showcasing the historical heritage of science. At the same time, it conveyed the idea, reiterated by Corsini, that Florence had a central role to play in this enterprise.5 In his speech at the Exhibition closing ceremony, Ginori Conti explained that “To create this National Museum, we do not need, in Florence, to divest University laboratories and civic museums of the relics they so jealously preserve. To us, the instruments that Florence already possesses suffice, as well as those owned by private citizens. (…) To implement this program, we shall be better off if we are not deprived of help from the Authorities and especially from the Municipality, which by doing its utmost to help us will have the pride of fostering the emergence in our city (which is and must remain one of the most important centres of study and culture) a Museum unique in its kind in our Nation, which, eventually, can be a subject of pride for Florence.”6
This outcome was the result of the idea that the Galilean tradition basically summed up the Italian tradition. The Museum that was established right after the Exhibition housed the collections previously on display in Galileo’s Tribune; yet they were now recognized as the main elements of a national tradition and not just of a Florentine one. From this perspective, the new museum was a hybrid institution like no other in the Italian panorama: being funded almost exclusively by the City of Florence, it was a Civic Museum; since its collections were property of the University of Florence, it was a University Museum; finally, as it put on display a ‘Galilean tradition’ which was supposedly identical to the ‘Italian tradition’, it was a National Museum.
In another sense, the Exhibition showed that historical scientific collections could be the subjects of events addressed to a general public and that organizing such events ought to be the first preliminary step toward the creation of permanent expositions. The Natural History Museum of Trento, for example, turned its show into a permanent exposition, and in Naples a special section devoted to the History of Technology was established within the National Museum. This new section, inaugurated on December 3, 1932, featured the models built for the exhibition of 1929 and new ones executed for the occasion. Among them, there were hand- and horse- mill-stones, parts of the fistulae which used to carry water to Calidarii, models of olive-presses, epistomia (faucets), scales, and a scale model of a Roman pool. Another museum of History of Science devoted to Antonio Pacinotti was created in Pisa, and in Livorno Piemontese the City Councils installed a museum in Galileo Ferraris’s house. In Padua, the Exposition ignited debates about the opportunity of creating a museum of machines dedicated to the engineer Enrico Bernardi (the museum would be eventually inaugurated in 1941). These examples show that the Exhibition of 1929 played a fundamental role in defining the Italian approach toward historical scientific collections and significantly contributed to the shaping of Italy’s geography of historical scientific museums.
On the other side, if one looks at it from a broader perspective, the Exhibition, while standing out for its size, appears as part of an international movement that increasingly considered science and history of science as object of musealization.7 In the same year 1929, for example, an International Exhibition within which science retained a prominent role was held in Barcelona, Spain. The conviction that museums were privileged environments to enact the idea of a national identity and thus constituted an effective instrument of mass education was quite common at the turn of the century and was further juiced up by the rise of local nationalisms. Paired with the positivist view of science as a progressive enterprise leading humanity from a state of superstitious ignorance up to the ethereal regions of truth, this conviction eventually led to the creation of institutions like the Deutsches Museum (1903), whose main aim was displaying and popularizing science.
According to the original plan, the Exhibition was supposed to be structured into five disciplinary sections: 1. Natural Sciences; 2. Medicine and Pharmacy; 3. Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry; 4. Astronomy and Geography; 5. Technology. This arrangement, however, conflicted with the long-standing Italian tradition of localism. As soon as it was communicated to local committees, rumours began to spread that the actual goal of the Exhibition was to give life to a National Museum of History of Science and that objects sent to Florence would not be returned. Thus, many local committees decided to withdraw their participation in the event unless they were provided with appropriate guarantees. In the end, an agreement was reached: the Exhibition was to be “a collection of regional exhibitions” and participants were to choose by themselves what to put on display.
The Exhibition, then, was arranged geographically, and this made it impossible to display the historical development of individual sciences as Corsini had originally planned to do. Cities and institutions were invited to sort out items in their possessions and were allowed to design and manage their own exhibits. These resulted in a general lack of coherence: exhibits presented themselves one after another without apparent order beside the fact that they happened to come from the same city or region. Moreover, even though the organizers would have preferred to put on display original items, participants were allowed to present copies or even photographic reproductions of originals. As historian of science Giuseppe Montalenti put it, this undermined both the historical and didactical value of the Exhibition, making it just an inordinate succession of shows with no tie to each other.
On the positive side, the geographical ordering made the task of designing the show immensely simpler. Also, it implicitly invited visitors to compare the participating cities, thereby underscoring the richness of the Tuscan heritage and of the Florentine one in particular.8 As the attempt to present a consistent national narrative through chronological and disciplinary arrangement proved unfeasible, the organizers took a reductionist approach by equating the “Italian tradition” with the Galilean/Florentine one. This was an idea especially favoured by Garbasso: for him, Galileo stood out as the prototype of the Italian genius and the ‘Galilean tradition’ basically summed up the whole Italian scientific tradition. Every great advancement in science, according to him, could be traced back to the ‘experimental method’ envisaged by Florentine physicians like Taddeo Alderotti in the Middle Ages, enhanced by Leonardo during the Renaissance, and fully developed by Galileo in the seventeenth century. If the Exhibition was to be a collection of local traditions, then the Florentine one could be presented as the main tradition whence others had grown like flowers from a stem.
The internal structure of the Palazzo delle Esposizioni – a large building located at the edge of the city center, which served as seat for many Florentine exhibition until its demolition at the end of 1930s – comprising two large central halls on the ground floor that lead into smaller rooms all around, favoured this type of approach and was ably exploited by the organizers. The two large halls were, in fact, reserved for Tuscany and Florence. These focused on Leonardo and Galileo, respectively, as the ideal representatives of the Italian scientific genius and founding fathers of the national tradition. Significantly, to prepare the Tuscan room, the organizers not only combined the individual exhibits of ten cities, but also broke their own rule of geographical arrangement. At the center of the hall stood a Tribuna di Leonardo prepared with contributions from the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan and the Naples committee.9 The centerpieces of the Leonardo section were the reconstructions of parts of the “flying machine” designed by the illustrious Tuscan. This was a project actively promoted by Corsini. In 1928, he had contacted Raffaele Giacomelli,10 a consultant to the Ministry of Aeronautics, chief editor of the magazine L’Aerotecnica, librarian of the Istituto Sperimentale di Aeronautica in Rome, and – since 1926 – author of research studies on Leonardo’s codexes on flight later published in the volume Gli scritti di Leonardo da Vinci sul volo.11 Giacomelli pulled out a number of indications from the Codex Atlanticus, the Codex B, and the Codex on the flight of birds. He forwarded them to Giuseppe Schneider, a draftsman at the Stabilimento di Costruzioni Aeronautiche in Rome (an aeronautical construction facility), who prepared the blueprints. The models were built at the Stabilimento in Rome and the Istituto Tecnico Leonardo da Vinci in Florence headed by Alberto Picchi, who assigned the Institute’s master craftsmen Mario Bucci and Vasco Menici to the task.12 When the Exhibition closed, the models built in Florence stayed in the Museum of the History of Science, while those made in Rome were donated to the Science Museum in London. Schneider’s blueprints, together with photographs of the models and Leonardo’s sketches, were displayed at the Aeronautical Exposition in Milan in 1934, thus inaugurating a fruitful practice of exchanging and collaboration between institutions, and contributing to establish the Florence museum as a leading international centre for the study of scientific objects.13
This book is divided in two parts. In the first one, I trace the history of the Exhibition, its cultural and material premises, its organization and setup, its goals and its results. In doing this, I will highlight the local and national factors, and the ambitions and perspectives which shaped the Exhibition’s ideological profile both at cultural and political level. The second part, on the other side, contains a room-by-room description of the Exhibition. In it, the reader will find information about each local committee, in a who-did-what fashion. This part is primarily intended as a reference tool, but it can also show the Italian very specific – and, under many respects, unique – context. The link between exhibitions, museums, and the rise of national narratives has been thoroughly studied by scholars, and it became apparent that the Italian reductionist approach stands apart in the European context. While France and other European countries tried to build their national narrative by establishing a clear distinction between regional and national museums, and thus between first- and second-class artefacts, this never happened in Italy. Usually, the Italian State simply took over what already existed and renamed it. So, the ‘new’ National Museums, being grounded as they were on local narratives, weren’t really ‘national’.14 The Exhibition of 1929 was no exception: it started out as an attempt to build a national narrative and ended up – for reasons that will become clear in the following chapters – as a collection of local exhibitions. Even its unifying theme, the “Italian genius,” was dismembered: there was no Italian genius, but rather a crowd of ‘Tuscan’, ‘Milanese’ etc. geniuses. In this sense, the first part of the present book can be considered a case study of how such reductionist approach worked, and the second a survey of the results it yielded.
Mara Miniati, “Catalogazione di strumenti scientifici: dalla scheda STS alla scheda PST,” Museologia Scientifica Memorie, 2 (2008), 18–20: 18.
Maria Conforti, Historia Amabilis. La storia della medicina nel primo Novecento, in Scienze e storia nell’Italia del Novecento, edited by Claudio Pogliano (Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2007), 215–235: 227.
Aldo Mieli, “Organizzazioni italiane per promuovere lo studio della storia della scienza,” Archivio di storia della scienza, 1 (1919), 94–99: 95.
About the “material turn” see Liba Taub, “Reengaging with instruments,” Isis, 102, 2011, pp. 689–696.
A. Corsini, “Firenze e la storia delle scienze,” Atti della Società Colombaria di Firenze dell’anno 1925–1926 (Florence: 1927), 5 (offprint).
“La chiusura della Mostra Nazionale di Storia della Scienza,” La Nazione, 12 November 1929.
The word “musealization” comes from the German Musealisierung and roughly means the “institutionalization of the past” enacted when an artefact is deemed worthy of being publicly displayed. I use it in the sense discussed by Sharon MacDonald in Memorylands: Heritage and Identity in Europe Today (New York: Routledge, 2013), 138.
On this topic, see G. Montalenti, “La Prima Esposizione Nazionale di Storia della Scienza a Firenze,” Archeion 11 (1929): 239–241 (Montalenti had curated the Rome room), and S. Timpanaro, “Nel mondo della scienza: alla Mostra scientifica di Firenze,” Italia letteraria, 2 June 1929.
The Naples commission, chaired by Roberto Marcolongo, had prepared a replica of the instrument that Leonardo had used to solve “Alhazen’s problem” concerning reflection. The replica was displayed in the Tuscany room.
R. Giacomelli, “I modelli delle macchine volanti di Leonardo da Vinci,” L’Ingegnere 5 (1931): 3 (offprint).
R. Giacomelli, ed., Gli scritti di Leonardo da Vinci sul volo (Rome: 1936); on the machines in the Florence Exposition, see p. 95.
See A. Poggi, “Le opere immortali di Leonardo e di Galileo alla Mostra Nazionale di Storia delle Scienze,” La Nazione, 7 May 1929; D. Brogi, “La macchina volante di Leonardo ricostruita alla Mostra della Scienza,” Il Giornale d’Italia, 26 June 1929; I. Del Giudice, “La ricostruzione della macchina volante di Leonardo,” Unità Cattolica, 28 July 1929.
R. Giacomelli, “Progetti vinciani di macchine volanti all’Esposizione Aeronautica di Milano,” L’Aerotecnica 14 (1934): 8–9 (offprint).
See S. Berger, “National Museums in between Nationalism, Imperialism and Regionalism, 1750–1914” in P. Aronsson, G. Elgenius (eds.), National Museums and Nation-Building in Europe, 1750–2010 (New York: Routledge, 2014): 13–32; and S. Troilo, “National Museums in Italy: A Matter of Multifaceted Identity,” in P. Aronsson, G. Elgenius (eds.), Building National Museums in Europe 1750–2010, EuNaMus Report No 1, 2011: 461–496.