The activity of Giovanni Battista Amici and the birth of the Observatory of Modena

The Activities organized by the University of Modena in collaboration with The University of Florence to commemorate 150 years of the death of Giovanni Battista Amici have been more than a conference, a traveling exhibition and a movie. They have been the opportunity to focus attention on: - the activities of the scientist with Modena origin, as optical, astronomer, and naturalist - the most important instruments from him made and - the birth of the Modena Observatory. Amici made many innovative instruments that allowed the progress of the research not only in astronomy but .several scholars in Italy and in Europe. The astronomical instruments, made both in Modena at the beginning of his career both in Florence where he moved in 1831 at the invitation of the grand duke of Tuscany Leopoldo di Lorena to direct the “Specola” of the Museum of Natural History, were of considerable interest. In particular, in Modena, at the request of Giuseppe Bianchi, Professor of Theoretical Physics and at the commission of the Minister of Education, the Marquis Luigi Rangoni, he realized the most important instruments for the birth of the Observatory: a transit instrument, a newtonian reflecting telescope, an equatorial, a double image micrometer for a Dollond telescope The Observatory of Modena could be made after the Archduke Francesco IV d'Austria Este in 1826 made over the East Tower of seventeenth-century Ducal Palace to the University of Modena, which it still belongs and currently the only non-military sector of the Palace that since the end of the nineteenth century has been seat of the Military Academy. The restoration works of the Tower began during the summer of the same year 1826, under the direction of the Inspector of Ducal Factories, Gusmano Soli, and continued until the end of August 1827: it was necessary to completely transform the internal structure of the upper part of the Tower to make the rooms adapted to the new use, without making any changes to the external architectural structure that is symmetrical to that of the West Tower of the Ducal Palace.. After that the instruments were placed within the Observatory, the first official observation beginning in 1827, the October 17, as witnessed by Bianchi in his "Acts on Royal Astronomical Observatory of Modena", published from 1834. There were no opening ceremonies for the birth of the new Observatory: the newspaper "Messaggiere Modenese" of November 7, 1827 (n. 89) disseminated the news of the opening on the occasion of a lunar eclipse that took place four days before.