The Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte ( it, Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, italic=no) is the Neapolitan department of

Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica The National Institute for Astrophysics ( it, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, or INAF) is an Italian research institute in astronomy and astrophysics, founded in 1999. INAF funds and operates twenty separate research facilities, which in turn ...

(National Institute for Astrophysics, INAF), the most important Italian institution promoting, developing and conducting scientific research in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, and space science. The

Astronomical Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxies ...

Observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysical, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. His ...

is located in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, Italy, on Capodimonte hill, where the splendid panorama of the city and

bay of Naples A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...

from

Vesuvius Mount Vesuvius ( ; it, Vesuvio ; nap, 'O Vesuvio , also or ; la, Vesuvius , also , or ) is a somma-stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples The Gulf of Naples (), also called the Bay of Naples, is a roughly 15-kilometer-wide (9 ...

Castel Sant'Elmo Castel Sant'Elmo is a medieval fortress located on Vomero Hill adjacent to the Certosa di San Martino, overlooking Naples, Italy. The name "Sant'Elmo" derives from a former 10th-century church dedicated to Sant'Erasmo, shortened to "Ermo" and, ...

passing through

Sorrento Sorrento (, ; nap, Surriento ; la, Surrentum) is a town overlooking the Bay of Naples in Southern Italy. A popular tourist destination, Sorrento is located on the Sorrentine Peninsula at the south-eastern terminus of the Circumvesuviana rail ...

and

Capri Capri ( , ; ; ) is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. The main town of Capri that is located on the island shares the name. It has been ...

can be admired. The Observatory is engaged in several relevant international projects and researches, such as

Solar Orbiter The Solar Orbiter (SolO) is a Sun-observing satellite developed by the European Space Agency (ESA). SolO, designed to obtain detailed measurements of the inner heliosphere and the nascent solar wind, will also perform close observations of th ...

and

ExoMars ExoMars (Exobiology on Mars) is an astrobiology programme of the European Space Agency (ESA). The goals of ExoMars are to search for signs of past life on Mars, investigate how the Martian water and geochemical environment varies, investigate ...

missions, gravitational waves studies, and observational instruments development for

E-ELT The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is an astronomical observatory currently under construction. When completed, it is planned to be the world's largest optical/near-infrared extremely large telescope. Part of the European Southern Observatory ...

, the next generation huge telescope. The Astronomical Observatory is the oldest scientific institution in Naples, and plays also an important role to promote and disseminate the scientific culture and the astronomical knowledge in the society. For this purpose it houses some outreach facilities like a

planetarium A planetarium ( planetariums or ''planetaria'') is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetarium ...

and a 40-cm telescope, and owns an important collection of ancient astronomical instruments exhibited in the MuSA-Museum of Astronomical Instruments, and a rare and valuable old books preserved in the Ancient library. The Astronomical Observatory of Naples was established by

Joseph Bonaparte it, Giuseppe-Napoleone Buonaparte es, José Napoleón Bonaparte , house = Bonaparte , father = Carlo Buonaparte , mother = Letizia Ramolino , birth_date = 7 January 1768 , birth_place = Corte, Corsica, Republic of ...

with a decree dated 29 January 1807 in the ancient monastery of San Gaudioso on the Caponapoli hill. The astronomer Giuseppe Cassella was the first director of the Neapolitan specola. When

Joachim Murat Joachim Murat ( , also , ; it, Gioacchino Murati; 25 March 1767 – 13 October 1815) was a French military commander and statesman who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. Under the French Empire he received the ...

was appointed king of Naples, he approved 8 March 1812 the foundation of a new Observatory on the Miradois hill, a site not far from the royal palace of Capodimonte. The astronomer

Federigo Zuccari Federigo, Vincenzo Antonio, Ludovico Zuccari (Isola del Liri, Isola di Sora, 26 August 1783 – Barra (Naples), 15 December 1817) was an Italian astronomer, professor of Astronomy at the University of Naples Federico II, Naples University, profe ...

and the architect

Stefano Gasse Stefano is the Italian form of the masculine given name Στέφανος (Stefanos, Stephen). The name is of Greek origin, Στέφανος, meaning a person who made a significant achievement and has been crowned. In Orthodox Christianity the ach ...

conceived a monumental building in the neoclassical style, the first to be designed in the capital of the

Kingdom of Naples The Kingdom of Naples ( la, Regnum Neapolitanum; it, Regno di Napoli; nap, Regno 'e Napule), also known as the Kingdom of Sicily, was a state that ruled the part of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States between 1282 and 1816. It was ...

. On 4 November 1812 the foundation stone of the new observatory was laid with a solemn ceremony presided over by Interior Minister

Giuseppe Zurlo Giuseppe is the Italian form of the given name Joseph, from Latin Iōsēphus from Ancient Greek Ἰωσήφ (Iōsḗph), from Hebrew יוסף. It is the most common name in Italy and is unique (97%) to it. The feminine form of the name is Giuse ...

. Defined by the astronomer

Franz Xaver von Zach Baron Franz Xaver von Zach (''Franz Xaver Freiherr von Zach''; 4 June 1754 – 2 September 1832) was a Hungarian astronomer born at Pest, Hungary (now Budapest in Hungary). Biography Zach studied physics at the Royal University of Pest, and s ...

"''The Vesuvius of Astronomy erupting gold''", the new observatory was equipped with a most advanced collection of new telescopes, like the Fraunhofer equatorial

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observe ...

with an

objective Objective may refer to: * Objective (optics), an element in a camera or microscope * ''The Objective'', a 2008 science fiction horror film * Objective pronoun, a personal pronoun that is used as a grammatical object * Objective Productions, a Brit ...

of 17.5 cm, the biggest one ever made until that time, and two

repeating circle Developed from the reflecting circle, the repeating circle is an instrument for geodetic surveying, invented by Etienne Lenoir in 1784, while an assistant of Jean-Charles de Borda, who later improved the instrument. It was notable as being the ...

realised by the Reichenbach & Utzschneider Company in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

. In 1812 Zuccari established also an astronomical library in the san Gaudioso observatory. In four years the collection grew from 195 to 620 books. Zuccari acquired some of these books from the

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

astronomer

Johann Elert Bode Johann Elert Bode (; 19 January 1747 – 23 November 1826) was a German astronomer known for his reformulation and popularisation of the Titius–Bode law. Bode determined the orbit of Uranus and suggested the planet's name. Life and career Bo ...

, the secretary of Neapolitan embassy in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Severo Gargani, and the Paris booksellers of the King of the Two Sicilies, Borel and Pichard. In the middle of 1815, Ferdinand I of Bourbon was back to being the king of Naples and he called in the capital the astronomer

Giuseppe Piazzi Giuseppe Piazzi ( , ; 16 July 1746 – 22 July 1826) was an Italian Catholic priest of the Theatine order, mathematician, and astronomer. He established an observatory at Palermo, now the '' Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo – Giuseppe ...

to supervise the conclusion of building works with the help of , the architect of Basilica of San francesco di Paola. The new observatory was completed in the autumn of 1819. The astronomer

Carlo Brioschi Carlo Brioschi (24 June 1826 – 12 November 1895) was a painter and scenic designer, born in Milan, Italy, but mostly active in Austria. Biography Carlo was the son of the scenic designer Giuseppe Brioschi (died in Vienna in 1856) and fath ...

made the first observation from the Observatory est dome in the night of 17 December 1819 observing the star α Cassiopeia.

Directors

* Giuseppe Cassella (1791-1808) * Ferdinando Messia de Prado (1809-1810) *

(1811-1817) *

(1817-1833) *

Ernesto Capocci Ernesto Capocci Belmonte (Picinisco, 31 March 1798 – Naples, 6 January 1864) was an Italian mathematician, astronomer and politician. From 1815 he was a pupil at the Astronomical Observatory of Naples directed by his uncle Federigo Zuccar ...

(1833-1850) * Leopoldo Del Re (1850-1855) ''interim'' * Leopoldo Del Re (1855-1860) * Ernesto Capocci (1860-1864) *

Annibale de Gasparis Annibale de Gasparis (9 November 1819, Bugnara – 21 March 1892, Naples; ) was an Italian astronomer, known for discovering asteroids and his contributions to theoretical astronomy. Biography De Gasparis was born in 1819 in Bugnara to Ang ...

(1864-1889) * Emanuele Fergola (1889-1909) * Francesco Contarino (1910-1912) * Azeglio Bemporad (1912-1932) * Luigi Carnera (1932-1948) *

Attilio Colacevich Attilio Colacevich (; 25 July 1906 – 24 August 1953) was an Italian astronomer. Biography Colacevich was born in Fiume. He graduated in physics from the University of Florence in 1929, and in 1933 Giorgio Abetti hired him as assistant to the ...

(1948-1953) * Tito Nicolini (1953-1955) ''appointee'' * Massimo Cimino (1955-1957) * Tito Nicolini (1957-1969) * Mario Rigutti (1969-1992) * Massimo Capaccioli (1993-2005) * Luigi Colangeli (2005-2010) * Massimo Della Valle (2010-2017) * Marcella Marconi (2018- )

References

External links

Observatory home pageThe Capodimonte Astronomical Observatory Historical Archive: A Multipurpose Tool
{{Authority control Capodimonte 1812 establishments in Italy

Directors

See also

References

External links