Identifying and Understanding Historical Scientific Instruments: The Case of the Physics Cabinet of the University of Bologna

This paper reconstructs the process of identification and understanding of an ensemble of historic physics instruments carried out between 2021 and 2022 at the Department of Physics and Astronomy “Augusto Righi” of the University of Bologna. The ensemble of 244 instruments is part of the Collection of Physics of the University and corresponds to the main core of the nineteenth-century Cabinet of Physics of the University of Bologna. After a brief recollection of the complex history of the cabinet the paper brings into light the different aspects involved in the identification and understanding of a scientific instrument. The various challenges concern the use of the resources available, the role of the experts, the study in situ and the use of original archive sources. In addition, a contextualization of the present study in the current literature on material culture studies and history of scientific instruments will bring to light the importance of the analysis of historical and trade catalogues, both for retracing the trajectories of a specific artefact and for the study of its relationships with users, donors, collectors, previous owners, and other objects.