Pieces of history and lore Torricelliana remains

Crossing its threshold is tantamount to stepping back in time: the low lights, the wooden desk and filing cabinets from other times. And again: paintings, diplomas, and instruments from the late nineteenth century. Welcome to the Torricelliana headquarters. On the first floor of Palazzo Laderchi, next to the Museum of Risorgimento and Contemporary, is an important cultural institution of the city, the “Torricellian Society of Science and Letters of Faenza”. The history of the Academy dates back to 1947, and it began from the will of some intellectuals from Faenza who cared and studied scientific and literary subjects and in particular the problems that were the subject of research by Evangelista Torricelli, mathematician and physicist, after years of disputes between some municipalities, it was definitively granted As a citizen of Faenza.

Even the least interested, upon entering the two wall rooms of the academy residence, would not be able to help but raise their eyes towards the coffers. The rooms occupied by Torricelliana, which belong to the eighteenth-century part of Palazzo Laderchi, actually have impressive frescoed ceilings. What better place then for an association devoted to the mathematician and physicist whose studies also include those of liquids which led him to the invention of the mercury scale. Thus, if the most valuable and original pieces, fragments of a barometer and a magnificent astrolabe, are kept in safe-deposit boxes in some bank in the city, like other original objects from the eighteenth century, the headquarters in Torresiliana has many instruments that enrich ‘exposed.

Indeed, the academic community, in addition to being a place of preservation of documents and tools, is precisely because of the wealth of testimonies, a museum and a scientific library. The initial collection comes from material relating to the scientist found in the “Tribuna Torricelliana” during the 1908 Exposition, too noble to be the destination of the then King Vittorio Emanuele III. The souvenirs were mainly copies of scientific instruments, drawings of experiments, autographs, manuscripts, paintings, photographs, portraits, and other objects, to which many documents were added and much was printed on the occasion, including a series of postcards dedicated to the Expo, a true concession for the aficionado. Plural. After the exhibition, the Torricellian collection changed its location several times until its arrival, in 1974, on the site of the Palazzo Laderchi, where it is still located today.

Since 1947 the museum, which also houses a scientific library, has been entrusted to the Torricellian Society, which is concerned with the protection, promotion and augmentation of the collections, which no longer concern exclusively the personality of Torricelli, but also other aspects of the history of science and local learning. The company’s current organizational chart sees as President, since 2012, Alessandro Montevecchi, and Vice President, Valeria Regeni. With them in different roles: Pietro Lenzini, Gilberto Casadio and Pietro Baccarini. Among the many activities carried out by the company are the organization of conferences, the publication of relevant documents and the opening of its doors to the public on Saturdays from 9.30 to 12.30 or by reservation for school groups.