Conservation and Valorization of Scientific Instruments

This course focuses first on an introduction to the history and development of scientific instruments, with a particular reference to the role played by instruments in the development of the scientific thought and with some hints in the more general development of human history from the antiquity up to now. This course will therefore offer a general framework of the different kinds of scientific instruments, their action (sensorial magnification, measurement, representation, registration, model, replica) and their location (research institutes and universities, museums, schools, private collections, ). Items concerning safeguard and conservation will be handled: detection, recovery, inventory, cataloguing, acquisition, bestowal, conservative and functional restoration; attention will be given to the peculiarity, critical aspects and methodologies currently used at a national and international level. Part of this course will be devoted to the different actions to valorise scientific instruments, including traditional and non-conventional methodologies, their scientific and cultural framing, in particular contents and methodologies: scientific and popularising publications of different kinds, museums, exhibitions, cultural routes, scientific and popular workshops, festivals, web, theatrical shows, videos and movies. Some case-studies of well known and less known instruments will be considered in this course, in an appropriate historical-scientific framework. It will lastly focus on professions concerning the conservation, safeguard and valorisation of scientific instruments. An integral part of this course are visits to museums, collections and laboratories with the possibility to meet different people working on the subject.