Official Web site: Accademia delle Scienze

Photos from web site

L’Accademia delle Scienze of Turin has a long history and international renown, which still boasts great popularity today. Its origins can be traced back to 1757, in the Private Turin Society, among whose founding members were the physician Gianfrancesco Cigna, Count Angelo Saluzzo di Monesiglio, and Luigi Lagrange. The house of Count Saluzzo soon became the meeting place where they discussed mathematics, physics, and mechanics. The result was the current Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, published under the title Miscellanea philosophico mathematica Societatisprivatae Taurinensis. From that embryo, the Accademia delle Scienze has developed to this day and still has its historic headquarters at Via Accademia delle Scienze 6.

The Headquarters

The headquarters of the Academy is a seventeenth-century palace, originally designed for a Jesuit College intended for the education of young aristocratic boys. Proposal for the construction of a majestic palace came from the Jesuit Carlo Maurizio Vota. The construction site was opened in 1679 by order of Maria Giovanna Battista, and the direction was entrusted to Michelangelo Garove. In 1773, the Jesuit order was suppressed, and the palace passed to the State, which assigned it to the newly established Academy of Sciences.

The Hall of Globes. What was originally the college theater is now the heart of the Academy. Its name derives from two precious globes by the Venetian cartographer Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, which are positioned inside the Hall. On the corners of the vault are depicted instruments of mechanics and mathematics, geography and astronomy, physics and chemistry, and natural sciences.

The Reading Room. It is accessed from the Hall of Globes through two doors surmounted by portraits of Pythagoras and Euclid. This room has walls completely covered with bookshelves containing ancient volumes.

The Long Room. The last room on the main floor, long and narrow, houses the historical files of the library as well as important publications of the Academy, Memoirs, and Acts.

Costitution of Accademia delle Scienze

In 1760, there was a first attempt to transform the Private Society into an Academy, blocked by Carlo Emanuele III and his ministers. On the other hand, the activities became increasingly important, and the members prestigious, including Benjamin Franklin, Lazzaro Spallanzani, and Leonhard Euler. In 1783, Victor Amadeus III granted the letters patent for the foundation of the Reale Accademia delle Scienze.

The motto chosen by the Members was Veritas et utilitas. Competitions were proposed for the study of technological, social, and economic innovations. The first was in 1788, in favor of the workers of the spinning mills who were losing jobs due to a mulberry harvest. Others followed in the agricultural field and for works of scientific dissemination.

The Academy of Sciences in the 19th Century During the French period, under Napoleon’s rule, the Academy of Sciences was reformed. In 1804, Napoleon was appointed honorary president. In 1815, the Academy also opened to humanistic studies. With the return of the Savoy during the Restoration, the Academy played a role of scientific consultancy that the government exploited for the development and industrialization of Piedmont and, subsequently, the Kingdom of Italy. In 1823, the Academy was tasked by the Ministry of the Interior with organizing the arrangement of the nascent Egyptian Museum in the adjacent premises. In 1866, the first volume printed by the Academy was born: Acts of the Royal Academy.

The Accademy’s awards

With the transfer of the capital to Florence first, and then to Rome, the Academy lost much of its governmental relevance. However, it gained cultural and scientific prestige. In particular, thanks to collaboration with the University and the newly established Polytechnic, it promoted congresses, scientific conferences, and international relations.

The first Bressa Prize (awarded to Charles Darwin) in 1879, the Gautieri Prize for Philosophy, History, and Literature in 1891, and the Vallauri Prize for Physical Sciences and Latin Literature in 1899 are testimonies to this.

The Fascism

In 1922, the fascist regime profoundly modified the Academy’s statute, introducing very restrictive rules for the office, the appointment of members, and the administration of funds. The regime required an oath of loyalty, so those who refused, such as the historian Gaetano De Sanctis or the art historian Lionello Venturi, were removed from the Academy. Finally, the racial laws of 1938 caused further expulsions and loss of positions. The fall of Mussolini and the new constitution of the Republic in 1948 restored the Academy’s freedom of appointment.

Recent improvements

In 1983, for the 200th anniversary of the Academy, restoration works were organized for the headquarters. Subsequently, just two years later, the Wednesdays of the Academy, popular science conferences held by members, were inaugurated. In 2005, the Academy’s computerized catalog was published online, and the following year, renovation work on the palace began. In 2013, on the occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of Lagrange’s death, temporary exhibitions were organized, and an intense activity aimed at the world of education began, with educational workshops and informative courses for teachers. Finally, in 2014, the Academy became part of ALLEA (All European Academies), and a process of digitizing its archive began, which was put online three years later.

Illustrious members

Since 1783, the Academy’s Members have been more than 3000. They have conducted their research in various fields, and many have received the Nobel Prize.

Among the many illustrious members, we remember:

• 1794. The Volt is the unit of measurement for electric potential and potential difference in the SI (International System). It is named after Alessandro Volta, inventor of the voltaic pile and a foreign member since 1794. 
• 1804. The Avogadro Number, which corresponds to 6.02214 × 10^23, is the number of particles (atoms, molecules, or ions) contained in a mole. It is named after Amedeo Avogadro, a corresponding member since 1804 and a national member since 1819. 
• 1841. Ohm is the unit of measurement for electrical resistance. Its name derives from the German physicist Georg Simon Ohm, a corresponding member since 1841.

• 1893. Hertz is the unit of measurement for frequency. It is named after the German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, a corresponding member since 1893. 
• 1901. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, Nobel Prize in Physics: “in recognition of the extraordinary service rendered for the discovery of the important radiations that later took his name” (X-rays) 
• 1904. William Ramsay, Nobel Prize in Chemistry “in recognition of his services in the discovery of the noble gases in the air and the determination of their places in the periodic table” 
• 1908. Ernest Rutherford, Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements and the chemistry of radioactive substances” 
• 1909. Guglielmo Marconi, Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun “in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy” 
• 1918. Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, Nobel Prize in Physics “in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of quantum energy” 
• 1938. Enrico Fermi, Nobel Prize in Physics “for his demonstrations of the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for his related discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons” 
• 1986. Rita Levi Montalcini, Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1986 with Stanley Cohen “for their discoveries of growth factors” 
• 2021. Giorgio Parisi, Nobel Prize in Physics with Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann “for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales”