Chemistry Museum of Genoa

The collections of books, including several milestone texts in the evolution of chemical disciplines, have generally been transferred to the antiquarian section of the Library annexed to the current Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry (Library Services Center of Chemistry “S. Cannizzaro”).

A considerable amount of material acquired over more than 150 years consists of instruments, glassware, etc., intended both for research and teaching. Of interest are, for example, several small devices used to illustrate, during lessons, from the podium the performance of some crucial experiments, such as the devices used, according to Lavoisier, for the analysis of air and, respectively, water, or for the gaseous state measurement of a substance’s density, and consequently its molecular weight.

In the early 1990s, while Professor Riccardo Ferro was Director of the Institute of General Chemistry, the restoration, recovery, and reorganization of this material were initiated. This work was mainly carried out by Professor G. Rambaldi, with the help of the technician Mr. A. Mori. In a small book published in 1996 by Professor Rambaldi herself (Chemistry Instruments: a 19th-century laboratory), the result of this restoration conducted on a first significant group of instruments and the consequent cataloging in a “Collection of chemical instruments” is described.

This work was also made possible due to a generous contribution from the Liguria Region, whose Offices and competent Staff also suggested the creation of a permanent structure (a “Museum”) for the preservation of the collections and, together with the Academic Authorities, hoped for its transformation into a Museum Laboratory, that is, a museum in which the instruments can be arranged and connected based on their functionality and possibly enabled to operate. This transformation was formalized with the official establishment of the Chemistry Museum by the Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry with a deliberation in December 1999.

Among the various materials present in the Institute of General Chemistry and being arranged at the Museum, two groups of instruments deserve particular attention. The first group dates back to the period of Cannizzaro’s presence and consists of various glassware, small instruments, and some analytical balances. It is interesting to consider that using these devices, some of the fundamental bases of the atomic theory of matter and more generally of chemistry were laid.

Another group of instruments, which we gladly highlight, dates back to the 1930s and includes equipment used for processing minerals and metals of the rare earth elements. Interest was focused on the identification, separation, and preparation of the individual elements of this family.

Large quantities of minerals and oxides were processed, and some pure metals (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, and later samarium) were produced in amounts on the order of kilograms. At the same time (with Professors Rolla, Mazza, Iandelli), the foundations of a series of research lines (alloy chemistry, crystallochemistry, magnetochemistry, thermochemistry) were established, which developed in the following decades and to which some of the thematic research characteristics currently pursued in various sections of the Department can be linked.

The equipment, once used, comparable to small pilot plants, included numerous large capsules (up to 50 liters capacity), and related burners, for dissolution, decantation, crystallization, precipitation, vacuum filters, installations for heating in a current of gaseous HCl (for the preparation of anhydrous chlorides), installations for electrolysis in the molten state (converter, melting furnaces, etc.).

This preparatory equipment was accompanied by analytical instrumentation also quite exceptional for the time, including several spectrographs for visible and UV and some of the first commercial X-ray instruments (high-voltage transformers, closed and open generating tubes, and related high vacuum instrumentation, spectrographs, chambers for diffractometry). This set of instruments is for now only partially restored also due to the large space that would be necessary for its functional display.