The gallery of directors

The gallery of directors welcomes visitors with a rich collection of portraits depicting some of the astronomers who, over the centuries, have led the Palermo Astronomical Observatory. Displayed in chronological order from left to right, the portraits include Niccolò and Gaetano Cacciatore, the Bourbon official Domenico Ragona, Temistocle Zona, Dante scholar Filippo Angelitti, and Luciano Chiara.

Alongside the portraits are other significant artifacts: a plaster bust of Giuseppe Piazzi - founder and first director of the Palermo Specola - attributed to the school of Villareale; an antique rain gauge from the mid-1800s still housed in its original niche; several chronographs; and a painting by Francesco La Farina depicting Piazzi alongside his most important scientific achievements.

In the painting, Piazzi is accompanied by Urania, the Muse of Astronomy, who points toward the sky at the Chariot of Ceres, an iconographic representation of the goddess protector of Sicily, to whom Piazzi dedicated the first asteroid he discovered in 1801. On the desk are large sheets showing the orbit of Ceres, and below, a draft map of the Palermo valley, commissioned by the Bourbon government. In the background are a celestial globe and two large volumes representing the star catalogs compiled by Piazzi in the early 19th century.