Astronomy and Photography at Rome. 373 



Art. XIV. — Astronomy and Photography at Rome.* 



Remark by the Editors. — The following observations appear- 

 ed first in the Liverpool Times of August 2d and September 5th, 

 1841, and we have no hesitation in departing from our usual cus- 

 tom of not republishing what has once appeared in the daily jour- 

 nals, because we feel confident that few if any of our American 

 readers have seen either the memoir of the Roman astronomers, 

 or the interesting review of it, from the pen of our esteemed friend 

 and correspondent, Mr. J. Taylor of Liverpool. 



" A Memorial of sundry Observations made at the Observatory 

 of the Gregorian University, in the Collegio Romano, by the 

 Director, P. Francisco De Vico, and the other Astronomers 

 of the Company of Jesus, in the years 1840 and 1841. Rome, 

 1842. Marini & Co., printers." 



This publication, of which a copy has been with the greatest 

 courtesy transmitted to this town, will command the attention of 

 the scientific world, not only by the important information con- 

 tained in it, but also as being the precursor of a series of annual 

 memoirs, intended to contain reports of future astronomical ope- 

 rations at Rome, in the observatory of the Collegio Romano, 

 which will henceforth take its place in the first rank of that class 

 of the European scientific establishments. 



The observatory at the Collegio Romano may, in fact, be con- 

 sidered as the oldest in Europe, having been the station from 

 which Clavius made his observations on the new star of the con- 

 stellation of Cassiopeia, in the year 1572. From that time it had 

 in succession for its superintendents the Jesuit Scheiner and the 

 illustrious Cassini, followed by Bianchini and Boscovich, who 

 die din 1787. 



The wars of the French revolution interrupted for thirty years 

 the peaceful pursuit of astronomy at Rome, but on the restora- 

 tion of peace in the year 1816, Pope Pius VII. constructed the 

 present observatory, which Leo XII. in 1824 restored, along with 

 the rest of the Collegio Romano, to the order of the Jesuits. 

 Since that time the observatory has enjoyed the particular pat- 

 ronage of the Generals of the Order, the set of instruments hav- 



* Communicated to this Journal by the author. 



