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The Italians have given the world more suggestions for important scientific instruments than all the other nations of Europe put together. Most of the physical instruments for the exact measuring of natural phenomena of various kinds are Italian in origin. It is to them that we owe the invention of the thermometer, and to them also the barometer. In connection with the barometer came the invention of the first air pump and the detailed study of the Toricellian vacuum with all its significance for the measurement of air pressure.

Italy has been especially prolific in the invention of facilitations for education. The astronomical clock was invented in Italy and various combinations of mechanical moving spheres to illustrate astronomy. Father Kircher’s works, and he published textbooks in nearly every department of science, On Magnetism, On Light and Shadow, on Music, On Sound, On the Art of Harmony and Discord, On Astronomy, On Geology as well as on other phases of science are full of most ingenious inventions illustrated by sketches to help the teacher to demonstrate scientific principles. It was he who invented the idea of having a scientific museum and making collections of all sorts of objects for scientific teaching purposes. The great Kircherian Museum’s collections are now mostly at the National Museum of Rome, though it has suffered much from vicissitudes by which his order (the Jesuits) was suppressed and driven out at various times, it still enables us to understand the wonderful practical genius of this man of science. He was not himself an Italian but a German, but all his work was done down in Italy.

The barometer is an invention of Toricelli and the hint for its invention came in a very interesting way, which illustrates the practical inventiveness of the Italian mind. A very deep well near Florence had been fitted with a pump, but it was found that in spite of the most careful fitting of piston, and valves the water could not be made to rise higher in the tube than thirty two feet. Toricelli who was official scientist to the court was asked to explain this surprising paradox, for everyone thought that suction, as it was called, if only exerted with force enough could raise water to any height. “Nature abhors a vacuum,” it was said, and water would rush in to fill any space out of which air was taken. Toricelli reached the conclusion that the air had a definite pressure and that it was this which caused the water to rise but only to the extent of the pressure of the air. He demonstrated this by sealing one end of a tube filling it with mercury and then being careful to exclude all air he inverted it in a basin containing mercury. The mercury in the tube instantly sank to a level of about thirty inches above the level of the mercury in the basin. This left above the column of mercury in the top of the tube a vacuum which is the most perfect that can be obtained. He at once demonstrated a great principle, corrected a false scientific conclusion and invented a most useful instrument for measuring the weight of air, because this simple apparatus needs only a scale to be a perfect barometer. How much this instrument has meant for mankind in all the 360 years since its invention is needless to say. All lives and property saved by weather reports are all thanks to the information obtained from the barometer. The additional information obtained from the thermometer is also due to an Italian invention.