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In southern Italy, the market for meteorological instruments in the 18th century was limited to the wealthy elite, physicians, and early observatories, which purchased their equipment from northern Italy, France, and Great Britain. However, some Neapolitan physicists designed new instruments themselves, such as Giovanni Maria della Torre, who in 1778 conceived a barometer and sent its design to Ramsden for construction, and Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi, who in 1801 described a variant of Saussure's hygrometer.
In the 19th century, various meteorological instruments were built by local craftsmen, including Giuseppe Spano, Antonio Marino, and Saverio Gargiulo. The latter served as mechanician at the Meteorological and Vesuvius Observatory and produced many of the instruments designed by Luigi Palmieri.
After the establishment of the national meteorological network, observatories in southern Italy were equipped with comparable instruments built in Rome by the renowned mechanician Ermanno Brassart. This basic instrumentation was often supplemented with additional devices purchased individually in Italy or abroad.