Speaker
Description
We presents the aims, methodology, and first outcomes of the Polo Documentario Storico Italiano della Sismologia e Meteorologia (PoloDoc), a digital humanities and history-of-science project promoted by Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia in collaboration with Museo Galileo and other important archival and scientific institutions. The project is devoted to the preservation, digital reproduction, cataloguing, and historical interpretation of documentary and instrumental sources related to the development of Italian seismology and meteorology between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
PoloDoc aims not only to safeguard fragile scientific heritage, but also to reconstruct the networks of observatories, scientists, institutions, and practices that contributed to the emergence of meteorology and earthquake science in modern Italy. Through the integration of archival documents, photographs, scientific instruments, correspondence, technical reports, and historical datasets, the project creates an interdisciplinary research infrastructure that connects the history of science with contemporary historical seismology, geophysical research and risk awareness.
Particular attention is devoted to the role of scientific institutions established after more destructive earthquakes, including the gradual formation of a national seismic service and the circulation of observational practices across local observatories and international scientific networks. The project also highlights the importance of collaboration between historians of science, archivists, geophysicists in producing new forms of digital access to scientific heritage.
By combining archival research, digital technologies, and historical analysis, PoloDoc contributes to current debates on the preservation and public communication of scientific heritage, while offering new perspectives on the historical relationship between science, natural disasters, and society in Italy.