HISTORY OF SCIENCE
Stampa
Enrollment year
2019/2020
Academic year
2022/2023
Regulations
DM270
Academic discipline
M-STO/05 (HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNIQUES)
Department
DEPARTMENT OF MUSICOLOGY AND CULTURAL HERITAGE
Course
CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE
Curriculum
PERCORSO COMUNE
Year of study
Period
2nd semester (20/02/2023 - 10/06/2023)
ECTS
6
Lesson hours
36 lesson hours
Language
Italian
Activity type
ORAL TEST
Teacher
FREGONESE LUCIO (titolare) - 6 ECTS
Prerequisites
The course contextually presents the prerequisite notions necessary to understand the proposed contents.
Learning outcomes
Historical epistemology as an historiographic method to analyse central episodes in the history of science and to improve the understanding of the interplay between theory, experiments and instruments in the construction of scientific knowledge. The course also strives to provide high quality instruction aiming to improve the cultural preparation of students and complies therefore with the goals of the ONU 2030 agenda.
Course contents
The course is divided into two monographic parts. The first part opens with a general methodological section that tries to give an idea of the breadth of the history of science and which proposes historical epistemology as an appropriate historiographic methodology to interpret the complex construction of scientific knowledge. The course then tackles that fundamental stage of Western science which is called the "scientific revolution" and which is characterized overall by the abandonment of Aristotelian "qualities" in favour of new explanatory schemes and the systematic use of experimentation and new scientific instruments. Galileo Galilei's work is in particular explored as a representative case of the developments that characterize the scientific revolution. In the second part, the course deals with the figure and work of Alessandro Volta as a significant exponent of eighteenth-century Italian and European science. His production of new electric and pneumatic instruments is examined in close connection with the contemporary theoretical debate on electricity and the combustion of flammable airs. The electrical instrumentation conceived by Volta is linked to his attempt to develop the electrical theory initially formulated by Benjamin Franklin in an original form. More conservative his adherence to the doctrines of phlogiston in the interpretation of combustion and in his related creation of the new pneumatic instruments.
Teaching methods
Lectures inviting participation during the exposition and critical discussion of the contents presented during the previous lecture at the beginning of the following one before addressing the new subjects.
Reccomended or required readings
Digital slides of the various lectures.

Roberto Maiocchi, Storia della scienza in Occidente, La Nuova Italia, 2000, parti scelte.

Storia della scienza, Enciclopedia Treccani, 2001-2003, parti scelte.

Lucio Fregonese, "Volta Alessandro", in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 100, pp. 170-175.

Gli strumenti di Alessandro Volta: il Gabinetto di fisica dell'Università di Pavia / a cura di Giuliano Bellodi ... [et al.] Pavia: Università degli studi; Milano: Hoepli, 2002:
-Lucio Fregonese, "Elettroforo perpetuo/L’elettroforo perpetuo e l’elettricità vindice", pp. 40-51,
-Lucio Fregonese, "Pistola elettrico-flogopneumatica/Pistola-eudiometro/Le pistole ad aria infiammabile e il cammino verso gli eudiometri", pp. 52-69.
-Lucio Fregonese, "Eudiometri ad aria infiammabile/Apparecchi per l’infiammazione delle arie ed eudiometri ad aria infiammabile", pp. 70-83.

Students who cannot attend lectures are requested to get in touch via email with the teacher before the course starts to get the study materials and suggestions about how to use them best.
Assessment methods
Oral examination verifying the assimilation of the specific course contents in the wider perspective of an historical epistemology which strives to reconstruct the original conceptual and scientific contexts.
Further information
Sustainable development goals - Agenda 2030