ANTONIO PACINOTTI IN CAGLIARI

Before beginning his activities, Pacinotti visited the Physics Laboratory in Cagliari and, in a letter to the Minister Scialoia in August 1873, he complained of having found the laboratory totally inadequate for teaching and research. But this complaint, if justified as concerns the workshop of the Physics Laboratory, on which he could place no trust in its capacity to construct his machines, as concerns the teaching equipment it was completely unjustified, unless a consistent part of the equipment was at the time of his visit in the Royal Lycée of Cagliari, where Professor Pier Luigi Perotti had the Chair of Experimental Physics and where he had transferred such equipment from the Physics Laboratory of the university.From the inventory, which had been introduced in 1872, we can see that of the 297 objects then certainly present, as many as 260 were teaching or research apparatuses and 12 were workshop utensils. What is certain is that such a complaint was the basis for the minister's request for an extraordinary contribution of 12,000 lire for equipment for the Laboratory, to be spent half at the beginning of the academic year and the rest during the year.In the same letter, Pacinotti asked the minister to postpone his transfer to Cagliari for one year, confirming him at the Technical Institute in Bologna and, to avoid causing problems in teaching in Cagliari, he suggested prolonging his substitution for that year as well; thus, while the Physics Laboratory in Cagliari was being strengthened, he would be able to finish his work in Bologna on a machine with a closed magnetic circuit, which he had begun building at the Officine de Morcier, and the substitute professor would be able to use, as in previous years, the material of the Physics Laboratory of the Royal Lycée for his university lessons as well. Pacinotti concluded by declaring himself willing to leave his entire salary of the Chair for the expenses of his substitute and the Laboratory. ...continues