The Vatican Observatory

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 44, 3 November 1904, Page 29

The Vatican Observatory

'1 lie demands of chronology and the necessity in the ecclesiastical year ot regulating the various testhalsot the i- hurch wnh accuracy constitute the practical considerations (says the ' Glasgow Observer ') wiiith led tne authorities at Kome to encourage the study ot astronomy. The Key. l)r ,j a. Zahm, C.S.C, 'Professor of Physics in the University of Nojtre Dame, & , wfcll know n w liter and scientist, recently visited the observatory of tlie Vatican, and described it in a most interesting article. Key. Dr. Zahm says :— ~ '„,'■" ' As far back as the time of St. Polycarp,"', in the second century, there was a dispute as to the. time whe v Easter should, be celebrated. '1 he question was taken up by Pope Leo the Great, and later. on by .Nicholas V., Sixtus i\ „ and Leo \., but without any satisfactory results. .Not until 1582 was the controversy settled, when Gregory XHI. promulgated the retormed. calendar, and made it obligatory throughout the Catholic world. The building in which the work ol reiormation of the calendar was execuied forms a poition of the immense vile ot buildings in Kome called the Vatican. The upper portion ot the structure, in honor ot its projector, is liiuvvn as the Gregorian Tower. It is a large and massne structure, containing more than a store of spacious apartments. The room in which the caiendar was reformed is preserved in essentially tie same condition in v, luch it existed in the time of Gregory XIII. In the centre ot the floor is a large slab ot marble, in which is executed the celebrated meridian of the noted Dominican, Igna/.io Dante, one ot the commission appointed loi the letormation oi the calendar. By means of. tins meridian and a small aperture in the wall, tnrough winch a solar beam was permitted to enter, he was able to demonstrate the necessity of reforming the calendar and the exactness ot the system proposed by one of his associates, Luigi Libis, of Calabrino. The on/ice through winch the sun's rays were admitted appears as a minute white spot on the left-hand side of the picture. The calendar room is now used for the weekly meetings of the Vatican Astronomical Associat'on, winch aie usually piesided over by his Eminence Cardinal Moccnni ' 'the writer next proceeds to leeount the history of \h^ observatoiy, which has not been without its vicissitudes, uown to the icign ol the late Pope Leo XIII., in whom it found a coidial and most generous pation. lie conlimcs — ' i J ope Leo endowed the obscrvafoiy with a sum ample to meet all curient expenses, .fjid >set aside certain portions ot the \atican palace and gardens for its special use Neat the Gregorian Tower he gave a suite o~i ii/Oin.s for the leception of a laige heliograph and us appi rtcnances '11ns instrument, used for photographing the sun, is an exact duplicate ot one employed by -Jansscn in Ins obseivatory at Mendobe But by far ibe most important addition to the previously existing obseivato-v was t lie tamous Leonine tower on the summit oi the Vaiuan hi'l The two lower storeys are set anart tor researches in teircstrial magnetism and seismology In the upper stoiey r placed a large photoo, rapine equatonal, m si/c and desn'n like the great instrument in the National Observatory of Paris.' U the pic-cnt time, Di . Zahm says, the asStronoI'ieis ol the Vatican Observatoiy are busily engaged in executing then pait of the colossal internaiional chart ,nl catalogue oi the hea\ens, parts of which have also 'been assigned to the observatories of the T nited States Photographs are also being made of the other -heavenly bodies— the moon, planets, comets, and nebulae— and attention is likewise given to the photographing of stella sjettra and ot cloud phenomena lor meteorological purposes Describing this featuie of the observatory, Dr. Zahm says — ' 'I lie Gregonan Tower is singularly well eqi'ippcd'witli instruments for investigations of all kinds. 11 is well piovidcd with the latest patterns of automatic instruments, particularly in the departments devoted to meteorology. The library is already quite large, ■md is ramdlv increasing in si/c and importance It - reccnes the published reports of more than three hundred observatories, m all parts of the old and new worlds, and in exc-hanae tor them it sends out to its cprresponclents the results of its own labor. 1