The life and discoveries of Niccolò Cacciatore, a 19th century Sicilian astronomer, whose research and publications left an indelible mark on the field of astronomy. Read more about his biography, academic career and scientific contributions.
Niccolò Cacciatore was born in Casteltermini, a town located in the Diocese and valley of Girgenti, on 26 January 1780, into a wealthy and civilized family.
The first son of Gaetano Cacciatore, a notary by profession, and Rosalia Cassenti, he was destined for the clergy by his parents; but he had the fortune of being educated in literature by the priest Innocenzio Cacciatore, his paternal uncle, an ecclesiastic distinguished for his talent and knowledge.
In 1796, having received the minor orders from his Bishop Monsignor Granata, he was invited to occupy the Chair of the Greek language in the Seminary of Girgenti; but he first asked for time to perfect himself there, and for this purpose he went to Palermo in 1797.
There under Canon De Cosmis, his compatriot, he continued in the literary stage, and was employed by that great man to teach ancient and comparative geography in the normal schools, of which he was general director, and precisely in the most advanced class of which he was a reader. the learned and meritorious Monsignor di Giovanni, later instructor of the Royal Princes.
In his idle hours alone and by himself he studied the mathematical sciences, in which his uncle had initiated him.
In 1798 in the house of the can. De Cosmis was met by the famous P. Piazzi, who after brief questions, knowing that he was advanced in calculus, advised him to apply himself to the exact sciences, to better direct him, invited him to live with him in the Royal Observatory. From that moment Cacciatore dedicated himself entirely to Astronomy.
In 1809 he was made first assistant of the Specola; and Piazzi entrusted him with all the observations to the instrument of the passages, as well as the various works which were necessary for the formation of his great catalog of stars.
After the publication of the first great Catalog in 1803, doubts arose among astronomers as to the accuracy of Doctor Masketyne’s 34 fundamental stars, on which that immense work had been supported, and Piazzi being very sorry for it, Cacciatore offered himself to his master to redo the Masketyne’s work himself.
Piazzi I encourage you; and with difficult difficulty he carried out observations and calculations in the equinoxes of the years 1803, 1804 and 1805, and instead of 34, he brought the number of fundamental stars to two hundred and twenty.
And this work, on which Piazzi based his famous catalog of 1814, is found in book VI of the Reale Osservatorio, where on pages. I and 7 Piazzi himself naively confesses that he owes it to his assistant.
In 1807 due to serious eye disease he prevented the ch. To further observe, he entirely abandoned to Niccolò Cacciatore the care of carrying out the immense observations and calculations into which he had undertaken, and which he actually completed in 1813, as Piazzi says in the Preface, page. 1 and following.
Having published this immense work, the Institute of Sciences of France in 1815, in awarding the Ļalande prize to the Author, declared the young Sicilian astronomer worthy of its praise for the considerable part he had played. L
The Comet of 1807 gave Cacciatore the opportunity to publish the observations around it under his own name.
In 1811 he was chosen by the Sovereign to be professor of Astronomy and Geodesy in the Topographical Office of Palermo, and for three years he dictated lessons on these faculties to the officers of the Corps of Engineers. Just as in 1814, having been made honorary professor of Astronomy at the University of Palermo, he began to dictate lessons at the Specola instead of Piazzi.
In the same year he was elected by the King as Deputy Surveyor of Weights and Measures of Palermo: and in 1815, first as Royal Examiner of the Optional Corps in Sicily, and then also as Royal Examiner of Sicily’s aspirants to the Polytechnic School of Naples, up to this point his scientific efforts are found, so to speak, amalgamated with those of Piazzi, for whom he always worked, and of whom he was a perpetual collaborator and companion; as in all of his works, Piazzi himself candidly confesses it here and there.
P. Piazzi was called to Naples as Director General of the Astronomical Observatories of the Two Sicilies, he was promoted by the King to the position of Director of the Specola of Palermo in 1817, and in and 1818 he was named Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of Naples, as well as this Royal Institute of Encouragement and the Pontana Academy.
In 1819 he received from the Government the task of dividing Sicily into Districts for the judicial administration according to the new code: he, who had already had the task of dividing it into Districts from the Parliament of 1812, divided it into 150 Districts.
The 23 Districts, no less than the 150 Districts, are the basis of the civil and judicial administration of Sicily. In that same year the comet, which appeared, gave him the opportunity to expose his thoughts on the formation of comets in a much applauded memoir.
Successor of Piazzi, he continued to keep the Observatory in existence with great alacrity, and was already putting his works in order for printing, when in the events of 1820, in which he himself suffered personally, the royal palace on which After the Specola, his home and the library were ransacked.
Once good order was re-established, he was unable to return to live in the Observatory until 1823.
Piazzi returned from Naples to Palermo with the necessary faculties, had everything restored, and Cacciatore was finally able to resume his regular occupations.
In 1824 he was enrolled as a foreign member of the Astronomical Society of London.
In 1826 the famous Father Piazzi died. Cacciatore was forced to move to Naples, and obtained from the King’s Majesty a perpetual and fixed establishment for the Observatory, whose assignments during the life of his predecessor had been petty and provisional, and after his death highly contested.
He then dedicated the first volume of his astronomical labors to his King and Maecenas Francesco, which he published at royal expense, and which contains the first three books, which he however entitled 7. 8 and 9 of the Royal Observatory, because the works of his predecessor formed the first books 6. Furthermore, he was made Director of the first class of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Palermo, Member of the Gioenia Academy of Catania, and by the Prince himself created a knight of the Royal Order of Francis I.
As late as 1835 he was added to the famous Accademia de’ Lincei in Rome, directed at the time by the learned and meritorious professor Feliciano Scarpellini, whose loss we have recently lamented.
In 1810 he married Emmanuela Martina, a virtuous and lovable young girl, with whom he had five children, three sons and two daughters, who consoled him with the most flattering hopes of Innocent the eldest of the sons. Some important observations are printed. He devoted to their education the hours that exceeded his astronomical labors and his scientific studies. ” The things published by the Hunter are the following:
1. Of the comet which appeared in September 1807. Palermo. Royal Printing House, 1808.
2. On silver wires for telescope use. Pamphlet, 1817.
3. Of the comet that appeared in September 1819. Palermo, 1819. Reale Stamperia.
4. Observations on Monte Cuccio. Second brochure. Palermo, 1823. Solli.
5. Reply to an anonymous letter. Naples, 1823. Trani.
6. Observations on Monte Cuccio. Third booklet. Palermo, 1824. Solli.
7.Description of a new circle of reflection by M. Simonoff. Palermo, 1824, near Solli.
8. Description of the sundial of the Palermo Cathedral. Palermo. 1824. Solli.
9. Observations on Monte Cuccio. Letter to HE the Marquis delle Favare. Palermo, 1825. Royal Printing House. 10. On Meteorological Observations, Letters to Abbot Bertini. Palermo, 1825. Royal Printing House.
11. On the origin of the solar system, speech. Palermo, 1825. Solli.
12. Of the Palermo Observatory, vol. I in folio, 1825. Palermo.
13. On the extraordinary lowering of the barometer on December 2, 1826. Letter to Mr. Gemellaro. Palermo, 1826. Royal Printing House. 10 74 NECROLOGY . NICCOLÒ CACCIATORE .
14. Letter to the very clear Mr. Visconti. Palermo, 1827. Royal Printing House.
15. On the extraordinary rise of the barometer. Letters to the Baron of Ferussac. Palermo, 1828. Royal Printing House.
16. Trip to the Sclafani mineral baths. Palermo, 1828. Royal Printing House.
17. Letter on the Sirocco of Palermo, addressed to Monsignor Capecelatro, ancient Archbishop of Taranto, included in the scientific and literary Ephemeris for Sicily, tom. VIII, year II. October 1833.
18. Goniometry and spherical trigonometry exercise dictated to his assistants and students. Palermo, Francesco Lao’s printing house, 1837, in 8.
19. Collection of tables useful for the calculations of Astronomical Observations: ibid., aforementioned year, which follows the previous book.
20. On the spots of the sun. Letter to the very clear Mr. Ernesto Capocci Director of the Royal Observatory of Capodimonte in Naples. Palermo from the Typography of F. Solli, 1839. Extracted from the scientific and literary Ephemeris for Sicily. File 64.
In addition to this, several other letters from him were published in the Correspondence of Baron de Zach, in Schumacher’s Journal, in the Journal of Sciences, Letters and Arts for Sicily and elsewhere.
The Institute of France in 1815 awarded, as we said, the medal to Piazzi’s catalogue, but at the same time praised Cacciatore «for the part that he has in his work of such eminent utility.
The volume does not have so many pages, but on top of that they are pleine. All astronomers wish to provide them, and we have a great hope to encourage the efforts made by M. Piazzi and their assistant M. Nicolò Cacciatore ».
Delambre giving an account of Cacciatore’s work on the fundamental stars, in the Connaissance des temps an 1809,
thus is expressed «The author of the work (the Memoir on the Comet of the famous Piazzi, and a master can do so and must have a tel élève s . Bibliothèque universelle, tom. 15, page 81 et seq.
This Memoir is again spoken of in the following way in the Framework of Italian literature and arts in the year 1820, introduced in the form of a proem to Vol. 21 of the Milanese scientific-literary newspaper entitled Italian Library, year 1821. » Mr. Cacciatore , successor of the famous Piazzi in the direction of the Palermo Observatory, having been called to Naples to assume the Superintendency of both Observatories of the Kingdom, wrote a pamphlet on the great comet which appeared in the constellation of Lynx in 1819.
Now public prayers are no longer made, says the learned Mr. Cacciatore, to ward off comets and ward off the scourges that they threatened; but the appearance of these new stars is now considered as a necessary consequence of their regular movements, whereby after having approached us, they must soon move away.
The few truths that the combined efforts of generations have stolen from nature have been so powerful, and the discovery of the great principle of universal gravitation, on which the entire system of the world rests, has been so powerful. »
The general summary of the meteorological observations made in several years by the illustrious scientist in the Royal Observatory directed by him is constantly recorded in the files of the Journal of sciences, letters and arts for Sicily, from which we have taken these brief biographical information.
The illustrious astronomer, to whom it was our duty to pay a tribute of honorable memory, ceased to live in Palermo on 27 January 1841 late at night. An incurable illness that slowly consumed him for three years, but which he suffered with Christian resignation, completely draining his strength, ultimately took him away from his family, his friends, Sicily, and astronomy.
source: Civil Annals, File XLIX, January and February 1841.
