The idea of Italy’s Archive on the History of Solar Energy began to develop within GSES in 2003, with the main purpose to preserve and make widely available the Italian heritage of solar energy use. Two main actions were initiated: the preparation of a “Directory of Italian Activities and Bibliography of Significant Literature” regarding the period prior to the first oil shock of 1973 and the identification of overlooked archives at universities and research centres or privately owned [1].

Key information to begin a narrowly focused investigation was found in the World Directory on Applied Solar Energy Research, published and distributed in 1955 by Stanford Research Institute for the Association for Applied Solar Energy (AFASE), the precursor of today’s International Solar Energy Society (ISES) [2]. This publication, which lists approximately 4000 references relevant to 27 countries and covers 17 different topics, from architecture to bibliographies, from furnaces to heat storage and systems, includes a dozen references regarding Italian activities and publications prior to 1955.

Other citations and bibliographies that were useful in guiding our historical research during this early phase were found in books, such as “L’energia solare e le sue applicazioni (Solar energy and its applications)” by Righini and Nebbia [3] and in articles, magazines and scientific journals published in the late 1800s and early 1900s, such as IlMonitore Tecnico (The Technical Monitor), Scienza e Tecnica (Science and Technology), L’Ingegnere (The Engineer), Il Sole (The Sun).

We also looked at books by international authors, which had been translated into Italian. For example, according to Rau, although Italy is “Ilpaese del Sole” (The country of the Sun), there were few Italian representatives among the most innovative solar energy pioneers. Those who were interested in solar energy, according to Rau, ‘made only marginal contributions by adding to or improving technologies developed elsewhere’ [4]. This statement, as we will see later is not correct.

The initial branch of the solar archive started to take shape in Brescia, in northern Italy, at the Luigi Micheletti Foundation and the Eugenio Battisti Museum of Industry and Work (www. musil. bs. it) [5]. In 2002 the Giorgio and Gabriella Nebbia collection on a range of environmental topics was donated. Nebbia’s collection contains one of the largest Italian archives on solar energy of the 1900s. In 2005 the heirs of Giovanni Francia (1911 — 1980), who was the first person ever to apply the Fresnel reflector technology principle in real systems, both linear and point focus, donated his personal archive.

The creation of Italy’s Solar Archive made an important step forward in 2006, when the “Italian National Committee ‘The History of Solar Energy’” (CONASES), a multidisciplinary non profit entity was established by the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities, following a proposal by GSES. Funding support by CONASES contributed to intensify research of other private archives and documentation that belonged to Italian solar pioneers cited in literature, such as Gaetano Vinaccia (1889 — 1971), Vittorio Storelli (1911 — 2003), Ferruccio Grassi (1897 — 1980), Daniele Gasperini (1895 — 1960). These archives were donated to the Museum by their heirs and have already been partially inventoried and can be consulted at www. musil. bs. it.

CONASES also supported specific research on patents done by Martelli and Merola in 2006-2007 at the Central State Archive, where documentation produced by the Italian central institutions has been preserved since 1861, the year of Italy’s unification [6]. The research was carried out on the Patent collections, which are among the better-structured collections preserved at the Central State Archive. These collections are made up of 891,000 folders that document more than one century of activity of the Italian Patents and Trademarks Office of the Italian Ministry of Trade and Industry, today’s Ministry of Productive Activities. The research was focused on collection of patents dealing with Inventions, which is made up of 620,000 folders dating from 1855 to 1962, and whose content is available only in print format. Each patent application includes the description of the patent, as well as machine and flow chart drawings. As of March 2008, 157,113 folders related to the period from 1855 to 1916 had been examined and 392 patents associated with solar energy were identified, corresponding to 2.5% of all patents.

Non-Italians, mainly from European countries, such as Austria, France, Germany, Portugal and Spain, also authored several of these patents. Among the European patent authors were well — known pioneers such as the French scientist Augustine Mouchot (1823 — 1912) and the Portuguese Manuel Antonio Gomes Himalaya (1868 — 1933).

Among Italian patent authors only a few can be easily identified in literature. Most of the applicants, who anticipated important technical concepts and solutions, are unknown. The case of Alessandro Battaglia (1842 — ? ) from Acqui Terme, author of a Multi Solar Collector, made up of an array of 252 mirrors individually aimed at a receiver, provides a good example. He applied for a patent on September 30, 1886. Several research efforts to learn more about him, have thus far resulted in determining only his time and place of birth. This shows that it can be difficult to find additional information regarding patent authors identified at the Central State Archive. This type of research has also shown to be highly time consuming.

Martelli and Merola presented the research results at a seminar promoted and organized by GSES and CONASES in cooperation with the Central State Archive on April 4, 2008. Detailed information about the seminar can be found at www. gses. it.