Exhibition GLASS
From Roman Antiquity to Space Probes

Organised by the 'Galileo Galilei' Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Giovanni Poleni Museum
Dates: From 25 November 2022 to 30 April 2023
Venue: Giovanni Poleni Museum, via Loredan 10, Padua

The focus of the exhibition will be glass, celebrated on the occasion of the International Year of Glass proclaimed by the UN for 2022.

The exhibition will present various properties of glass by highlighting the different ways in which this material is produced and some of its uses in daily life, art and science, from Roman antiquity to Islamic times, up to today's cutting-edge research in physics and astronomy.

Several historical instruments of the Giovanni Poleni Museum, entirely or partially made of glass, will also be part of the exhibition, which will be spread among the various rooms and showcases of the Museum. This is the case, for example, of the Museum’s late 19th-century X-rays glass plates, which will contribute to illustrate the transparency properties of glass, while the use of glass in 18th-century electrostatic generators will be examined to understand why glass can be such an excellent electrical insulator.

Characterised by different possible levels of interpretation, the exhibition will merge art with science, as glass art objects loaned by the Museum of Applied Arts of Palazzo Zuckermann will be inserted in the showcases of the Giovanni Poleni Museum's permanent exhibition: scientific instruments from the 18th, 19th or 20th centuries will therefore coexist with artistic artefacts of the same period, and the public will thus discover new facets of man's activity, always marked by the joint or parallel developments of art and science. To emphasize the connection of the exhibition with the 2022-23 Department of Physics and Astronomy’s Third Mission project, a precious Islamic vase will be displayed, illustrating the Islamic contributions to the development of glass art.

In order to enable the public to easily approach some aspects of the physics of glass, a number of interactive exhibits will also be set up. These will be presented to the public and schools as part of the guided tours.

In connection with the exhibition, a number of lectures are also planned, including archaeology, art, history of science, physics and astronomy (see the preliminary program in the specific section)

Exhibition curators: Sofia Talas, Alessandro Patelli, Fanny Marcon, Monica Zagallo, Giulio Peruzzi
Exhibition design: Maura Zocchetta and Studio Architettura Emilio Alberti, Vicenza
Loans from: Museo degli Eremitani in Padua, Museum of Applied Arts of Palazzo Zuckermann in Padua, research groups of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) and the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF), Officina Stellare and Isoclima