DALLA BELLA ROOM, 18TH CENTURY PHYSICS

In 1773, the professor of Experimental Physics, Giovanni Antonio Dalla Bella, was placed in charge of the organisation of the collection and founded the Physics Office in this room. Most of the “machines” that made up this Office came from the Colégio dos Nobres in Lisbon. This collection was completed with other instruments of more recent invention or design, such as electrostatic machines and equipment, a field that was constantly evolving at the end of the 18th century.

In 1788, Dalla Bella describes 580 items of the original furniture in the Index Instrumentorum. The most noteworthy are: a wooden table used in experimental physics classes at the time, a Chinese magnet and a tightrope walker.