Miriam Focaccia is a researcher in the History of Science at the Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi in Rome and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bologna. Her key research topics are the History of Scientific Institutions between the 18th and 20th centuries in Italy; the relationship between science and art in the 18th century in Bologna; the relationship between women and science in Italy until the Second World War; and scientific biographies of Italian scientists. At present she is working on the history of electrification in Italy between 1860 and the First World War. She is also collaborating with Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Treccani, and the website: http://scienzaa2voci.unibo.it on the topic: Women in Italian science from the 18th to the 20th century. From 2012 to 2018 she was secretary of the Italian Society of the History of Science (SISS).

Foreword.- 1 A gentleman scientist.- 2 Education and studies.- 3 Rome, prelude.- 4 The Rome Physics Institute. An ideal fulfilled.- 5 Secretary, Vicepresident, President, Director.- 6 Senator.- 7 Final observations.- Acknowledgements.- On the way to steer aerostatic balloons.- The question of the free polar sea.- The harmonium with the mathematically precise scale.- Tuscany and the experimental method.- Illustrations.- Select bibliography.- Index of.