At the end of the ‘700, with the Enlightenment, new sciences developed such as hydrography, meteorology, topography, nautical astronomy… Captains can no longer learn the craft only on the sea: the need for nautical schools was born.
Meanwhile, the Englishman John Harrison had solved the age-old problem of calculating the longitude, inventing the marine chronometer: the latter, along with the sextant and the compass will become personal and inseparable objects of every captain of long standing.
The Hydrographic Institute of the Navy has existed since 1872 with the task of carrying out the hydrographic survey of sea and coast, printing the relative nautical charts. The exhibited instruments were built, repaired and developed in the workshop of the Institute, in the historic headquarters of Forte San Giorgio.