Fundamental moments in the history of the Etnean Observatory: left, an incision of the late 19th century, showing the cupola that would be removed in the late 1930s (copy from L'Italia Illustrata); center, the destruction of the Observatory during the 1971 eruption (photo taken by Giuseppe Scarpinati, 15 April 1971); right, the current seat of the Etna Observatory in Piazza Roma in Catania (photo taken by Boris Behncke, 3 May 2011)

Since 1 May 2011, following the entry into force of the new INGV statute, the Catania Section (Sezione di Catania) has formally changed name and is now called Etnean Observatory (Osservatorio Etneo; see article 13, comma 4 of the new statute published in the 19 April issue of the Gazzetta Ufficiale).

The original idea for a volcanological observatory on Etna came, in 1865, from Orazio Silvestri, who in 1876, the year in which he was elected professor for geology and mineralogy at Catania, decided to have an observatory named "V. Bellini" constructed on Etna. De Fiore later wrote: "In of those unexplainable cases that sometimes happen, it was decided to found and construct an observatory, but rather than follow Silvestri's proposal, it was decided to construct an astronomical rather than volcanological observatory". In the summer of 1879, astronomy professor Tacchini constructed the Astronomical Observatory near the summit of Etna, and following a major eruption in the same year, the Ministry of Public Instruction demanded the observatory be completed including a volcanological section. The building was erected at 2941 m above sea level and was property of the Ministry of Public Instruction, which had acquired the "House of the Englishmen" from the Gemmellaro family, incorporating it in the new building, which was then handed over to the University of Catania. The initial construction was crowned by a cupola for astronomical observations, which after a few years was in disuse and abandoned due to the corrosive effects of volcanic gases, which rendered the optical instruments useless. At the beginning of 1881, a royal decree nominated Professor Silvestri director of the Royal Volcanological Etnean Observatory.

Unfortunately, the following decades were a rather sad period in the story of Etnean volcanology. After the Silvestri's death in 1890, the institute he had founded was closed, and the professorship in volcanology was discontinued. After a series of petitions written by Professor Vinassa de Regny on the need to have volcanology be taught at the University of Catania, and to have the availability of the Observatory, in 1911 a series of letters published in newspapers by a group of young professors scholars (Platania, Stella Starrabba, De Fiore) aroused new interest in volcanology at the University, and the volcanology seat was re-introduced and enthrusted to Gaetano Ponte.

18 September 1880. The Etnean Observatory one year after its construction, during the 13th congress of the Italian Alpinists Club (Fondo Fotografico Gaetano Ponte 1876-1955 - Archivio Fotografico Toscano)

The Etnean Observatory after the restoration works initiated in 1939, which led to the removal of the old cupola (Fondo Fotografico Gaetano Ponte 1876-1955 - Archivio Fotografico Toscano)

It is thanks to Gaetano Ponte that the Etnean Observatory was reborn, to which, in 1926, was annexed the Astronomical Etnean Observatory. In 1933, the Volcanological Institute was established at the University of Catania, and Ponte named its director. The semispheric cupola of the observatory building was replaced, shortly before WW II, by a cylindrical element with a conical roof. Due to limited funding, Ponte's scientific project was never completed. Yet the Volcanological Institute was to resemble a modern organization systematically monitoring the active Sicilian volcanoes (Etna, Stromboli and Vulcano), whose activity was reported in detail in the monthly bulletins of the institute, following scientific criteria still valid today.

The Etnean Observatory was destroyed by an eruption in April 1971, when new vents opened just a few hundred meters away from the building, leaving Etna aficionados and scientists, who had often found shelters behind its massive walls, bewildered and dismayed.

Gaetano Ponte's grand cultural and scientific project of an Institute of Volcanology was not completed, but certainly the idea and parcourse were clearly outlined and later picked up again with renewed vigor, first with the establishment, in 1968, of the Istituto Internazionale di Vulcanologia (International Volcanological Institute) of the Italian Research Council and under UNESCO sponsorship, guided by another distinguished scientist, Professor Alfred Rittmann. More recently, the thread was continued in 1999 with the creation of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology; INGV), established by legal act and aimed at performing seismological and volcanological research and monitoring on the Italian territory. Subsequently the Sistema Poseidon, a framework program developed by the Ministry of Public Works, the Civil Defense Department, and the Presidency of the Region of Sicily, took over the task of monitoring seismic and volcanic activity in Sicily. Both the Sistema Poseidon and the Istituto Internazionale di Vulcanologia were united in the Catania section of the INGV in 2001.