Smyth, Charles Piazzi

Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-1900) was a Victorian antiquarian-astronomer. He was born in Naples, Italy, to Captain (later Admiral) William Henry Smyth and his wife Annarella. He was called Piazzi after his godfather, the Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi, whose acquaintance his father had made at Palermo when serving in the Mediterranean. In 1846 he was appointed Astronomer Royal for Scotland, based at the Calton Hill Observatory in Edinburgh, and professor of astronomy in the University of Edinburgh. Later, he wrote a popular account of a scientific voyage in "Teneriffe, an astronomers Experi...