The basic project pursued by the new Museo Nazionale di Storia della Scienza [National Museum of the History of Science] during its first decade of life was that of a "Grande Catalogo Repertorio" [Great Indexed Catalogue]. The idea, which arose at the same time as the Exposition, was to record the entire history of Italy's scientific heritage, collecting information and bibliographical references concerning instruments, scientists, machines and inventions. Called upon to work on this project were first Umberto Repetti, then Giuseppe Boffito, and lastly Antonio Gigli and Enrico Barfucci. The work dragged on through a host of difficulties up to 1939, when, with the death of Ginori Conti and then the outbreak of the war, it was suspended, never to be completed. In 1952, Maria Luisa Bonelli and Pietro Pagnini, using the documentation collected on the occasion of the Exposition of 1929, compiled a catalogue of the instruments displayed, including wherever possible updated information on the condition of the objects.
