The Stancari air thermometer and the 1715–1737 record in Bologna, Italy Dario Camuffo 1 & Antonio della Valle 1 & Chiara Bertolin 1,2 & Elena Santorelli 3 Received: 27 June 2016 /Accepted: 29 August 2016 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 Abstract This paper is focused on the closed-tube Stancari air thermometer that was devel- oped at the beginning of the eighteenth century as an improvement of the Amontons thermometer, and used to record the temperature in Bologna, Italy, from 1715 to 1737. The problems met with this instrument, its calibration and the building technology in the eighteenth century are discussed in order to correct the record. The used methodological approach constitutes a useful example for other early series. The analysis of this record shows that the temperature in Bologna was not different from the 1961–1990 reference period. This result is in line with the contemporary record taken in Padua, Italy, confirming that this period of the Little Ice Age was not cold in the Mediterranean area. 1 Introduction This paper deals with a unique 23-year record of a rather unknown air thermometer, early eighteenth century. The ancestor of the air thermometer, called thermoscope (Fig.1a), was invented at the end the sixteenth century and consisted of an air pocket whose volume changed with temperature or pressure changes. For this reason, quantitative measurements were impossible and the thermoscope was abandoned. One century later, Guillaume Amontons Climatic Change DOI 10.1007/s10584-016-1797-8 Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10584-016-1797-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Dario Camuffo d.camuffo@isac.cnr.it 1 National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (ISAC), Padua, Italy 2 Faculty of Architecture and Fine Art Department of Architectural Design, History and Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology – NTNU, Trondheim, Norway 3 National Research Council of Italy (CNR), Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (ISAC), Rome, Italy