Discovered by N. Cacciatore on March 19, 1826. Independently found by James Dunlop on July 3, 1826. Nicolò Cacciatore (1780 - 1841) of the observatory in Palermo, Italy discovered this globular cluster on March 19, 1826, just a few months before James Dunlop independently found it on July 3 of the same year. Erroneously, Cacciatore first suspected this to be a "new nebula." John Herschel included it in his 1847 catalog as h 3725, and in his "General Catalogue" as GC 4372, which became NGC 6541 in J.L.E. Dreyer's New General Catalogue.