Melete was discovered by Hermann Goldschmidt from his balcony in Paris, on September 9, 1857.

Its orbit was computed by E. Schubert, who named it after Melete, the Muse of meditation in Greek mythology.

[6] In 1861, the brightness of 56 Melete was shown to vary by German astronomer Friedrich Tietjen.

[8] Photometric observations of this asteroid at the Palmer Divide Observatory in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 2007 gave a light curve with a period of 18.151 ± 0.002 hours and a brightness variation of 0.15 ± 0.02 in magnitude.

[9] To date, two stellar occultations by Melete have been observed successfully (in 1997 and again in 2002).