| "And there it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner
to the Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and
Dominican licensers thought."
-John Milton, from Areopagitica (1644)*
|
Galileo's handmade wooden compass
(and the Masonic Compass beside it)
|
Index finger of Galileo's right hand. Detached from Galileo's hand in 1737 by Anton
Francesco Gori and the "Cult of Galileo." Now property of the Museo di Storia della
Scienza in Florence. |
| On the base the following verse by Thomas Perellius is inscribed:
"This is the finger with which the illustrious hand covered the heavens and indicated
their immense space. It pointed to new stars with the marvelous instrument, made of
glass, and revealed them to the senses. And thus it was able to reach what Titania
could never attain." |
Famous painting of Galileo and Milton by Annibale Gatti
Galileo showing Milton his telescope...
| The first edition of Galileo's most celebrated and controversial work -- DIALOGO --
his defense of the Copernican system and challenge to Aristotelian and classical
orthodoxy, which resulted in Galileo's trial by the Inquisition and his forced
abjurement of the Copernican 'heresy'. Written in the form of a discussion between
three friends, the book is, as John Carter has pointed out, "a masterly polemic for
the new science. It revels in the simplicity of Copernican thought and, above all, it
teaches that the movement of the earth makes sense in philosophy, that is, in
physics." |
|
