Galilæana. Studies in Renaissance and Early Modern Science

Paolo Rossi’s Legacy

Alessandra Lenzi — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

From chemical atomism to Lutheran orthodoxy

Gábor Förköli — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As a disciple of Daniel Sennert and an influential professor of medicine at the University of Wittenberg, Johann Sperling embraced his master’s compromise between atomism and peripatetic natural philosophy. This paper discusses the reception of his textbook entitled Synopsis physica (1640), by exploring a student’s notebook (1644-1645) composed at the Lutheran school of Eperjes (Prešov) in the Kingdom of Hungary. Studying this adaptation of Sperling’s textbook can help us understand the emerging need to train ministers and theologians locally, as Western universities became less accessible to Eastern protestants due to the Thirty Years War. In addition to being the first text professing chemical atomism in the Kingdom of Hungary, the manuscript employs natural philosophy and physics as guidelines to discuss scriptural and natural theology as well as religious anthropology. I will argue that both its atomism and its theological inquiry do justice to the capacity of intellectual peripheries to pragmatically handle the knowledge produced in intellectual centres.

Antonio Favaro and his correspondents

Michele Camerota — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Museo Galileo has recently published online the vast collection of Antonio Favaro’s manuscripts, documents, and letters (Thek@ Favaro). The value of this material for the reconstruction of Favaro’s crucial work – especially in the field of Galilean studies – is absolutely essential. This brief contribution, based on a talk given on September 10, 2021, at the Museo Galileo, outlines the editorial criteria adopted by the Edizione Nazionale of Galileo’s works, which Favaro carried out between 1890 and 1909. The paper also highlights the significance of Favaro’s extraordinary correspondence (over ten thousand letters) for a deeper understanding of the connections and collaborations among European historians of science from the late 19th to the early 20th century.

Antonio Favaro and the Edizione Nazionale of Galileo’s works. Survey of a digital collection

Sara Bonechi — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Sebastiano Timpanaro Snr., the first director of the Domus Galilaeana in Pisa, recognised that the philological and historical work of Antonio Favaro should be one of the principal concerns of the institute that had been entrusted to him at the beginning of the 1940s. He thus, together with Giovanni Gentile, the institute’s president, took action to ensure that the Domus acquired Favaro’s library and archive which were in the care of Favaro’s son Giuseppe. The delays due to the worsening effects of the war and the unexpected deaths of Timpanaro and Gentile prevented the material, following its acquisition, from being used for a systematic study. Now the Theka@Favaro, curated by the Museo Galileo, carries forward this original intention through the use of modern computer technology. It constitutes a multifaceted digital library capable of providing anybody interested with first-hand material together with useful tools for its interpretation and contextualisation.

"A radical relationship with the world of nature". Natural History Collecting in the Modern Age

Oreste Trabucco — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Essay review of Giuseppe Olmi, Arte e scienza lungo la via Emilia. Storia naturale, illustrazioni e collezioni nell’età moderna. Florence: Edifir, 2022.

Vincenzo Viviani: the portrait regained

Federico Tognoni — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The paper brings to light an original portrait of Vincenzo Viviani found in a private collection in Florence. A head-size canvas (tela da testa) which may be identified with one of the portraits of the mathematician painted by Giusto Suttermans, the official court portraitist of the Medici family. Through the study of the Flemish painter’s life written by Filippo Baldinucci and, especially, thanks to the inscription on the back of the canvas, it seems possible to identify the portrait as that owned by the Senator Giovan Battista Clemente Nelli, then printed by Francesco Allegrini for the Serie di ritratti di uomini illustri con gli elogj dei medesimi, which was released in four folio volumes between 1766 and 1773 by the publisher Giuseppe Allegrini.

Il Saggiatore at 400. An early modern controversy and its legacy. Introduction

Dario Tessicini — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The text is a short introduction to Galilei’s Il Saggiatore and to the essays in the Focus. Il Saggiatore was published in response to a cometary dispute started in 1619 by the publication of the Jesuit Orazio Grassi’s De tribus cometis disputatio. Il Saggiatore challenged Grassi’s methodology and results, as well as prevailing beliefs about comets. The text also served as a cultural platform for Galilei and the Accademia dei Lincei. It ignited debates, prompted a response from Grassi, and led to personal attacks on Galileo, further straining his relations with the Jesuits. The volume also faced accusations of supporting Copernicanism and atomism. Four centuries later, Galileo’s work continues to inspire reflection on its cultural and intellectual significance: this Focus provides multiple viewpoints on the controversies that accompanied Il Saggiatore and its aftermath.

Baccio del Bianco and the artistic fortuna of Galileo’s Il Saggiatore

Eva Struhal — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This contribution takes into consideration Galileo’s Il Saggiatore as an overlooked source for the arts in Florence during the first part of the seventeenth century. I focus on the Florentine polymath Baccio del Bianco (1604-1657), an artist, engineer, architect, and caricaturist, whose interaction with Galileo was documented by the Florentine biographer Baldinucci. Baccio had also collaborated with Galileo’s friend, the architect and astronomer Giovanni Pieroni. My contribution especially highlights the confluence of artistic and natural philosophical perspectives in the cultural fortuna of Galileo’s treatise. The influence of Il Saggiatore on Baccio del Bianco’s work is exemplified by the decoration of the Camera della Notte e del Dì of Casa Buonarroti, designed in close dialogue with Michelangelo Buonarroti il Giovane. At a closer look, also Baccio’s caricatures are revealed as reflections on (human) nature endowed with the same authority as Galileo’s approach.

The burden of Galileo's controversy: the Jesuit revisiting of the Aristotelian cosmos in Collegio Romano (1618-1677)

Luís Miguel Carolino — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

While studying the controversy between Galileo and the Jesuits over the comets of 1618, historians tend to focus on the works that led to the publication of Il Saggiatore in 1623. This article demonstrates that the echoes of this controversy resounded even through the Collegio Romano far beyond the publication of Galileo's masterpiece. Here the professors of philosophy and mathematics had striven for decades to maintain - against Galileo - the Aristotelian principle that the heavens were ontologically superior to the terrestrial region. Even after adhering to Tycho Brahe’ planetary model as well as to the idea of celestial fluidity, they persisted in arguing that there could be no corruption in the celestial region. Hence, by accepting Tycho’s astronomical theories the seventeenth-century professors of the Collegio Romano did actually reject the Ptolemaic astronomical framework, but not necessarily the very core of the Aristotelian cosmology. The Collegio Romano remained the champion of philosophical orthodoxy within the Jesuit educational network.

Assaying Il Saggiatore, with a delicate and precise bibliographical balance

Nick Wilding, Jason W. Dean — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Il Saggiatore is bibliographically more complex than it might seem at first sight: copies can vary wildly in their parts and materials. The first edition has been repeatedly misdescribed in the book trade, with a fictitious “first issue” claiming chronological and monetary priority. The authors examine both a wide sample of copies and all the available supplementary documentation to establish the most useful way to describe and understand individual copies, and the entire edition, of this book.

Galileo, Simon Marius and Dutch nationalism

Albert Van Helden, Eileen Reeves, Huib Zuidervaart — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In 1898 the Dutch Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen issued a prize question asking for an evaluation of Galileo’s charge of plagiarism laid by Galileo against Simon Marius concerning the discovery of the satellites of Jupiter. The only submission defended Galileo, and the editor of the Society’s journal, Johannes Bosscha (1831-1911), then took it on himself to defend Marius and attack Galileo, whom he saw as a usurper of the credit rightfully belonging to the Dutch engineer and scientist Simon Stevin (1548-1620). Bosscha’s extreme nationalistic arguments are analyzed in this paper.

Owen Gingerich (1930-2023): astronomer, historian, metaphysician

Miguel Á. Granada — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Obituary in memory of Owen Gingerich.