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Galileo's legacy: a critical edition and translation of the manuscript of Vincenzo Viviani's Grati Animi Monumenta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2017

STEFANO GATTEI
STEFANO GATTEI*
Affiliation:
California Institute of Technology, USA. Email: sgattei@caltech.edu.
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Abstract

Having been found ‘vehemently suspected of heresy’ by the Holy Office in 1633, at the time of his death (1642) Galileo's remains were laid to rest in the tiny vestry of a lateral chapel of the Santa Croce Basilica, Florence. Throughout his life, Vincenzo Viviani, Galileo's last disciple, struggled to have his master's name rehabilitated and his banned works reprinted, as well as a proper funeral monument erected. He did not live to see all this come true, but his efforts triggered a mechanism that eventually led to the fulfilment of his wishes. A key element of his project was the transformation of the facade of his palace into a private (but publicly rendered) tribute to Galileo, with two long inscriptions celebrating Galileo's achievements and calling Florence's attention to the need to pay a proper tribute to him. Shortly afterwards, he revised the text and circulated it in print. This article presents the first critical edition and annotated translation of Viviani's original manuscript, long thought to be lost, and describes its role in Viviani's lifelong struggle for Galileo's intellectual legacy, as well as its impact on future historiography.

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Research Article
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The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , June 2017, pp. 181 - 228
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Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 2017 

Galileo Galilei passed away on 8 January 1642, in his Villa ‘Il Gioiello’, in the hills of Arcetri, just a few kilometres to the south of Florence city centre. In his (second and last) will, dated 21 August 1638, he expressed the wish to be buried in the Santa Croce Basilica, where his father Vincenzo and other members of his family were buried.Footnote 1

Accordingly, the day after his death, the body was quietly moved to Santa Croce, and laid to rest – not with his father and ancestors,Footnote 2 in the central nave of the basilica, however, but in the tiny vestry of a chapel on the right-hand side of the transept. Given the circumstances, no grand ceremony was held, nor were official speeches or commemorations delivered: the casket was accompanied by Galileo's son Vincenzo, the parish priest of San Matteo in Arcetri, Galileo's last pupil Vincenzo Viviani, Evangelista Torricelli, and a few relatives. The Grand Duke was in Pisa and did not attend the burial, nor did other prominent members of the court, or any other dignitaries from the city of Florence. Needless to say, no high representatives of the Church hierarchies were there either.

There were good reasons for that, of course. Galileo died while under house arrest, having been found ‘vehemently suspected of heresy’,Footnote 3 and forced to recant his Copernican sins. Discretion was advised in order not to annoy the Church hierarchies, who could prevent the burial of Galileo's body in the basilica. In fact, as soon as Giordano Bolognetti, the Vatican's nuncio in Florence, got to know about the Grand Duke's plan to have a proper funeral monument erected in Santa Croce, he hurried to inform Francesco Barberini – Pope Urban VIII's cardinal-nephew – who in turn gave precise instructions to Giovanni Muzzarelli, the Florence inquisitor. Barberini's letter is worth reading in full:

Most Reverend Father,

Monsignor Assessor read aloud, before His Holiness, Your Reverence's letter, announcing the death of Galileo Galilei and mentioning what he believed should be done both about the tomb and the funeral service. Having listened to the opinions of these Most Eminent people, His Beatitude decided that you, with your usual adroitness, should be sure to let it come to the Grand Duke's ears that it is not good to erect mausoleums to the corpse of someone who was sentenced by the Tribunal of the Holy Inquisition, and died while enduring the sentence: because decent people might be scandalized, to the detriment of His Highness's piety. But in case you could not prevent this plan, you should pay attention that the epitaph, or inscription, which will be placed on the tomb, should not include words that might offend this Tribunal's reputation. And you should treat him who will deliver the funeral eulogy similarly, too, paying attention to read and examine it carefully, before it is delivered or printed. His Holiness entrusts the wise discretion of Your Reverence with sorting out this matter. And may God preserve you.

From Rome, 25 January 1642

As the brother of Your Reverence,

Cardinal BarberiniFootnote 4

The plan for a sumptuous funeral monument for the Grand Duke's primary mathematician and philosopher lasted but a few days, and the humble temporary burial in the narrow vestry to the Chapel of the Novitiate (otherwise known as the Medici Chapel) was to remain Galileo's burial place for nearly a century.Footnote 5

Viviani's Racconto Istorico (1654)

The undisputed champion of resurrecting the plan was Galileo's last direct and most devoted disciple, Vincenzo Viviani (1622–1703). Throughout his life, he tried his best to preserve the memory of his master's life, discoveries and achievements, as well as to publish and circulate his works. The erection of a public funeral monument in Santa Croce was part and parcel of this project, for a proper monument would bear the double meaning both of recalling the importance of Galileo's works, highlighting their superiority with respect to traditional scientific and philosophical ideas, and of claiming the liberty to build on them, extending them to other contexts. The image of Galileo heretic, as it sprang from the 1633 trial, was a clear obstacle to this – hence the key strategic, as well as psychological and political, relevance of a proper funeral monument for Galileo in Italy's most celebrated pantheon.

In Viviani's eyes, however, redeeming his master's reputation did not only mean defending Galileo from his detractors: it also meant, first and foremost, claiming his true and profound pietas. In the Racconto Istorico, Viviani's biography of Galileo (published posthumously in 1717, but actually written in 1654Footnote 6 ), he claimed that Galileo was wrong in not presenting the Copernican picture of the world on a purely hypothetical level; accordingly, the Church rightfully called attention to his mistake, and asked him to recant. The Holy Office sentenced Galileo to house arrest for life, and ordered inquisitors not to license the reprinting of any of his works, nor anything new he wished to publish (de omnibus editis et edendis).Footnote 7 Still, in the Racconto Istorico Viviani almost likens Galileo to the lost sheep in the parable we read in the Gospels of Matthew (18:12–14) and Luke (15:3–7), brought back home by the good shepherd. In Viviani's words,

he was confined in the most beautiful palace in Trinità dei Monti, the residence of the Tuscan ambassador, and having been shown his mistake, he promptly retracted his opinion, like a true Catholic. As a punishment, however, his Dialogue was prohibited, and after five months (during which the city of Florence was infected by the plague) he was dismissed from Rome; and with an act of generous compassion he was destined, for his house arrest, to the residence of Archbishop Monsignor Piccolomini, the dearest and most esteemed friend he had in Siena. Galileo enjoyed with such tranquillity and satisfaction the exchanges he had with him, that he resumed his studies, found and proved most of his mechanical propositions on the resistance of solids, as well as other conjectures. And after approximately five months, the plague having completely stopped in his homeland, at the beginning of December 1633, His Holiness turned the confinement to that house into the liberty of the countryside, which Galileo greatly enjoyed …Footnote 8

Furthermore, having received news that some of his works and manuscripts, which he had written while still wrongly convinced of the truth of ‘Aristarchus's and Copernicus's opinion’, were being circulated, translated and published abroad, ‘he was greatly disheartened’: for, ‘thanks to the authority of the Roman censorship, he had catholically abandoned [that opinion]’, and also benefited from ‘the healthy gift infinite providence kindly decided to award him with, by releasing him from such a terrible mistake’.Footnote 9

Some scholars tend to read Viviani with some benevolence, ascribing to his words a ‘purely instrumental’ meaning.Footnote 10 In their eyes, Viviani – in agreement with the Grand Duke Ferdinand II (1610–1670) and his brother Cardinal Leopoldo (1617–1675) – attempted a conciliatory approach that, while giving in on the crucial issue of the status of the new science, aimed at neutralizing Galileo's alleged heresy, thereby removing what was regarded as the major obstacle to the circulation and understanding of Galileo's thought and works. In other words, in sharp contrast with the image of Galileo as a martyr to libertas philosophandi, which spread throughout Europe, and particularly in France, Viviani's image of Galileo was that of the promoter of a radically new philosophy, which, however, Viviani did his best to present in a non-traumatic way. However new Galileo's science was, its inventor had always deferred to religious authorities, and was fully aware of the limitations and temporary nature of every human endeavour.

Accordingly, Viviani promoted the publication of the first collection of Galileo's works, in order to make them once again available to scholars and laymen alike. Particularly important was the inclusion of the Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems (published in 1632 and prohibited in 1633), which would be read in a new and reassuring light: not as the authoritative statement of the truth of the Copernican hypothesis, that is, but as an important, although human and thereby intrinsically fallible, attempt at a novel understanding of cosmology. In this way, Viviani hoped to present a new image of Galileo as a Christian hero of science: restored to faith by the acknowledgement of his mistakes, purged by a sincere act of contrition, and intimately and fervently obedient to the Church.

Palazzo dei Cartelloni (1693)

As years went by, however, Viviani realized that his efforts were unlikely to succeed. In 1655–1656, he managed to publish (under the editorship of Carlo Manolessi, in Bologna) the first, two-volume edition of Galileo's collected works, but failed to get approval to include the Dialogue and the other Copernican works. In September 1674, Viviani seemed to be giving up his original plan to move Galileo's remains to a more prominent place in the Santa Croce Basilica, and sought the complicity of friar Gabriele Pierozzi to decorate the humble burial place by adding a celebratory inscription, as well as a bust of Galileo drawn from a sculpture (now lost) by renowned sculptor Giovanni Caccini. The inscription had been ready for some twenty years, for Viviani used the one he had published at the very beginning of the 1655–1656 edition of Galileo's collected works.Footnote 11

On 7 December 1689, aged sixty-seven, Viviani drew up his will, with which he bequeathed his heirs the money and goods he thought would be required to erect a proper funeral monument for Galileo, facing Michelangelo's, adorned with an inscription celebrating his discoveries and achievements.Footnote 12 As to his own body, he added, he wished it to be buried

in the … church of Santa Croce, below the above-mentioned statue and monument to the Great Galileo, or else to the side or below his bones, whenever they are moved there. In the meanwhile, until the above-mentioned plan is accomplished, he [the testator] wants and orders that his body temporarily be laid next to that of Galileo …Footnote 13

He never lost hope, and kept polishing the inscription to be carved in the final monument. He grew increasingly aware, though, that his original plan would not be fulfilled in the few more years he was likely to live. If no public monument was to be erected, however, he eventually resolved to create a private one – one that could be enjoyed, and benefited from, publicly.

Having bought a residence in what is now via S. Antonino (formerly via dell'Amore) 11, in proximity of the church of Santa Maria Novella (at a short walking distance from what is now Florence's central railway station), he entrusted his friend Giovan Battista Nelli, a well-known architect, to restore the palace and turn its facade into a monument to Galileo's discoveries and achievements. Nelli designed the facade to present, at its very centre, above the main entrance door, a bust of Galileo (by eminent artist Giovan Battista Foggini, a friend of Nelli's); next to it, two bas-reliefs celebrating Galileo's telescopic discoveries (on the left-hand side) and his achievements in physics and mechanics (on the right): these were clear references to the Sidereus Nuncius (1610) and Two New Sciences (1638), both of which were included in the 1655–1656 edition of Galileo's collected works.Footnote 14

What were meant to impress and arouse the attention of passers-by, however, were two enormous scagliola scrolls (hence the name by which the palace is referred to: Palazzo dei Cartelloni), on each side of the facade: a ‘historical account, written in form of elogia’, to use Salvino Salvini's expression (Figure 1).Footnote 15 The inscriptions were painted, not carved, and the lower lines are now barely readable, due to time, weather and pollution (not to mention the municipality's indifference). We can reconstruct the text by appealing to the printed text published by Viviani.Footnote 16

Figure 1.

Facade of Viviani's palace (known as the Palazzo dei Cartelloni), in via S. Antonino 11, Florence. Photo by Stefano Gattei.

The printed version

Viviani published a printed version of the text of the inscriptions as a section appended to his last scientific publication, De Locis Solidis (1701). In 1702 he published the same text in small booklet form: Grati Animi Monumenta. In fact, these two editions were simultaneous, for the text published as a sort of appendix to De Locis Solidis dates to 1702 (see the ‘Monitum lectori’, translated below). And indeed, the expression grati animi monumenta in the title of the booklet appears in the ‘Monitum lectori’ of the De Locis Solidis too.

As we know from the title page of Grati Animi Monumenta, the inscriptions were actually placed on the facade of Palazzo dei Cartelloni in 1693.Footnote 17 In the ‘Advice for the reader’ (‘Monitum lectori’) introducing the section of De Locis Solidis presenting the inscriptions, we read that the job was done very quickly, and this might well be the reason for a number of errors that we find in the inscriptions themselves. Indeed, the reason why Viviani decided to revise the original text, and leave for posterity, in print, a more elegant and polished one, is likely to be found in the urgency he felt to produce the text of the inscriptions in the first place, and in the dissatisfaction he possibly felt about them later on. The ‘Monitum lectori’ offers a compact history of the text:

Behold, dear Reader, in this year 1702, the engraving of the facade and the inscriptions of the House GIVEN BY GOD,Footnote 18 whence is brought to light this Second Geometrical Divination,Footnote 19 which the author wrote fifty-six years ago, and now appears as it was printed twenty-nine years ago. Here you can find the memorials of a grateful soul: to the most powerful King of France LOUIS THE GREAT, thanks to whose most generous gifts this house was built and restored; to the Royal Highnesses of the Medici Family, most gentle patrons, whose lavish generosity the author has experienced ever since he was sixteen years old;Footnote 20 and to GALILEO, most beloved teacher, to whom the author declares he owes the results he achieved in geometry, however little they are. Hence, wishing to leave a testimony of such great benevolence to posterity, and realizing that, due to advancing age, debilitating health conditions and the approaching threat of death, all other ways are hindered, in 1693 AD, he [the author] ordered that these elogia be inscribed, as quickly as possible, on the facade of this very house. Now, in order that this expression of his grateful soul may forever also reach foreigners, who do not travel, he saw it through the press, as you can see – so that (in case these elogia might be scratched off, either by time all-consuming, or by decision of those who inherit this house, in order to replace them with others) they might remain indelible in the memory of educated people.Footnote 21

As we read on the title page of De Locis Solidis, the book was written in 1646, and printed by Ippolito Navesi in Florence, in 1673.Footnote 22 The printed sheets lay with the publisher for nearly two decades, as Viviani was attending other works,Footnote 23 as well as planning to ‘divine’ all Five Books Concerning Solidi Loci Pappus of Alexandria (fourth century AD) credited to Aristaeus the Elder (fourth century BC) in his Collection.Footnote 24 In 1701, sensing that he was approaching the end of his life, Viviani decided to publish everything he had written (that is, his divination of the first three books by Aristaeus), in order not to leave his work unpublished.Footnote 25 Thus he recovered the (possibly yet uncollated) sheets printed in 1673, and added two more quires, Oo and Pp, each of four folia (eight pages), containing the addenda to the three books he had divined in 1673, as indicated on the title page, and the errata (addenda to books I–III: pp. 105–116 = ff. Oo 1r–Pp 2v; errata: pp. 117–118 = f. Pp 3r–v). On page 119 (= f. Pp 4r) is the imprimatur, requested on 6 August 1673, and granted a few days later, on 11 August: this is the last printed page of the book, as page 120 (= f. Pp 4v) was left blank. Viviani also added two quires at the front of the book, each of six folia (twelve pages), indicated with ✠ and ✠†, including the half title, the title page, and Viviani's Preface to ‘Beginner geometers’ (dated 1 August 1701).

For reasons unknown, the book was not immediately circulated, but remained with the publisher until the beginning of 1702, when Viviani decided to append new material: an additional eight-page quire (Qq), with the text of the inscriptions; the ‘Monitum lectori’, printed on the last page of the previous quire (page 120 = f. Pp 4v), which had been left blank; and three engraved plates, with Galileo's bust (by Foggini), the facade of the Palazzo dei Cartelloni, and the location (indicated by letters A–H) of the various parts of the inscriptions on the facade of the palace. Had Viviani considered inserting these two plates and the text of the inscriptions as soon as he decided to publish De Locis Solidis, he would have certainly mentioned them in the title page of the book. Since he did not, he possibly decided to do that at the very last minute, also using the last (blank) page of the book to add an explanatory note, namely the ‘Monitum lectori’.

Grati Animi Monumenta bears no date on the title page, but it was likely printed more or less simultaneously with De Locis Solidis: the setting of types is identical, but page numbers and quire identifications were changed (from pages 121–128 = ff. Qq 1r–4v to pages 1–8 = ff. A 1r–4v). Almost certainly, once quire Qq was added to De Locis Solidis, the same form was used to print the booklet, too, with due changes of page numbers and quire identification. A full eight-page quire, Grati Animi Monumenta lacks the ‘Monitum lectori’, and offers a distinct title page instead, with a blank verso; also, the lower half of the last page (page 8 = f. A 4v) presents an engraved decoration, instead of the text of the imprimatur, as published in the De Locis Solidis, page 128 (= f. Qq 4v). Moreover, whereas in the ‘Monitum lectori’ of the De Locis Solidis the dedicatees are listed as Louis XIV, the Medici family, and Galileo, in the title page of the Grati Animi Monumenta (as well as in Section B of the manuscript) the order of the dedicatees is different: first comes Galileo, followed by the Medici family, and then Louis XIV. Together with the absence of the imprimatur and date of publication, this detail might support the conjecture that the Grati Animi Monumenta was likely published to be distributed and circulated more ‘privately’.

Furthermore, as the imprimatur is granted to the work ‘whose title is Vincenzo Viviani's etc.’ (cui titulus est Vincentii Viviani etc.), we have to assume that Viviani's manuscript had originally a title. The formulation ‘Vincentii Viviani etc.’ suggests ‘Vincentii Viviani Grati animi monumenta’, rather than ‘Vincentii Viviani Inscriptiones …’; if this is the case, we would have to reverse the printing sequence described above, and suggest that Viviani first considered an autonomous publication of the text (privately circulated), and later decided to append it to the De Locis Solidis too.

The printed version differs greatly (in both length and detail) from the inscriptions we still see on the facade of Palazzo dei Cartelloni. The differences were first noted by Eugenio Albèri, editor of the so-called ‘Florentine edition’ of Galileo's collected works, published in fifteen volumes, with a supplement, between 1842 and 1856. Albèri described them as minor:Footnote 26 possibly he never actually undertook the task of comparing the two texts word by word, as Paolo Galletti (1851–1914), the owner of the collection of Galileiana preserved at the Torre del Gallo in Florence (at Pian de’ Giullari, on the hills of Arcetri – see below), later did. He highlighted ‘striking differences’ between the printed and painted versions of the text, and called Favaro's attention to them.Footnote 27 As a consequence, in 1879, Favaro decided to publish (in parallel columns) the printed text and the text of the inscriptions on the Palazzo dei Cartelloni. The text of the inscriptions published by Favaro was a transcription provided by Galletti.Footnote 28 Galletti also provided Favaro with a transcription of the manuscript of the Grati Animi Monumenta: indeed, the manuscript (also including the imprimatur, on f. 7v) belonged to Galletti's collection, and Galletti thought it to be in Viviani's own handwriting. Favaro used Galletti's transcription to point out, in a few footnotes, some variants of the manuscript from the printed text.Footnote 29

However interesting, a thorough study of these texts and their differences is impossible here.Footnote 30 In what follows, I will be presenting the original manuscript of Viviani's revised text, which was thought to be lost after the dispersion of the collection following Galletti's death.Footnote 31 Recently, I discovered it in London, in the collections of the Wellcome Library, which purchased a significant portion of Galletti's collection. Contrary to what Galletti (and Favaro, relying on him) believed, the manuscript is not Viviani's holograph, but a fair copy prepared by a professional copyist, revised by Viviani, and submitted to the inquisitors for the imprimatur. I am here presenting its very first critical edition and complete translation.

The manuscript

As I said, Viviani's original manuscript for the printed version of the inscriptions on the facade of the Palazzo dei Cartelloni was one of the most cherished items in Galletti's collection, the most important collection of Galileiana of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Footnote 32 As years went by, however, increasing debts forced Galletti to sell a few documents to the National Central Library of Florence, and Torre del Gallo itself had to be auctioned in 1901. Galletti managed to keep most of his Galileo collection together, though, and in 1910 he again set up a small museum in the rooms of his Florentine residence.

At the time of Galletti's death, on 5 September 1914, the plan for a permanent Galileo Museum he had been hoping to establish in Torre del Gallo was abandoned once and for all.Footnote 33 The collection was eventually sold on the antiquarian market, and scattered in public libraries and private collections. Among the dispersed items was Viviani's original manuscript of the printed text of the inscriptions for the Palazzo dei Cartelloni, which belonged to a significant portion of Galletti's collection.

The manuscript consists of eight leaves (folio, 30.5 × 21 cm; last leaf blank), unbound, with no page or folio numbers; the correct sequence of folios is indicated by catchwords; f. 1r–v presents the cover sheet, ff. 2r–7r the text, and f. 7v the imprimatur (Figure 2). As said, it belonged to Paolo Galletti's collection of Galileiana, and was purchased by Sir Henry Wellcome in 1929. It is currently available at the Wellcome Library, Ms. 4949. The manuscript dates to late July or early August 1701, as the request for the imprimatur is dated 9 August 1701 (see below, f. 7v); the final imprimatur was likely granted a few days later, given the short length of the text (although it might have taken a few weeks to obtain).Footnote 34

Figure 2.

W, f. 7v: imprimatur granted by the inquisitors to Viviani's text (Wellcome Library, London, Ms. 4949).

When, in his ‘Inedita Galilaeiana’ (1879), Favaro published the texts of Grati Animi Monumenta and of the inscriptions on the Palazzo dei Cartelloni in parallel columns, he was relying on a copy Galletti had provided him with. In fact, Favaro never examined or saw the original manuscript:

The holograph manuscript of the inscriptions, with the Inquisitor's corrections and the imprimatur, has come down to us, and is one of the most precious items of the collection of Galileiana Count Paolo Galletti, the present owner of Torre del Gallo, has so lovingly assembled in it. Thanks to the courtesy of this distinguished gentleman … we had a copy of the precious document, and were granted the permission to make use of it, which we very gladly do.Footnote 35

The manuscript was presented to Favaro as Viviani's holograph manuscript. And when Henry Wellcome purchased it, he relied on Galletti's notes, or on a description accompanying the manuscript – and he believed it was Viviani's holograph manuscript, too. Indeed, as we read in the library's Catalogue of Western Manuscripts,

4949. – Inscription in Latin composed by Viviani, in honour of Galileo, which was placed over his bust, and on both sides of the door of his house in the Via S. Antonino in Florence in 1693. Author's holograph MS., with original ‘Imprimatur’ from the Ecclesiastical Authorities, dated 1701.

8 ll. (last bl.). folio. 30½ × 21 cm. Florence, 1693–1701.

Unbound.

From the Galletti Collection.

Purchased 1929. (52348H)Footnote 36

When I identified Ms. 4949 at the Wellcome Library as the manuscript of Viviani's 1702 appendix to De Locis Solidis and Grati Animi Monumenta, mentioned by Favaro in 1879, I also first assumed that it was Viviani's holograph manuscript. But a palaeographic and philological examination allows me to state with absolute certainty that it is not so. Ms. 4949 (= W) is, in fact, a fair copy of Viviani's holograph manuscript in the handwriting of a professional copyist, and later revised by Viviani himself.

As to the palaeographic examination, I compared W with Viviani's holograph manuscripts (whose authorship cannot be disputed) at the National Central Library in Florence, namely Gal. 203 (containing Viviani's annotations and draft versions for sections of De Locis Solidis) and Gal. 206 (containing Viviani's translations from Apollonius). The result of this comparison is that no typical traits of Viviani's handwriting (see Figure 3 = Gal. 203, f. 15r) are to be found in W; and, conversely, no typical traits of the hand who wrote W (see Figure 4 = f. 2v) are to be found in Viviani's holograph manuscripts – even if we take into account the distinctly cursive handwriting of Gal. 203 and 206 (particularly the former), and the very steady handwriting of W, which might have modified some traits of the handwritings, thereby making the comparison problematic.

Figure 3.

Gal. 203, f. 15r: sheet from Viviani's mathematical annotations (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence).

Figure 4.

W, f. 2v: sheet from Viviani's text, in the copyist's handwriting, with occasional corrections by Viviani (Wellcome Library, London, Ms. 4949).

The results of the palaeographic examination are fully supported by the philological examination: W presents scribal errors – that is, purely mechanical errors – which by no means might be regarded as authorial errors. They are indicated in the critical apparatus of the Latin text; here is a list of the most relevant passages, accompanied by brief explanatory remarks, so as to make the understanding of the apparatus easier:Footnote 37

52. per lege W ante corr. : perlege W post corr.

The variant ‘per lege’ is grammatically impossible.

55. dem W ante corr. : de W post corr.

It is impossible that Viviani wrote ‘Galilaeo dem Galilaeis’; the error is clearly due to the mistaken interpretation of ‘de’ (with a long final stroke, curling upwards) for ‘dē’ – that is, ‘dem’.

60. causam W ante corr. : causâ W post corr.

This error is very similar to the previous one: the copyist mistook the macron indicating the ablative case for the abbreviation used for a word ending in -m; the outcome is a text that is syntactically wrong.

63. Quid dum W ante corr. : Qui dum W post corr.

The variant ante corr. is a dittography of the initial letter of ‘dum’.

65. opticij W ante corr. : optici W post corr. s.l.

It is impossible that Viviani wrote ‘opticij’, which does not exist.

66. instrumentis structuram W ante corr. : instrumenti structuram W post corr.

This error is analogous to that in note 63.

67. meritò Galilaeo W ante corr. : meritò Galilaei W post corr.

Error due to desinence assimilation.

74. osseruationes W ante corr. : obseruationes W post corr.

Italianism.

76. motus, aspectus W ante corr. : motus aspectu W post corr.

Error due to desinence assimilation, producing an error of punctuation.

81. praemis W ante corr. : praemiis W post corr.

The variant ante corr. does not exist.

83. effemeridas W ante corr. : ephemeridas W post corr.

Italianism.

87. Catolico W ante corr. : Catholico W post corr.

Italianism.

93. duplice lente W ante corr. : duplici lente W post corr.

Desinence assimilation.

116. essoluenda W ante corr. : exsoluenda W post corr.

Italianism.

128. auguste W ante corr. : augustæ W post corr.

Error of ‘dictée intérieure’.Footnote 38

129. prepetua W

This error escaped the rereading of the text, and is due to the mistaken interpretation of the abbreviation for per.

150. additis W ante corr. : abditis W post corr.

Trivialization.

166. Mense W ante corr. : Mensæ W post corr.

Error of ‘dictée intérieure’.

171. cultorem W ante corr. : Cultore W post corr.

Error due to the mistaken interpretation of the macron ē (see note 60).

Clearly, these are scribal errors that support the conclusion of my analysis: W is not Viviani's holograph manuscript.

Once the fair copy was ready, Viviani revised it: his handwriting is clearly recognizable from the correction of Section C of the text. Favaro ascribed this correction to censorship,Footnote 39 but this interpretation is hardly correct. Indeed, the text written on the left margin differs from the one written in the first handwriting (and later crossed out) with respect to only two instances: ‘complessum’ corrected into ‘Complexum’, and ‘Par est’ corrected into ‘Credibile’. And there is no reason why the inquisitor should have rewritten the whole of Section C, instead of simply crossing out ‘Par est’ and replacing it with ‘Credibile’.

Favaro further ascribed the deletion of the words ‘sanctitatem redolentis’ (see apparatus, note 109) to censorship:Footnote 40 again, however, it is more likely an authorial correction; that is, Viviani's own correction of the fair copy provided by the copyist. In fact, in the final annotations related to the imprimatur, the inquisitor explicitly states that he ‘did not find anything against the law of God and good morals’ (‘nec aliquid contra legem Dei, et bonis moribus inueni’Footnote 41 ).

I believe the correction of Section C of the text (Figure 5) might be ascribed to Viviani on the basis of the following palaeographic analysis:

  • • the ending -s in the shape of an oblique stroke: ‘Tellus’; see Gal. 203, f. 10v, line 23: ‘excusationes’ (Figure 6); f. 11r, line 8: ‘quas’ (Figure 7); f. 14r, line 1: ‘Locus’ (Figure 8)

  • • r straight: ‘Astra’, ‘Mare’, ‘profunda’; see Gal. 203, f. 11r, line 3: ‘inter’ (Figure 9); line 6: ‘igitur’ (Figure 10).

  • • d with vertical stroke bent to the left, which enfolds at the bottom: ‘credibile’; see Gal. 203, f. 11r, line 8: ‘decimæ’ (Figure 11); f. 11r, line 9: ‘adinueni’ (Figure 12); f. 22r, line 2: ‘eiusdem’ (Figure 13); f. 22r, line 4: ‘eadem’ (Figure 14).

  • • D with straight inclined stroke and bent stroke that curls to the left: ‘Deo’; see Gal. 203, f. 14r, line 4 ab imo: DG (Figure 15); f. 14r, line 4 ab imo: ID, DF (Figure 16).

  • • L with the upper stroke distinctly bent and the lower stroke corrugated, which goes below the line: ‘Lyncæus’; see Gal. 206, f. 3v, last line: ‘Le’ (Figure 17).

Figure 5.

W, f. 2r, detail: Section C of Viviani's text, in the copyist's handwriting, crossed out and rewritten by Viviani (Wellcome Library, London, Ms. 4949).

To Viviani is further to be ascribed the correction ‘optici’, which can be read above ‘opticij’ (W, f. 2v, line 11 = note 65 = Figure 18):

  • • ligature of ti in the shape of a baseless triangle: see Gal. 203, f. 10v, line 15: ‘ultimo’ (Figure 19).

  • • p in the shape of a small r with downward double stroke: see Gal. 203, f. 11r, line 7: ‘appello’ (Figure 20).

On the basis of this comparative examination, I believe we might well ascribe to Viviani also other corrections for which the palaeographic comparison is very difficult, or impossible, as they consist of rewritings of individual letters.

In order to clearly distinguish the copyist of W from its author–corrector (i.e. Viviani), I use W to indicate the text as written by the copyist, and V to indicate Viviani's corrections.

As to deletions, most of them are certainly due to the copyist, who realized he anticipated or misunderstood a word, or the beginning of a word, and corrected it in scribendo. Of course, in these cases, the correction is ascribed to W:

  1. 61. post quod scr. et del. E W

  2. 84. post proprios scr. et del. Oty W

  3. 94. post dono scr. et del. M W

  4. 97. post tum scr. et del. in W

  5. 102. post ob scr. et del. aureas (?) W

  6. 114. post Quod scr. et del. Hin W

  7. 117. post acquisita scr. et del. prose W

  8. 119. post alieno scr. et del. sol W

  9. 121. post Genitoribus scr. et del. et W

  10. 143. post Annus, scr. et del. ora W

  11. 159. post suo scr. et del. Anno a Christo W

  12. 163. post quarta scr. et del. ns W

In two instances, by contrast, the deletion is certainly due to Viviani, as it bears an authorial character:

  1. 109. uitæ santitatem redolentis W : sanctitatem redolentis del. V

  2. 112. abditis, ac Deo coaeuis W : ac Deo coaeuis del. V

In both these cases, the correction (also inserted in the printed versions of the text) might be due to caution, in order to avoid the inquisitor's intervention. Interestingly, the words deleted both in the manuscript and in the printed text are to be found in the inscriptions on the facade of Viviani's palace (with the variant redolens instead of redolentis).

Other errors escaped Viviani's revision of the fair copy, and were corrected in print (for abbreviations, see the editorial note below):

  1. 48. incædis W] incedis LM

  2. 62. Lotaringiam W] Lotharingiam LM

  3. 68. Aetera W] Æthera LM

  4. 72. creatos W] creatas LM

  5. 80. prenunciandos W] prænunciandos LM

  6. 86. Orologium W] Horologium LM

  7. 91. secretioria W] secretiora LM

  8. 92. Microscopij W] Microscopii ope LM

  9. 103. textatum W] testatum LM

  10. 104. Cosmi I. V] Cosmi primi W FERDIN. I. LM

  11. 111. Nonnullas W] Nonnulla LM

  12. 120. mærentibus W] merentibus LM

  13. 124. incoparabili W] incomparabili LM

  14. 129. prepetua W] perpetua LM

  15. 130. Prothoplasmate W] Protoplasmate LM

  16. 137. Antogonistarum W] Antagonistarum LM

  17. 142. ottaua W] octaua LM

  18. 147. preclare W] præclare LM

  19. 148. lætharis W] lætaris LM

  20. 164. astarunt W] adstarunt LM

  21. 165. Paroecie W] Parœciæ LM

In four instances, the error was not even corrected in print:

  1. 79. Idrographia W LM] deb. Hydrographia

  2. 90. Haeroicâ W LM] deb. heroicâ

  3. 136. uirtuti W LM] deb. uirtute

  4. 152. amantissimo W LM] deb. amantissimeFootnote 42

Finally, the manuscript (f. 4v, line 17) presents a correction that seems not to be ascribed either to the copyist or to Viviani:

  1. 110. eligere curauerit alia manu Wp.corr. LM] eligerit Wa.corr. (Figure 21)

Since, as was shown, the printed versions of the text (LM) present corrections that are not present in W, and W does not show any trace of typographical work, we have to conclude that W is not the printer's copy; rather, it is the model for the printer's copy: the latter is lost, as is often the case. A few elements might be attributed to the preparation of the printer's copy:

  • • underlining, which indicates the use of capital letters, as is evident from the comparison of W and LM;

  • • signs such as [, which indicate the beginning of a new paragraph: see ff. 2v: In Luna … In Sole; 4r: Et sicut … Archimedis … Ante alios; 4v: Quod hinc; 5r: Quod denique.

To conclude: W is not the holograph of Vincenzo Viviani's work, but its ‘idiograph’ (i.e. Viviani's authorized copy), whose relevance is naturally equal to that of an autograph, as it presents the text approved by the author. However, since an ‘idiograph’, as opposed to an autograph, may present – as, in fact, W does present – errors introduced by the copyist that escaped the author's revision, it requires a more complex philological analysis, due to the necessity of distinguishing the author's errors and corrections from the copyist's.

As to the text, the comparison of the manuscript and the printed version shows them to be basically identical: with the exception of the corrections mentioned above and a few minor changes, the printed version reproduces the manuscript faithfully.

The inscriptions are divided into six parts, identified with letters, from A to F. In A, Viviani refers to King Louis XIV of France (to whom De Locis Solidis is dedicated, too, with a dedication running on three in-folio pages), who had granted him a generous pension, with which Viviani possibly purchased his palace. In B, he addresses passers-by, inviting them to stop and read the inscriptions, paying attention and tribute to Galileo. C was meant to be placed just below the bust of Galileo, above the main entrance of the palace (of all the inscriptions, this is the only one that has completely faded away), and briefly introduces Galileo.

In D, the longest section of text, Viviani celebrates Galileo's scientific achievements: his telescopic observations (the rugged surface of the Moon, sunspots, the phases of Venus, tri-corporeal Saturn, the fixed stars constituting the Milky Way, Jupiter's satellites, and comets), his invention of the microscope, his studies of floating bodies and mechanics. Viviani also calls the reader's attention to Galileo's specific method, namely his ‘calling Geometry the wet nurse of Philosophy’.

E has a quite convoluted structure. After a brief reference to Galileo (as if continuing the discourse in D), Viviani speaks of himself, and remains the subject of the whole text that follows. Viviani introduces himself as ‘the very last disciple of so great a man’, and tells Galileo's moral teachings: the pursuit of truth and justice, of good and honesty. He then goes on to mention his patrons and supporters (Grand Dukes Ferdinand II and Cosimo III, from the Medici family, and Louis XIV, king of France), and concludes by referring to the bronze bust of Galileo at the top of the main entrance door, which he set up in 1693.

Lastly, in F, Viviani appeals to the city of Florence, calling the municipality and his fellow citizens to their duty to properly celebrate Galileo. Just as Florence celebrated Michelangelo, erecting a sumptuous funeral monument in a prominent place of the Santa Croce Basilica, so it must do with its other greatest child, Galileo. Viviani also calls the reader's attention to the continuity – under the learned and enlightened rule of the Medici family, at the same time protecting and promoting the arts and the sciences – between the two (alleging Michelangelo's death to have occurred on the very same day, almost at the very same hour, on which Galileo was born), as the loss of the restorer of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture was repaired by the generous gift of the renovator of Astronomy and Geometry.Footnote 43 It is the climax of Viviani's carefully structured rhetorical argument: before turning to telling the story of Galileo's pious and Catholic passing, with which F ends, Viviani suggests that Providence bestowed on Florence the greatest of privileges, and the city should respond by means of appropriate action, fully recognizing the divine gifts of both its extraordinary children.

In so doing, Viviani combined – in a single text – the exhortation to erect a proper funeral monument for Galileo, a celebration of the role played by the Medici rulers in the progress of the arts and the sciences, and the underlining of Florence's continued cultural primacy.

The printed version presents two additional texts, for inscriptions G and H, which are not included in W: indeed, they offer mere quotations from Virgil's Aeneid and Pope Urban VIII's ‘Adulatio perniciosa’ (both of which did not require the imprimatur: I provide the texts of these two inscriptions in footnote 241 below).

The aftermath

Viviani died in 1703, and was laid to rest beside his master, in the vestry of the Chapel of the Novitiate. He never saw the erection of a proper funeral monument to Galileo in Santa Croce, nor the republication of his banned works. His lifelong efforts (he was not even twenty years old when Galileo died, and was over eighty when he himself passed away) were not in vain, however, as they triggered a process that eventually led to the fulfilment of his wish.

The first step was taken in 1715, with the publication of the Lezioni Accademiche of Torricelli (Galileo's pupil), which was followed, in 1727, by the Florentine reprint of the Opera Omnia of Gassendi (a Galilean scholar whose piety was beyond doubt): both works called attention to the actual convergence of faith and the new science of Galileo. Most importantly, between these two editions came the publication of the second edition of Galileo's collected works (1718).Footnote 44 However, despite its support by a growing group of Catholic intellectuals who were engaged in the struggle to modernize the Church, overcoming the traditional hostility towards new philosophical and scientific ideas, the three volumes still lacked the Dialogue and the other Copernican works.

Eventually, after the death of Cosimo III, in 1721, things started to change, however slowly. With the support of a group of eminent intellectuals, his successor, Grand Duke Gian Gastone (1671–1737, the last Grand Duke of the Medici family), undertook the task of limiting the power and influence of the Church, and restoring to the state its full rights and independence. In 1737, Viviani's dream finally came true, and Galileo's body was exhumed and moved to the base of the new funeral monument, which was well under way and was eventually completed on 6 June 1737.Footnote 45

London, Wellcome Library, Ms. 4949 Critical edition and annotated translation of the Latin text Editorial note

I offer here the first critical edition of the original manuscript (W) of the printed text of the inscriptions on the facade of Viviani's palace, in Florence.

The present edition reproduces W – that is, the fair copy that Viviani revised – and indicates in the critical apparatus all changes the text underwent, ascribing them either to the copyist (W) or to the author (V) (with some margin of doubt, in a few cases). The apparatus offers all variants of the printed version of the text (L and M), with the following exceptions: use of capital/small initials (unless Viviani corrected the text); ae/æ, oe/œ, i/j, u/v, vowels with or without accents (ù/u, â/a, è/e), and punctuation. As to the use of whole words in capital letters, W does not present any (as said above, W indicates capital letters by underlining them), whereas LM use capital letters for the incipit of each section of the text, as well as for first names of eminent figures (kings and princes, Galileo, Michelangelo).

What follows is not an edition of the definitive text of the Grati Animi Monumenta, which is constituted by the printed version of the text, but the rigorous and faithful reconstruction of the key testimony of the text, which will hopefully replace the scanty notes of Favaro's apparatus.

Sigla

W =

London, Wellcome Library, Ms. 4949

Wa.corr. =

W ante correctionem librarii

Wp.corr. =

W post correctionem librarii

Ws.l. =

W supra lineam

V =

Vincentii Viviani correctiones in W

L =

De Locis Solidis Secunda Divinatio Geometrica … autore Vincentio Viviani, Florence: Pietro Antonio Brigonci, 1701 (as noted above, quire Qq, containing the revised text of the inscriptions, was added in 1702).

M =

Grati Animi Monumenta Vincentii Viviani, Florence: Pietro Antonio Brigonci [1702].

add. =

addidit

corr. =

correxit

deb. =

debuit

del. =

deleuit

in mg. =

in margine

om. =

omisit

praem. =

praemisit

s. l. =

supra lineam

scr. =

scripsit

[2r]A. Footnote 46

Aedes aFootnote 47 Deo datæ Ludouici Magni Inclyti Regis Christianissimi honorificis munificentijs comparatæ, ac denuo constructæ.

B. D. O. M. Viator

Qui sapientiæ amore percelleris, dum per hanc uiam incædis,Footnote 48 cui, fatidico quodam instinctu amoris nomen maiores fecêre, siste parùm ad hoc (humileFootnote 49 quidem), sed grati, uerique amoris monumentum, erga. Sapientissimum Præceptorem. BenignissimosFootnote 50 Magnos Duces. Et Ludouicum Magnum Christianissimum GalliæFootnote 51 Regem; et quæ has Aedes exornant, dominique mentem demonstrant, perlege.Footnote 52

C.

Galilæus Lyncæus ætatis Annorum IIL. Quem Astra, Mare, ac TellusFootnote 53 complexum mente profunda, Credibile in solo cernere cuncta Deo.Footnote 54

D.

Aeternæ Memoriæ Viro

Galilaeo de Footnote 55 Galilaeis, Patriæ, Etruriæ, Italiæ, imò Europæ totius delicio. Philosophiæ renascentis faci. Qui Veritatis propiùs intuendæ desiderio adeo exarsit, ut longè ultrà, tum Veterum, tum recentiorum Philosophorum placita [2v]progressus, et posthabitis debilioribus humanarum mentium cogitatis, unico Geometriæ (quàm ad Caelum ueritatis ducem uocabat) auxilio fretus, uiam ad ueritatem certius indagandam alios primus docuit,Footnote 56 feliciterque peregit,Footnote 57 comitante semper per tam arduumFootnote 58 iter, Pietate; ita ut,Footnote 59 quæ de Maris aestu, Philolaique systemate exercendi tantùm ingenij causâ,Footnote 60 (quodFootnote 61 præsertim Epistola ad Christinam LotaringiamFootnote 62 demonstrat) excogitauerat; religioni libens animo litauerit.

QuiFootnote 63 dumFootnote 64 Patauij Matheseos Cathedram occuparet, uix auditâ Anno 1609: opticiFootnote 65 tubi famâ, ingenij, et dioptricæ uiribus rem assecutus, instrumentiFootnote 66 structuram inuenit, Senatuique Veneto dicauit, quem docti Viri meritò GalilaeiFootnote 67 nomine donarunt, ut qui primus inuenerit ingenio, non casu.

Nouo hoc fretus auxilio, quasi terra eius ingenio satis non esset, AeteraFootnote 68 reclusit, nouosque ueluti Orbes, Philosophis et Astronomis aperuit.

In Luna montes, Valles, planities, periodicam eius disci librationem.

In Sole nitidissimo lucis fonte, Nubium, ac densarum Caliginum instar nascentes, et renascentes maculas, eius circa proprium centrum,Footnote 69 ferè menstruam ab occasu in ortum Vertiginem primus animaduertit.

Veneris Sydus, ac proindeFootnote 70 Mercurij uarias Lunæ facies [3r]æmulari, ac utrumque ob id proprio motu ab occasu pariter in ortum, ueluti Mars, Iuppiter, ac Saturnus, Solis globum circumire, tutò Astronomos docuit.

Altissimum Planetarum in uarijs cum Sole aspectibus tergeminâ specie, modò rotundum, modò oblongum, modò ansatum; Martemque Perigaeum in quadraturis cum Sole, non nihil mutilum apparere, ante alios admonuit.

Inerrantes stellas, quas numero pauciores nouerant prisci, ac ueluti clauos unico, solidoque Orbi fixas, quasi auxit, dum nouas, et ante se numquam uisas, in Orionis ense; in pleiadibus; in nebulosis; in Lacteo circulo; et undique per Cælum detexit, et ad Dei omnipotentiam magis, magisque declarandam, infinitas ueluti Lampadas, perpetuò ardentes, per immensa fluidorum CoelorumFootnote 71 spatia localiter immobiles, sed ad instar Solis, circa propria centra reuolubiles, ad primarios, et secundarios propriorum systematum Planetas uiuificandos, creatos,Footnote 72 arbitratus est.

Iouis satellites Patauij VII Idus Ianuarij AnniFootnote 73 1609=, ante omnes primùm, et post tres tantummodo obseruationesFootnote 74 a se peractas, detectos, perpetuæ Mediceorum Procerum Footnote 75 gloriæ dicauit, quorum concitatissimi motus aspectu,Footnote 76 iamdiù frustra quæsitum problema de Locorum longitudinibus noctu captandis, proposuit; ita utFootnote 77 nouis gentis Mediceæ auspicijs Geographia,Footnote 78 et IdrographiaFootnote 79 corrigi, restitui ac perfici datum sit; dum Medicearum Stellarum [3v]motus periodicos, et ab Ioue distantias improbo trienni labore assecutus, ad earum citissime abeuntes aspectus prenunciandos,Footnote 80 Canones, et Tabulas confecit; spretisque amplissimis praemiisFootnote 81 ijs, qui tantùm problemaFootnote 82 enodarent promissis, proprias etiam Theoricas, Tabulas, et ephemeridas;Footnote 83 propriosFootnote 84 Opticos tubos, propriumqueFootnote 85 OrologiumFootnote 86 Oscillatorium a se iam a pluribus Annis Pisis excogitatum, ac insuper Viros horum instrumentorum usum probè callentes Anno 1615 = CatholicoFootnote 87 primùm RegiFootnote 88 Philippo Tertio; postmodum Anno 1635 = confoederatis HollandiæFootnote 89 Prouincijs, HaeroicâFootnote 90 sanè magnanimitate obtulit: Sed Dei Omnipotentis decreto tam generosa oblatio, ac nobile tentamentum utrinque euanuit, ut maximum opus Nauticæ, et Geographiæ bono, Ludouici Magni, Terra, Marique potentissimi munificentiâ, et Summi Astronomi Cassini labore, per ipsa Medicea Sydera inciperet, et perficeretur.

Cometarum denique generationem, incrementa, Motûs, Interitum, explicauit.

Qui uerò coelestia et longinqua Dei opera aperuit, idem, ut summùm opificem, in minimis etiam operibus laudandum proponeret, humanæ Philosophiæ secretioriaFootnote 91 penetralia reserauit; dum MicroscopijFootnote 92 ex unicâ, et ex dupliciFootnote 93 lente a se primùm excogitati, et confecti [4r]ac iam Anno 1612: instanti Casimiro Polonorum Regi, donoFootnote 94 missi, humano obtutui minima subiecit, et naturæ ipsius quamdam ueluti anatomen instituit.

Et sicùt Geometriam Philosophiæ nutricem uocabat, ita exemplo, et inuentis demonstrauit; siquidem nouâ Methodo scientiam Centrobarycam, quorumdam solidorum, uix etiam initiatis in Geometria aperuit.

Archimedis Doctrinam de ijs quæ innatant fluidis, et eorum libramenta, ob uim alternarum pressionum primus indigitauit, innumeraque scriptis suis sparsit semina, e quibus plurimorum tractatuum seges præsenti Aetate accreuit, et in dies PosterisFootnote 95 accrescet.

Ante alios, uim percussionis infinitamFootnote 96 suapte naturâ animaduertit.

Nouas scientias omnibus usque ad eius Aetatem seculi intactas animaduertit de solidorum resistentia, de motibus grauium tumFootnote 97 æquabiliter incedentium, tum naturaliter descendentium, tum proiectorum, (e quibus præcipuè bellicorum missiliumFootnote 98 Artem elicuit) primus Philosophiæ sacrario, intulit, promouit, ac Geometricè demonstrauit.

Tantis rerum humanarum bono inuentis fama celeberrimi Viri in Æternitatem permansura, se ipsaFootnote 99 obliuionis, temporumque uictrix triumphabit.Footnote 100

Hoc monumento huius Aedis Dominus gratum animumFootnote 101 [4v]erga eximiam uirtutem, obFootnote 102 auctas, illustratas, perfectas naturales scientias, tantum textatumFootnote 103 in futuras aetates uoluit.

E. Galilaeo inquam de Galilaeis

Patritio Florentino, Serenissimorum Etruriæ Magnorum Ducum, Cosmi I.,Footnote 104 Cosmi II.,Footnote 105 ac Ferdinandi II.,Footnote 106 primario Philosopho, ac Mathematico. Academico, uere lynceo. Geographiæ, Hydrographiæ, Cosmographiæ, Mechanices, Phisices, Astrorum scientiæ, opitulante Geometria, felicissimo instauratori. Inanis Artis genethliacaeFootnote 107 perpetuo insectatori.

Nouissimus tanti Viri discipulus.

Quod ob aurea, Ciuilis,Footnote 108 Moralis, et Christianæ sapientiæ monita; ob exemplum uitæ,Footnote 109 uiam ueritatis eligere curauerit,Footnote 110 ac pro uirili, prosecutus fuerit, Iudicia Dei non sit oblitus. NonnullasFootnote 111 ex infinitis abditis,Footnote 112 vera, ex immensis Geometriæ Thesauris deprompserit,Footnote 113 et per ea homines ad ipsum Deum propius accedere senserit.

QuodFootnote 114 hinc ueritatem, et iustitiam esse fortiter propugnandas; mendacium, assentationem, et Hypocrisin ueluti pestes defugiendas. A segni otio potissimum [5r]abhorrendum. Beneficia in ære, MaleficiaFootnote 115 in Aere incidenda. Benemeritis quantum fieri potest, aut grato saltem animo satisfaciendum. Vnicuique promissa religiosè exsoluenda,Footnote 116 datamque fidem integre seruandam. Honestè acquisitaFootnote 117 pro se suisque honeste impendenda. Auaritiæ sordes, et turpia lucra reicienda.Footnote 118 Nihil in perniciem ingrati animi uitio laborantium cumulandum. Reliqua, omni prius ære alienoFootnote 119 dissoluto, ingenuis potius, et bene mærentibusFootnote 120 læto animo dandum perceperit.

Quod præceptis huiusmodi iuuenili, tum primum suo in animo a natura, a Genitoribus,Footnote 121 a studijs, et a Præceptoris Doctrina impressis, suauissimis propriorum Principum Imperijs, nutibusque, se plane deuouerit; atque hinc ab ingenita Serenissimi Ferd: II. benignitate plura sibi ultro, grauiaque munera, maximis cumFootnote 122 honoribus, ac stipendijs fuerint collata, certatimque a Serenissimo Cosmo III. Footnote 123 incoparabiliFootnote 124 clementia, denuo impartita, in quibus isFootnote 125 deditissimus cliens per quinquaginta fereFootnote 126 Annos, semper totus fuerit ijsque (ueritate, et Iustitia ducibus) eximia sedulitate, et constanti fide ad extremum usque responderit.

Quod denique, ob hæc omnia, Ludouici Magni, Galliarum [5v]et NauarræFootnote 127 inuictissimi Regis christianissimi, tamquam numinis sui, Iudicium, ac uoluntatem promeritus, amplissima eius augustæFootnote 128 liberalitatis dona diutissimè sit consecutus.

Simulacrum hoc Aeneum

Præceptoris sui prepetuaFootnote 129 ueneratione dignissimi ex ProthoplasmateFootnote 130 a celebriFootnote 131 sculptore Ioanne Caccinio, coram serenissimo Cosmo II:Footnote 132 Anno 1610: ad uiuum efformato, exiguum uti Minerual, et grati Animi pignus, ingenuique Amoris monumentum, tot, tantorumque beneficiorum Autoris aeternum memor

Serenissimorum eorumdem MM. DD.

primarius Mathematicus.

Ætatis annorum LXXII.

Anno a Salut. Inc. MDCXCIII.

A GalilaeiFootnote 133 Ortu CXXX.

Ab interitu LII.

Primus publicè posuit.

F.

Florentia præ alijs Vrbibus Deo nimis cara.

Exurge grata, et gratulabunda.

Vt enim non interruptam illustrium, diuinorumque Virorum seriem uideres; eodem Anno, mense, ac die, quo Mundi Conditor substulit nobiliorum artium penè deperditarum [6r]Picturæ, Sculpturæ, atque Architecturæ ad summum usque reparatorem, perfectoremqueFootnote 134 PatriciumFootnote 135 tuum Michaelem Angelum, eodem ipso Anno, Mense, Die, ac propemodum horâ hanc dolendam decoris tui iacturam ipsemet Deus refecit, et ut tu adhuc per noua lustra possis Ciuium tuorum uirtuti,Footnote 136 orbi uniuerso prodesse, fastos tuos, Patritij tui Galilaei, Ortu auxit, Philosophiæ, Geometriæ, atque Astronomiæ felicissimi Instauratoris, Patris, Principis, Ducis.

Hic enim, coelestis planè ingenij uir (longe secus ac Encomiastes quidam, inuidorum AntogonistarumFootnote 137 fidei malè nixus, falsò conscripserat) imperante inclyto Cosmo I. Pisis legittimè nascitur ex patre Vincentio Michaelis Angeli Ioannis de Galilaeis, PatricioFootnote 138 Florentino (qui de uetere, ac recentiore Theorica Musices pereruditos Dialogos conscripsit), et ex honestissima eiusdem Vincentij uxore egregia Iulia, Cosmi, Venturæ, e uetustissima, ac eminentissima Pistoriensi familia de Ammannatis, tunc Pisis, cum eodem Vincentio commorante, Anno a Christi Incarnatione 1564=Footnote 139 stylo Florentino Mense Februari,Footnote 140 dieFootnote 141 decima ottaua,Footnote 142 et hora ab occasu uigesima prima et semis qui quidem Annus,Footnote 143 Mensis, dies, hora tamen XXIII. et semisFootnote 144 itidem ab occasu, Pisis Galilaeo nostro Natalis, eidem Michaeli Angelo Bonarrotio Romæ læthalisFootnote 145 fuit, ut ipsi legimus, in domesticis [6v]Commentarijs Leonardi Bonarrotæ Michaelis Angeli fratris filij propria manu conscriptis;Footnote 146 non uerò die XVII. ut a Vasario in eius uita enarratur.

Exurge ergo, grata, et gratulabunda Florentia, et Summo Conditori illustres toto Orbe Ciues donanti demississima gratiarum actione, obsequia repende. Non defuturos enim semper tibi nobilissimos, insignesque filios Illustria duorum Virorum aeternum mansura, et semper futura foecunda exempla promittunt.

Sed sicuti in Galilaei ortu, eiusque preclareFootnote 147 gestâ uitâ meritò lætharis,Footnote 148 ita in ipso eiusdem religiosissimo obitu, Pietatis Christianæ exemplum ciuibus monstratura pone luctum, imo exulta.

Postquam enimFootnote 149 de rerum abditisFootnote 150 nihil pro mentis humanæ captu non conspexisset, ut meliùs in Creatorem animumFootnote 151 intenderet, Deo permittente, Oculis orbatus, per postremum Vitæ quinquennium Diuinæ Voluntati pius obsecundauit, quod fortiori Animo præstitisse agnoscitur, quo amantissimoFootnote 152 eo sensu in noua semper detegenda fuerat usus. Lenta tandem correptus febre, cumFootnote 153 bonorum Virorum instituto uixisset aesFootnote 154 proprium,Footnote 155 non alienum in pauperes occultè,Footnote 156 effusèque erogando, et multa singularis Pietatis exempla edidisset,Footnote 157 [7r]sensim deficiens, petitis sæpius salutaribus Ecclesiæ Præsidiis,Footnote 158 ac pie susceptis, Pontificia Vrbani VIII. benedictione munitus, Optimus Philosophus, inuocato saepius Iesu, Immortalem spiritum Creatori suoFootnote 159 reddidit pacatissimè, Anno a Christo NatoFootnote 160 MDCXLII.Footnote 161 Die Mercurij VIII. Ianuari,Footnote 162 hora quartaFootnote 163 Novo Stylo Annos agens LXXVII. Menses X. Dies X in suburbano Martellinorum Arcetri rure, ubi plusquam triginta Annos scientijs uacauerat.

Tanti Viri postremæ inualetudini astaruntFootnote 164 assiduè, et postremas uoces accepere Doctor Vincentius filius; Nurus; Proximiores; Sacerdos Paroecie;Footnote 165 duoque alij singulari Doctrina, et Pietate præstantes ad expiandam animam a Galilaeo iam pridem delecti; duoque hospites iam et socij Mensæ,Footnote 166 alter Euangelista Torricellius acutissimus Geometra, per postremum trimenstre. Alter per ultimum triennium nouissimus Discipulus ter felix, Galilaeo a serenissimo Ferd: II. sollicite commendatus, qui memoriam hancFootnote 167 posuit ut a se in Præceptore conspectam,Footnote 168 uel a Cognatis, Amicis,Footnote 169 famulis, sedulò, et tutè auditam,Footnote 170 Nepotibus, et posteris ad Christianos Philosophos edocendos, fideliter aperiret; assentiente, et iubente præsertim Serenissimo Ferdinando Principe Etruriæ primogenito Artium et scientiarum Cultore,Footnote 171 ac Moecenate munificentissimo.Footnote 172

[7v]ImprimaturFootnote 173

Thomas de Gherardesca Vicarius GeneralisFootnote 174

De mandato Reuerendissimi Patris Inquisitoris Generalis Florentinae Administrationis Reuerendus Pater Magister Antonius Franciscus Cioppi Minor Conuentualis Consultor huius Sancti Officii perlegat attente præsentem librum, cui titulus est Vincentii Viuiani etc. et referat an eiusdem possit permitti impressio

Datum in Sancto Officio Florentiæ die 9a Augusti 1701

Frater Lucius Augustinus Cecchini de Bononia Minor Conuentualis Vicarius Generalis Sancti Officii FlorentiæFootnote 175

Ego frater Antonius franciscus Cioppi ex mandato Paternitatis Suæ Reuerendissimæ applicate perlegi attente, nec aliquid contra legem Dei, et bonis moribus inueni quapropter librum hunc existimo dignum ut tipisFootnote 176 mandetur.

Ego frater Antonius Franciscus Cioppi Consultor Sancti Officii Florentiae manu propria feciFootnote 177

Attenta supraposita relatione imprimatur.

Frater Lucius Augustinus Cecchini de Bononia Minor Conuentualis Vicarius Generalis Sancti Officii FlorentiaeFootnote 178

ImprimaturFootnote 179 Ph. BonarotaFootnote 180 Senator Regiae Celsitudinis AuditorFootnote 181

A.

A house given by God purchased and renovated thanks to the honorable generosity of the Glorious and Most Christian King Louis the GreatFootnote 182

B.

To God the Almighty Greetings, wayfarer,

travelling this road, which the ancients prophetically named after Love!Footnote 183 If you are possessed by a love of wisdom, tarry a while before this memorial – humble, indeed, but a testimony of grateful and true love, to the most wise Preceptor,Footnote 184 Most Benevolent Grand Dukes, and the Most Christian King of France, Louis the Great – and read through what adorns this house, and reveals the intention of its owner.

C.

Galileo, Lyncean,Footnote 185 aged 48, who embraced the stars, the sea and the Earth with his profound mind, is plausibly seeing all these in God alone.

D.

To Galileo Galilei,

A man worthy of eternal memory, the delight of his homeland, of Tuscany, of Italy, and indeed of the whole of Europe, the light at the rebirth of philosophy; a man so inflamed by the desire to contemplate the truth, that he went far beyond the received views of both ancient and more recent philosophers, and, disregarding weaker opinions of human minds, relying only on the help of geometry (which he called the truth's guide to heaven), he was the first to teach others a more certain way to truth, and happily pursued it, accompanied throughout his arduous way by piety; so that his discoveries about the ocean tides and Philolaus’ systemFootnote 186 (which he demonstrates especially in the Letter to Christina of Lorraine),Footnote 187 and which he thought out only to engage his mind, he gladly sacrificed to religion.

A man who, in 1609, while he was holding the Chair of Mathematics in Padua, when news of optical tubes had not spread far, pursued the matter with the powers of his mind and of dioptrics, discovered how to construct the instrument, and dedicated it to the Venetian Senate; and so learned men deservedly named it after Galileo, since he was the first to discover it, and by reason, not by accident.

With the help of this new instrument, as if Earth were not enough to occupy his mind, he opened the ether, and disclosed new worlds, so to say, to philosophers and astronomers:

The Moon, [he found] has mountains, valleys, plains, and periodic librations of its disc.Footnote 188

The Sun, the brightest source of light, has spots forming and reforming like clouds and dense fog, as he was the first to see; and also revolves in nearly a month around its own centre, from west to east.Footnote 189

The Star of Venus, and likewise that of Mercury, imitateFootnote 190 the various appearances of the Moon,Footnote 191 as he reliably taught astronomers; consequently, both equally travel around the globe of the Sun, by their own motion, from west to east, just as Mars, Jupiter and Saturn do.

The farthest planet, in its various aspects with respect to the Sun, has a three-fold appearance, as he was the first to notice: at times it is round, at times oblong, at times it has handles;Footnote 192 and perigean Mars, in quadrature with the Sun, appears somewhat maimed.

The fixed stars, which the ancients thought to be few in number, and driven like nails into a single solid orb, he increased in number, disclosing new ones, never seen before, in the sword of Orion, in the Pleiades, in nebulas, in the Milky Way, everywhere throughout the heavens;Footnote 193 and he believed that they declare God's omnipotence more and more,Footnote 194 an infinite number of lights, glowing forever throughout the immense spaces of the fluid heavens; at rest locally, but, just like the Sun, revolving around their own centres, in order to give life to the primary and secondary planets of their own systems.Footnote 195

The satellites of Jupiter, which he discovered first and before all others in Padua, on 7 January 1609,Footnote 196 after completing only three observations, he dedicated to the everlasting glory of the Medicean Princes. And, due to the observation of their very quick motion, he set forth the question, vainly investigated for a long time, of how to obtain the longitude of places at night, so that under the new auspices of the Medicean House geography and hydrography could be corrected, renewed and refined. And while he worked out over three years of persistent work the periods of the motion of the Medicean Stars and their distances from Jupiter, he prepared canons and tables to predict their very rapidly changing aspects. Disdaining the most generous rewards promised to those who solved such difficult problem, with truly heroic magnanimity he offered his set of theories [of Jupiter's satellites], tables and ephemerides,Footnote 197 his optical tubes and his pendulum clock,Footnote 198 which he had devised several years earlier in Pisa, and also men skilled in the use of these instruments: first to Philip III, the Catholic King,Footnote 199 in 1615, and then to the confederate Provinces of Holland, in 1635. However, by the decree of Omnipotent God the generous offer and noble attempt came to nothing in both cases,Footnote 200 so that this essential work for the good of navigation and geography,Footnote 201 was begun by means of the Medicean Stars and carried through owing to the liberality of Louis the Great, the most powerful on land and sea, and to the labours of that most excellent astronomer [Giovanni Domenico] Cassini.Footnote 202

And lastly, comets generate, grow, move and disappear, as he explained.Footnote 203

In fact, the man who disclosed God's distant heavenly works was the same who unlocked to human philosophy the most secret recesses, showing that the supreme artificer deserves praise even in his most minute works; when, as early as 1612, <aided by > the microscope, which he first devised and produced, with a single lens or with two lenses, and sent it as a gift to the Polish King Casimir,Footnote 204 who had asked for it, he brought the tiniest things to human contemplation, and established something like an anatomy of nature itself.

He justified his calling geometry the wet nurse of philosophy, through examples and discoveries, for he was able by his new method to introduce even those barely initiated into geometry to the centrobaric science of certain solid bodies.Footnote 205

He was the first to proclaim Archimedes’ doctrine concerning bodies floating in fluids and their buoyancies, arising from the force of reciprocal pressures,Footnote 206 and scattered innumerable seeds with his writings, from which a harvest of many treatises has grown in the present time, and will grow day by day in the future.

Before others, he called attention to the force of percussion, which is infinite by its very nature.Footnote 207

He called attention to new sciences, which had remained untouched until his own age: he was the first to introduce into the sanctuary of philosophy, and develop and prove geometrically the resistance of solids, the motion of heavy bodies, whether proceeding uniformly or falling naturally, or else of projected bodies (from which he drew mainly the technique of military artillery).Footnote 208

Because of such great discoveries for the good of humanity, the fame of this most distinguished man will remain forever, and will triumph, victorious, over oblivion and time.

With this monument, the owner of this house wished to give to future ages a proper testimony of his grateful soul, for [Galileo's] exceptional ability in extending, casting light upon, and perfecting natural sciences.

E.Footnote 209

To Galileo Galilei, I say,Footnote 210

Florentine Patrician, Chief Philosopher and Mathematician of the Most Serene Grand Dukes of Tuscany Cosimo I,Footnote 211 Cosimo II and Ferdinand II; truly Lyncean Academician, most productive renovator, with the help of geometry, of geography, hydrography, cosmography, mechanics, physics, and the science of stars; tireless critic of the vain art of horoscopes

The very last disciple of so great a manFootnote 212

For, having cared to choose the way of truth, and having pursued it to the utmost of his ability, following the golden commandments of civil, moral and Christian wisdom, and the example of [Galileo's] life, he was never oblivious to God's will. He brought some truths to light out of the infinite secrets, from the immense treasuries of geometry, and discerned that by means of them men draw closer to God Himself.

For, in virtue of this, he himself perceived that truth and justice are to be fought for vigorously, and that falsehood, flattery, and hypocrisy must be avoided like the plague; that the laziness of an idle life is abhorrent; that good deeds are to be carved in bronze, evil ones in air;Footnote 213 that the deserving are to be given satisfaction as much as possible, or at least regarded with a grateful mind; that promises must be conscientiously fulfilled, and plighted faith irreproachably kept; that what a man has honestly acquired may be spent on himself and his kin; that the dirt of greed and filthy gain are repellent; that nothing is to be gained at the expense of those who are tainted with ingratitude; and that what remains, when all previous debts have been settled, should be given away joyfully, preferably to the honest and deserving.Footnote 214

For, thanks to such principles instilled in his young mind first by nature, then by his parents, by studies, and by the teachings of his preceptor, he submitted himself wholly to the most agreeable commands and pleasure of his Princes; the innate benevolence of the Most Serene Ferdinand II Footnote 215 then entrusted several important duties to him, rewarded by the greatest honours and stipends; and these were renewed, with incomparable benignity, by the Most Serene Cosimo III;Footnote 216 and in carrying out these duties, as a most devoted subject for nearly fifty years, he was always faithful, and to which he responded (guided by truth and justice) with extraordinary earnestness and constant loyalty, until his very last moments.

Finally, for he deserved, for all these things, the trust and benevolence of Louis the Great, most invincible and most Christian King of France and Navarre,Footnote 217 whom he regarded almost as a divinity, and from whom he obtained the most generous gifts of august liberality for a very long time;

this bronze bust

of his preceptor, most worthy of everlasting veneration, from the original prototype moulded from life by the famous sculptor Giovanni Caccini, in 1610,Footnote 218 in the presence of the Most Serene Cosimo II,Footnote 219 as inadequate Minerval,Footnote 220 and token of a grateful soul, and a monument of sincere love, eternally preserving the memory of the author of so many and such important services,

the Chief Mathematician

of the Most Serene Grand Dukes,Footnote 221

at the age of 72 years,

in the Year of Salvation 1693,

130 years since the birth of Galileo

52 years since his death,

first publicly set up.

F.

Florence, immeasurably dear to God, more than any other cities, rise, grateful and rejoicing.

In order that you should not see the series of your illustrious and divine men interrupted, in the same year, month, and day in which the Creator of the world took away your Patrician Michelangelo,Footnote 222 supreme restorer and perfecter of the almost lost noble arts of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture – in that very year, month, and day, and almost hour, God Himself remedied this painful loss to your fame, and, in order that you may promote, thanks to the excellence of your citizens, the whole world for many new lustra, enriched your splendour with the birth of your Patrician Galileo, most fortunate renovator, father, prince and guide of Philosophy, Geometry, and Astronomy.Footnote 223

For this man, of quite celestial genius (far from what some biographer wrote, dishonestly relying on the testimony of envious adversaries),Footnote 224 was born legitimately in Pisa, under the rule of the glorious Cosimo I, of Vincenzo, [son] of Michelangelo, [son] of Giovanni Galilei, Florentine Patrician (who composed the most learned Dialogues on the Ancient and Modern Theory of Music),Footnote 225 and of the most honourable wife of Vincenzo, the excellent Giulia [daughter] of Cosimo [son] of Ventura,Footnote 226 belonging to the very ancient and eminent Ammannati family, from Pistoia, who at the time was living in Pisa together with Vincenzo. The year 1564 of Christ's Incarnation, Florentine style,Footnote 227 in the month of February, on the eighteenth day, and at the twenty-first hour and a half, from sunset, that gave birth to Galileo in Pisa – that very same year, month, and day, though at the twenty-third hour and a half from sunset, Michelangelo Buonarroti died in Rome, as we ourselves read in the household notebooks by Leonardo Buonarroti, son of Michelangelo's brother,Footnote 228 written in his own hand – in fact, not on the seventeenth day, as Vasari recounts in his life.Footnote 229

Rise, therefore, Florence, grateful and rejoicing, and reward, with an act of most humble thanksgiving, the Supreme Creator, who presented you with citizens illustrious throughout the world. For the bright examples of these two men, which will remain forever, and will always be fruitful, insure tat you will never be short of the noblest and distinguished sons.

But just as you rightly rejoice in Galileo's birth and gloriously conducted life,Footnote 230 so set aside the sorrow for his passing, in a most religious manner, so as to show an example of Christian piety to your citizens – rather, rejoice!

For, no natural secrets compatible with human capacity to understand remaining for him to disclose, and God having allowed the deprivation of his eyesight so that he could better reach out his mind to the Creator,Footnote 231 he devoutly yielded to the Divine Will during the last five years of his life; for which renunciation he showed a stronger spirit the more passionately he appealed to that sense to discover ever new things. In the end, consumed by a persistent feverFootnote 232  – having lived according to the custom of good men, secretly and generously contributing his own (not others’) money to the poor, and having offered several examples of remarkable piety – gradually passing away, having repeatedly required the salutary aids of the Church, which he devoutly received, strengthened by the Pontifical benediction of Urban VIII,Footnote 233 the greatest of philosophers, having frequently invoked Jesus, most peacefully returned his immortal soul to his Creator, in the year 1642 of Christ's birth, on Wednesday, 8 January, at the fourth hour, in the new style,Footnote 234 aged 77 years, 10 months and 10 days, in the suburban estate of the Martellini in Arcetri,Footnote 235 where for over thirty yearsFootnote 236 he occupied himself with the sciences.

During the last illness, those who constantly assisted the great man and received his last words were his son Doctor Vincenzo,Footnote 237 his daughter-in-law,Footnote 238 closest relatives, the parish priest, and two others of extraordinary doctrine and piety, long before selected by Galileo so that they could atone for his soul; and two guests who were then his table companions: one, the sharpest of mathematicians Evangelista Torricelli,Footnote 239 for the last three months; the other, for the last three years, the last and thrice fortunate disciple, who was warmly recommended to Galileo by the Most Serene Ferdinand II,Footnote 240 and has placed this monument in order to convey faithfully to his descendants and to posterity the memory of what he had seen in his preceptor, and diligently and safely heard about him from his relatives, friends and attendants, for the education of Christian philosophers. With the assent and the command particularly of the Most Serene Ferdinand, Prince of Tuscany by primogeniture, lover of the arts and the sciences, and most munificent patron.Footnote 241

Imprimatur

Tommaso della Gherardesca, Vicar GeneralFootnote 242

On behalf of the Most Reverend Father Inquisitor General of the Florentine Administration, let the Reverend Father Master Antonio Francesco Cioppi, of the Conventual Minors, Consultant of this Holy Office, carefully peruse the present book, titled Vincentii Viviani… and report whether it might be granted publication

Written in the Holy Office of Florence, on 9 August 1701

Friar Lucio Agostino Cecchini, from Bologna, of the Conventual Minors, Vicar General of the Holy Office of Florence

I, Friar Antonio Francesco Cioppi, on behalf of His Most Reverend Father, thoroughly and carefully read, and did not find anything against the law of God and good morals; wherefore I consider this book suitable for publication.

I, Friar Antonio Francesco Cioppi, Consultant of the Holy Office of Florence, wrote this with my own hand

Having carefully considered the report above, let it be printed.

Friar Lucio Agostino Cecchini, from Bologna, of the Conventual Minors, Vicar General of the Holy Office of Florence

Imprimatur, Filippo Buonarroti, Senator Auditor of His Royal HighnessFootnote 243

Appendix

Figures 6–21.

Palaeographic analysis: details from Galileo's manuscripts in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, and from Ms. 4949, Wellcome Library, London.

Footnotes

1 See Le Opere di Galileo Galilei: Edizione Nazionale (editor in chief Antonio Favaro), revised and enlarged edn, 20 vols., Florence: G. Barbèra, 1968 (henceforth OG plus volume number), vol. 19, p. 522. This was Galileo's second will; in his first, made on 15 January 1633 (a few days before he left Arcetri for Rome, where he was going to meet the Tribunal of the Holy Inquisition), he left his heirs to decide in which church to bury him: see ibid., p. 521.

2 Galileo's mother, Giulia Ammannati (1538–1620), was buried in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, in Florence, on 10 August 1620: see OG 19, no 28, p. 443.

3 Pagano, Sergio, I Documenti Vaticani del Processo di Galileo Galilei (1611–1741), new augmented, revised and annotated edn, Vatican City: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 2009, no 114, p. 164 : ‘vehemente sospetto d'heresia’.

4 OG 18, no 4197, pp. 379–380: ‘Molto Reverendo Padre, Da Monsignor Assessore è stata letta avanti la Santità di N. Signore la lettera di V. Rev., in cui gli dava avviso della morte di Galileo Galilei e accennava ciò che si crede debba farsi et intorno al suo sepolcro et all'ossequio; e S. Beatitudine, col parere di questi miei Eminentissimi, ha risoluto che ella, con la sua solita destrezza, procuri di far passare all'orecchie del Gran Duca che non è bene fabricare mausolei al cadavero di colui che è stato penitentiato nel Tribunale della Santa Inquisitione, et è morto mentre durava la penitenza, perchè si potrebbono scandalizzare i buoni, con pregiuditio della pietà di S. Altezza. Ma quando pure non si potesse distornare cotesto pensiero, dovrà ella avvertire che nell'epitafio o inscrittione, che si porrà nel sepolcro, non si leggano parole tali, che possano offendere la riputazione di questo Tribunale. La medesima avvertenza dovrà pur ella havere con chi reciterà l'oratione funerale, procurando di vederla e considerarla ben, prima che si reciti o si stampi. Nel savio avvedimento di V. R. ripone la Sua Santità il rimedio di cotesto affare. Et il Signore la conservi. Di Roma, li 25 Gennaio 1642. Di V. R. Come fratello, Il Card.le Barberino’. See also Giorgio Bolognetti's letter to Francesco Barberini, on 12 January 1642, in OG 18, no 4194, p. 378; and Francesco Niccolini's (the ambassador of the Grand Duke of Tuscany to the Holy See) letter to Giovanni Battista Gondi on 25 January 1642, in OG 18, no 4196, pp. 378–379.

5 For a detailed and insightful reconstruction of the events that led to the two burials of Galileo in the Santa Croce Basilica, see Galluzzi, Paolo, ‘I Sepolcri di Galileo: Le Spoglie “Vive” di un Eroe della Scienza’, in Berti, Luciano (ed.), Il Pantheon di Santa Croce a Firenze, Florence: Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, 1993, pp. 145–182 ; English version by Gorman, Michael J., ‘The sepulchers of Galileo: the “living” remains of a hero of science’, in Machamer, Peter (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Galileo, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 417–447 , on which I partly rely in what follows. On the grave of the Galilei family see Piazzesi, Paolo (ed.), Le Lapidi Terragne di Santa Croce, 3 vols., Florence: Polistampa, 2012, vol. 2, no 94, pp. 376–379 . On the importance of tombs as political and cultural statements in the early modern period see the contributions of Carrara, Elena, Freddolini, Francesco and Giometti, Cristiano, in Sicca, Cinzia M. (ed.), Scultura a Pisa nell'Età Moderna: Le Sepolture dei Docenti dello Studio, Pisa: PLUS, 2007 ; as well as Schraven, Minou, Festive Funerals in Early Modern Italy: The Art and Culture of Conspicuous Commemoration, Farnham: Ashgate, 2014 .

6 Besides the published version ( Viviani, Vincenzo, ‘Racconto Istorico della Vita del Signor Galileo Galilei’, in Salvini, Salvino (ed.), Fasti Consolari dell'Accademia Fiorentina, Florence: Giovanni Gaetano Tartini & Santi Franchi, 1717, pp. 397–432 ), we still have two manuscript versions of Viviani's biography of Galileo, which the author kept tinkering with until the end of his life: see Gal. 11, ff. 24r–68r and 73r–118v (the abbreviation Gal. refers to the collection of Galilaean manuscripts at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, in Florence); the later version, indicated by B, was published by Favaro in OG 19, pp. 597–632. For a discussion of the argumentative and rhetorical structure of Viviani's biography of Galileo, with special reference to Vasari's biography of Michelangelo, see Segre, Michael, ‘Viviani's life of Galileo’, Isis (1989) 80, 2, pp. 206–231 .

7 See Galileo's sad letter to Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, on 12 May 1635, in Le Opere di Galileo Galilei: Edizione Nazionale. Appendice, 4 vols., Florence: Giunti, 2013–2017 (henceforth OGA), vol. 2, no 3121[1], pp. 336–338 .

8 OG 19, p. 617: ‘fu arrestato nel delizioso palazzo della Trinità de’ Monti appresso l'ambasciador di Toscana, et in breve (essendogli dimostrato il suo errore) retrattò, come vero catolico, questa sua opinione; ma in pena gli fu proibito il suo Dialogo, e dopo cinque mesi licenziato di Roma (in tempo che la città di Firenze era infetta di peste), gli fu destinata per arresto, con generosa pietà, l'abitazione del più caro et stimato amico ch'avesse nella città di Siena, che fu Mons.r Arcivescovo Piccolomini: della qual gentilissima conversazione egli godè con tanta quiete e satisfazione dell'animo, che quivi ripigliando i suoi studii trovò e dimostrò gran parte delle conclusioni meccaniche sopra la materia delle resistenze de’ solidi, con altre speculazioni; e dopo cinque mesi in circa, cessata affatto la pestilenza nella sua patria, verso il principio di Dicembre del 1633 da S. S.tà gli fu permutata la strettezza di quella casa nella libertà della campagna, da esso tanto gradita’.

9 OG 19, p. 618: ‘Per l'avviso delle quali traduzioni e nuove publicazioni de’ suoi scritti restò il Sig.r Galileo grandemente mortificato, prevedendo l'impossibilità di mai più supprimergli, con molti altri ch'egli diceva trovarsi già sparsi per l'Italia e fuori manuscritti, attenenti pure all'istessa materia, fatti da lui in varie occasioni nel corso di quel tempo in che era vissuto nell'opinione d'Aristarco e del Copernico; la quale ultimamente, per l'autorità della romana censura, egli aveva catolicamente abbandonata. Per così salutifero benefizio che l'infinita Providenza si compiacque di conferirgli in rimuoverlo d'error così grave, non volle il Sig.r Galileo dimostrarsele ingrato con restar di promuover l'altre invenzioni di altissime conseguenze’.

10 Galluzzi, op. cit. (5), p. 421.

11 Opere di Galileo Galilei Linceo, 2 vols., Bologna: Heirs of Evangelista Dozza, 1655–1656, vol. 1, p. 22 . In order to better understand Viviani's strategy, it is worth noticing that the inscription is printed next to a letter and a poem praising Galileo's merits (the ‘Adulatio perniciosa’ (originally published in 1620), ibid., pp. 20–21), both by Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, later to become Pope Urban VIII (see Barberini's letter to Galileo, on 28 August 1620, in OG 13, no 1479, pp. 48–49). The inscription was most likely by Viviani, although Nelli later ascribed it to Pierozzi, and criticized it for its poor literary quality: see Nelli, Giovanni Battista Clemente, Vita e Commercio Letterario di Galileo Galilei, 2 vols., Lausanne: [s.e.], 1793 [yet Florence: Francesco Moücke, 1791], vol. 2, p. 877 .

12 Testamento dell'Illustrissimo Signor Vincenzo Viviani. Rogato da Ser Simone Mugnai, Florence: Pietro Gaetano Viviani, 1735, pp. 3–4 .

13 Testamento dell'Illustrissimo Signor Vincenzo Viviani, op. cit. (12), p. 4: ‘eleggendo la Sepoltura per il suo proprio Cadavere nella detta Chiesa di S. Croce sotto alla detta statua, e memoria del predetto Gran Galileo, ed accanto, o sotto alle di lui ossa, quando saranno ivi trasportate; ed intanto, che non sarà adempito il suddetto suo concetto, vuole, ed ordina, che il suo Cadavere si ponga in deposito, vicino a quello del medesimo Sig. Galileo’.

14 See Nelli, op. cit. (11), vol. 2, Tav. IX, no V and p. 870; see also footnote 241, below.

15 Salvini, op. cit. (6), p. 433: ‘quello istorico racconto a forma d'Elogi disteso’. Thus Salvini, in the first published edition of Viviani's biography of Galileo, describes the inscriptions, referring them to Viviani's Racconto Istorico (Historical Account). An English translation of the inscriptions is available in Suter, Rufus, ‘The Galileian inscriptions on the facade of Viviani's house in Florence’, Osiris (1956) 12, pp. 225–243 ; the first in-depth study is Büttner, Frank, ‘Die ältesten Monumente für Galileo Galilei in Florenz’, in Kunst des Barock in der Toskana: Studien zur Kunst unter den letzten Medici, Munich: Bruckmann, 1976, pp. 103–117 ; a more comprehensive one is offered in Lunardi, Roberto and Sabbatini, Oretta (eds.), Il Rimembrar delle Passate Cose. Una Casa per Memoria: Galileo e Vincenzo Viviani, Florence: Polistampa, 2009 .

16 We also have a number of drafts and preliminary versions among the Galileo papers at the National Central Library in Florence (see especially Gal. 13 and 318).

17 See Viviani, Vincenzo, Grati Animi Monumenta, Florence: Pietro Antonio Brigonci, [1702], title page: ‘Uti fuerunt conscripta Florentiæ in Fronte Ædium A DEO DATARUM/Anno Salutis 1693’ (‘as they were written on the facade of the House GIVEN BY GOD, in 1693 AD’).

18 Here Viviani plays with the name of Louis the Great (Louis le Grand, or Louis XIV), king of France from 1643 to 1715, whose name at birth was Louis Dieudonné (Louis ‘the God-given’).

19 Viviani had published his first ‘divination’ of the fifth book of Apollonius’ Conics in 1659 (Federico Commandino had translated the first four books from the original Greek into Latin in 1566; the remaining four books were thought to be lost). Viviani's book sparked a lifelong controversy with Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608–1679), a fellow member of the Accademia del Cimento. Viviani began the work while he was still with Galileo, in 1640–1642, and later worked on it only occasionally, until Borelli discovered a copy of an Arab translation of the first seven books of Apollonius’ Conics in the library of the Grand Duke in Florence, in 1658. In 1659 Viviani decided to publish his work as it was (only two of the planned three parts were completed, and the third was never published), and Borelli eventually published the Latin translation of Books 5–7 in 1661, calling the reader's attention to Viviani's failed attempt at ‘divining’ the actual contents of Apollonius’ work. See Favaro, Antonio, ‘Amici e Corrispondenti di Galileo Galilei. XXIX, Vincenzio Viviani’, Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti (1912–1913) 72, Part II, pp. 1–155 ; reprinted in Favaro, Amici e Corrispondenti di Galileo, 3 vols. (ed. Galluzzi, Paolo), Florence: Salimbeni, 1983, vol. 2, pp. 1009–1163: 1055–1066. For an assessment of Viviani's divination attempt see Loria, Gino, Le Scienze Esatte nell'Antica Grecia, 5 vols., Modena: Antica Tipografia Soliani, 1893–1902, vol. 1, pp. 161–166 , vol. 2, pp. 226–227.

20 Viviani was born on 5 April 1622, and was sixteen years old when he started visiting Galileo, on 25 January 1639, as we read in Gal. 210, f. 244br: ‘25 Genn.o 1639 – torna giù l'Ambr. e ua su V.o’ (‘25 January 1639 – Ambrogetti comes down and Viviani goes up’). Marco Ambrogetti was a Latin scholar who was assisting Galileo with the translation of some of his works, which he intended to publish abroad, with Elzevier; Ambrogetti comes back to Florence from the hill of Arcetri, while Viviani goes the opposite direction to visit Galileo. It was not until the summer 1639, however, that Viviani actually moved in to Galileo's villa, as we gather from a marginal note Viviani penned in the margin of a biographical sketch he wrote on Torricelli (Gal. 131, f. 9v): ‘Giunse dunque il Torricelli alla Villa d'Arcetri (doue abitaua il Galileo) verso la fine del Settembre del med:mo anno, anzi a dì 10 d'Ottobre 1641 – et io avanti al 7bre 1639’ (‘Thus Torricelli arrived at the Villa in Arcetri, where Galileo lived, towards the end of September of that same year, before 10 October 1641 – whereas I arrived by September 1639’; the words ‘anzi … 1639’ = ‘before … 1639’ were added in margin). See Viviani's recollections in his letter to abbot Salviati, on 5 April 1697, in Fabroni, Angelo (ed.), Lettere Inedite di Uomini Illustri, 2 vols., Florence: Francesco Moücke, 1773–1775, vol. 2, pp. 4–22 , 6–7; see also Viviani, Vincenzo, Quinto Libro degli Elementi d'Euclide, ovvero Scienza Universale delle Proporzioni Spiegata colla Dottrina del Galileo, Florence: alla Condotta, 1674, p. 99 ; and OG 19, p. 622. On the precise date see Favaro, Antonio, ‘Vincenzo Viviani e la Sua “Vita di Galileo”’, Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti (1902–1903) 62, Part II, pp. 683–703 , 699; and Favaro, op. cit. (19), pp. 1018–1019.

21 Viviani, Vincenzo, De Locis Solidis Secunda Divinatio Geometrica, Florence: Pietro Antonio Brigonci, 1701, p. 120 (the volume is divided in two halves, with different paginations; all page references, here and henceforth, refer to the second half): ‘En Tibi, Amice Lector, hoc Anno 1702, cum suis Epigrammatis ære incisam Orthographiam Ædium A DEO DATARUM, unde tandem in lucem prodit Secunda Geometrica hæc Divinatio, quæ post sex & quinquaginta Annos ab Auctore conscripta fuit; & cujusmodi novem ac viginti ab hinc Annis fuerat typis impreßa. Habes hìc ejusdem Auctoris grati animi monumenta: tum erga potentissimum Galliarum Regem LUDOVICUM MAGNUM, cujus amplissimis Honorariis Ædes ipsæ comparatæ sunt, & instauratæ: tum erga Celsitudines Regias Mediceæ Gentis, Patronos clementissimos, quorum profusam liberalitatem ab Anno ætatis suæ xvi. est expertus: tum erga Præceptorem amantissimum GALILÆUM, cui, quantulumcumque id est, quod in Geometria progreßus est Auctor, totum se debere profitetur. Tantas ergo beneficentias, quum apud Posteros testatas ipse relinquere cuperet, & ingravescente ætate, afflictaque valetudine, ac ingruente mortis periculo, omnes alias vias præclusas eße animadverteret; Anno Sal. ciɔ dc lxxxxiii. Elogia hæc in fronte earumdem Æedium, quàm citissimè fieri potuit, inscribi jussit. Nunc ut ad exteros etiam, qui non peregrinantur, sempiternò propagetur hæc sua grati animi significatio, typis ea, ut vides, mandari curavit; ut (si fortè in posterum hæc ipsa, aut temporis edacis culpa, aut succeßorum in Ædibus voluntate, ad alia substituenda, fuerint abrasa) in indelebili Eruditorum memoria perpetuò maneant’.

22 See Viviani, op. cit. (21), f. ✠ 3r: ‘Elaboratum Anno 1646. Impressum Florentiæ ab Hyppolito Navesi Anno 1673. Addendis auctum, & in luce prolatum Anno 1701’.

23 Viviani devoted most of his time to gathering and editing Galileo's papers and letters, especially after Vincenzo, Galileo's son, died in 1649, only seven years after his father; also, Viviani was asked to edit Torricelli's collected works, after the latter's passing, in 1647. He also attended to various assignments on behalf of the Grand Duke, and taught at the Accademia del Disegno from 1647 until his death in 1703. Finally, he pursued his own researches and studies, especially in geometry, but also in physics and optics.

24 See Pappi Alexandrini Collectionis Quae Supersunt (ed. Hultsch, Friedrich), 3 vols., Berlin: Weidmann, 1876–1878, vol. 2, pp. 636.23 , 672.12–13 and 672.20–21; see also Vogel, Kurt, ‘Aristaeus’, in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (editor in chief Gillispie, Charles C.), 18 vols., New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970–1990, vol. 1, pp. 245–246 .

25 As in the case of Viviani's first ‘divination’ ( De Maximis et Minimis Geometrica Divinatio in Quintum Conicorum Apollonii Pergæi adhuc Desideratum, Florence: Giuseppe Cocchini, 1659 ), the reason for the long delay in the publication was his original plan for a work in five books (according to Pappus, Aristaeus’ own work was in five books), of which only three were eventually published due to the large number of his commitments: see the author's own report, as told in Viviani, op. cit. (21), ff. ✠† 3r–4v, in which he himself compares the similar fates of these two works of his; on ff. ✠† 4v–5r he also offers an explanation for his attempt and choice of the term divinatio.

26 See Le Opere di Galileo Galilei: Prima Edizione Completa (ed. Albèri, Eugenio), 16 vols., Florence: Società Editrice Fiorentina, 1842–1856, vol. 15, p. 372 . This same volume includes (pp. 373–380) the full text of the inscriptions, based on the printed sources.

27 See Favaro, Antonio, ‘Inedita Galilaeiana: Frammenti tratti dalla Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze’, Memorie del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti (1879) 21, pp. 433–473 , 465–466. Also published in book form as Inedita Galilaeiana: Frammenti tratti dalla Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, Venice: Giuseppe Antonelli, 1880 .

28 See Favaro, op. cit. (27), pp. 467–473. Before the edition by Favaro, both versions of Viviani's text were published by Giovanni Battista Clemente Nelli (the son of architect Giovanni Battista Nelli, designer of the facade of Viviani's palace), who inherited the building and lived in it. See Nelli, Giovanni Battista Clemente, Grati Animi Monumenta Vincentii Viviani, Florence: Francesco Moücke, 1791 ; and Nelli, op. cit. (11), vol. 2, pp. 857–867. They were also published by Albèri in Le Opere di Galileo Galilei, op. cit. (26), vol. 15, pp. 373–380.

29 See Favaro, op. cit. (27), pp. 467 nn. 1–3, 468 nn. 1–2, 469 n. 1, 470 nn. 1–2, 472  n. 1, 473 nn. 1–2. Favaro describes the manuscript owned by Galletti as ‘the original of Torre del Gallo’ in all these footnotes, and ‘the original autograph’ on p. 465.

30 I am currently working on a book (under contract with Brill) that will reconstruct the context of the inscriptions, also offering the critical edition of the Latin texts and their annotated translation, documenting Viviani's political and psychological strategy aimed at the recovery of Galileo's legacy and the republication of his works, especially the Dialogue.

31 See, for example, Lunardi and Sabbatini, op. cit. (15), p. 17: ‘A proposito del manoscritto del Viviani di proprietà del conte Galletti, dobbiamo far presente che non ci è purtroppo venuto modo di rintracciarlo’ (‘As to Viviani's manuscript, owned by Count Galletti, we have to acknowledge that we have been unable to trace it’). See also Favaro in OG 19, p. 11 n. 1: ‘Dell'autografo di queste iscrizioni, che non sappiamo dove ora si trovi’ (‘The holograph manuscript of these iscriptions, whose location is unknown’). As I will show, Favaro is in error, here: the manuscript of which Galletti provided him with a copy was not Viviani's holograph manuscript, but a copy in a professional copyist's handwriting, corrected by Viviani – and not by the Inquisitor, as Favaro (upon Galletti's suggestion, perhaps) wrongly believed: see Favaro, op. cit. (27), p. 467 n. 3.

32 See Alessandra Nardi, ‘Il Collezionismo alla Torre del Gallo tra Ottocento e Novecento’, MA thesis, University of Florence, 2010, Part I, Chapters 1–2 (‘Il Collezionismo dei Conti Galletti’, and ‘La Collezione Galileiana alla Torre del Gallo’), especially pp. 32–42. There were two portraits of Viviani, too: see Nardi, op. cit., p. 42. Paolo Galletti (1851–1914) started toying with the idea that Galileo could have made a number of his telescopic observations from the estate of Torre del Gallo, which his family had acquired in 1848 (see Galletti, Paolo, Galileo alla Torre del Gallo, Florence: Le Monnier, 1879 ; and Palagi, Giuseppe, Milton e Galileo alla Torre del Gallo, Florence: Le Monnier, 1877 ). Galletti's collection of Galileiana soon caught the attention of Antonio Favaro (1847–1922), the foremost Galileo scholar of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and editor in chief of the Edizione Nazionale of Galileo's works. The two were nearly of the same age, and soon started a long and friendly correspondence, exchanging opinions and documents: their letters, of which seventy-four survive, are preserved in Pisa, as a small but significant part of the huge Favaro archive housed at the Domus Galilaeana. Beginning with 1872, when he became the sole owner of Torre del Gallo, Galletti restored the edifice and promoted it as a century-old astronomical observatory, housing a gradually expanding Galileo Museum with what became an extraordinary collection of pictures, documents, scientific instruments, books and manuscripts. Brief descriptions of Galletti's collection are offered in Galletti, Paolo, Cenni sulla Torre del Gallo, Proprietà del Conte Paolo Galletti e sul Panorama che vi si Ammira, il Più Stupendo di Tutti i Dintorni di Firenze, Florence: Tipografia della Gazzetta d'Italia, 1875 ; and Galletti, Collezione Galileiana Esistente alla Torre del Gallo, Villa Galletti, Florence: Pineider, [1879]; del Balzo, Carlo, Il Mio Regalo di Nozze agli Sposi Young-Lady Lilly Mac-Swiney e Conte Paolo Galletti, Naples: R. Rinaldi & Sellito, 1877 ; A.S., ‘La Torre del Gallo presso Firenze, proprietà del Conte Paolo Galletti’, Gazzetta del Popolo della Domenica (15 May 1887) 5(20); and Da Prato, Cesare, La Torre al Gallo e il Suo Panorama, Florence: Le Monnier, 1891 ; as well as in a number of fleeting articles in Italian and foreign periodicals; the only solid, extensive study is Nardi's: I wish to thank Dr Nardi for allowing me to read substantial excerpts from her thesis, which is still unpublished and will hopefully soon be made available to scholars in print.

33 Having been left without Galletti's precious support, Favaro gave up the idea of publishing a complete and illustrated edition of Galileo's iconography, which he had been contemplating ever since the publication of the last volume of the Edizione Nazionale. The task was partially undertaken in Fahie, John J., Memorials of Galileo Galilei, 1564–1642: Portraits and Paintings, Medals and Medallions, Busts and Statues, Monuments and Mural Inscriptions, Leamington and London: The Courier Press, 1929 , and was eventually completed by Federico Tognoni in 2013, with OGA 1.

34 In the case of Viviani's De Maximis et Minimis, the imprimatur is requested on 18 March 1658 (stylo Florentino, that is, 1659), and granted on 19 April 1659: see Viviani, op. cit. (25), Book II, p. 156; in the case of De Locis Solidis, it was requested on 9 August 1673, and granted on 11 August 1673: see Viviani, op. cit. (21), p. 119; and in the case of Quinto Libro degli Elementi d'Euclide, it was requested on 14 August 1674, and granted on 30 September 1674: see Viviani, op. cit. (20), p. 152.

35 Favaro, op. cit. (27), pp. 465–466: ‘L'originale autografo delle medesime iscrizioni, colle correzioni della censura e coi permessi di stampa, pervenne fino a noi e costituisce uno dei più begli ornamenti della Collezione Galileiana con tanto amore adunata nella Torre del Gallo dall'attuale proprietario di essa Conte Paolo Galletti. Dalla cortesia di questo distinto gentiluomo … avemmo copia del prezioso documento col permesso di valercene, permesso del quale approfittiamo assai di buon grado’.

36 Moorat, Samuel A.J., Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 2 vols., London: The Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine, 1962–1973, vol. 2(2), p. 1093 . The mistake is easily explained: Favaro was certainly well acquainted with Viviani's handwriting, but he never saw the original manuscript (as Galletti only provided him with a copy, possibly in Galletti's own handwriting); and both Moorat in his catalogue (including thousands of manuscripts), and John Wellcome at the time of the purchase, were hardly acquainted with Viviani's handwriting.

37 Numbers refer to the footnotes in the critical apparatus. The expressions as ‘W ante corr.’ and ‘W post corr.’, which do not appear in the apparatus, merely indicate the state of the text of manuscript W prior to, or after, correction. By contrast, the abbreviations Wa.corr. and Wp.corr. , which do appear in the apparatus, indicate the text of W prior to and after the corrections by the copyist.

38 See Dain, Alphonse, Les manuscrits, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1949, pp. 44–46 .

39 See Favaro, op. cit. (27), p. 467, n. 3.

40 See Favaro, op. cit. (27), p. 470, n. 1.

41 This is a mistake, of course: he should have written ‘bonos mores’ instead of ‘bonis moribus’. Possibly, the inquisitor was thinking of the idiomatic phrase ‘bonis moribus contrarium’.

42 Error due to the attraction of the preceding quo.

43 Three statues adorn Michelangelo's funeral monument, in the Santa Croce Basilica: the personifications of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture; by contrast, only two personifications are to be found in Galileo's monument, namely Astronomy and Geometry. The two monuments, opposite to one another, should have mirrored one another, or anyway present a number of similarities; however, the Church hierarchies did not allow Galileo to have the personification of Philosophy guard his bones too. Galileo had explicitly asked to be appointed Primary Mathematician and Philosopher of the Grand Duke of Tuscany (see Galileo to Belisario Vinta, 7 May 1610, in OG 10, no 307, p. 353), and had the personifications of Geometry (i.e. mathematical astronomy) and Natural Philosophy (i.e. physical astronomy) equally represented on the title page of The Assayer. In fact, he repeatedly distanced himself from ‘pure astronomers’ (puri astronomi), merely providing mathematical models in order to save phenomena, and identified himself with ‘philosophical astronomers’ (astronomi filosofi), who – in the footsteps of Copernicus – aimed at providing an actual description of the structure of the universe (see Galilei, Galileo, Istoria e Dimostrazioni intorno alle Macchie Solari e loro Accidenti, Rome: Giacomo Mascardi, 1613 ; in OG 5, pp. 72–149, 102; English translation by Reeves, Eileen and Van Helden, Albert, in Galilei, Galileo and Scheiner, Christoph, On Sunspots, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2010, p. 95 ). On this issue see Gattei, Stefano, ‘“Per desiderio del vero e delle sue cause”: Galileo astronomo filosofo’, Testo (2010), NS 31, pp. 17–27 .

44 Lezioni Accademiche d'Evangelista Torricelli, Florence: Jacopo Guiducci & Santi Franchi, 1715 ; Petri Gassendi Opera Omnia, 6 vols., Florence: Giovanni Gaetano Tartini & Santi Franchi, 1727 ; Opere di Galileo Galilei: Nuova Edizione coll'Aggiunta di Varj Trattati dell'Istesso Autore non più Dati alle Stampe, 3 vols., Florence: Giovanni Gaetano Tartini & Santi Franchi, 1718 . The 1718 edition of Galileo's collected works still lacked the Dialogue, which had been listed in the 1634 edition of the Index librorum prohibitorum, published in Rome. The Dialogue was first reprinted as vol. 4 of the 1744 edition of Galileo's collected works ( Opere di Galileo Galilei Divise in Quattro Tomi, In Questa Nuova Edizione Accresciute di Molte Cose Inedite, 4 vols., Padua: Stamperia del Seminario & Giovanni Manfrè, 1744 ): this reproduces the 1632 text, with the exception of the marginal postils stating that the Earth truly moves (that were either removed or corrected), and is prefaced, as a precaution, by the condemnation of Galileo, his abjuration, and an essay by Father Augustin Calmet. The Dialogue was not removed from the Index until 1835 (after the general prohibition of works on heliocentrism had been retired in 1758, and works advocating the Copernican theory had been permitted in print in 1822).

45 On the image of Galileo through time, and on the impact Viviani's work had on it, see Segre, Michael, In the Wake of Galileo, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991 , especially Chapters 1–3.

46 ante A. praem. INSCRIPTIONES | quæ leguntur | IN FRONTE ÆDIUM A DEO DATARUM | vincentii viviani | Florentiæ extructarum in Via Amoris, quæque sunt in spatiis notatis his characteribus A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. LM.

47 a V] A W.

48 incædis W] incedis recte LM.

49 humile V LM] umile W.

50 Benignissimos W] Serenissimos LM.

51 Galliæ W] Galliæ, et Navarræ LM.

52 perlege V LM] per lege W.

53 Tellus W] Terras LM.

54 C. Galilæus — cuncta Deo in mg. V LM] C. | Galilæus Lyncæus Ætatis Annorum | IIL. quem | Astra, Mare, ac Tellus complessum mente profunda, | Par est in solo cernere cuncta Deo W.

55 de V DE LM] dem W.

56 docuit W LM] deb. docuerit.

57 peregit W LM] deb. peregerit.

58 arduum V LM] ardum W.

59 ita ut W] itaut LM.

60 causâ V causa LM] causam W.

61 post quod scr. et del. E W.

62 Lotaringiam W] Lotharingiam recte LM.

63 Qui V LM] Quid W.

64 post dum scr. et del. Matheseos W.

65 optici V LM] opticij W.

66 instrumenti V LM] instrumentis W.

67 Galilaei V Galilæi LM] Galilaeo W.

68 Aetera W] Æthera recte LM.

69 centrum V LM] Centrum W.

70 proinde W] etiam LM.

71 Coelorum W] Cælorum LM.

72 creatos W] creatas recte LM.

73 Anni Wp.corr. LM] Anno Wa.corr. .

74 obseruationes V LM] osseruationes W.

75 Mediceorum Procerum V] mediceorum procerum W.

76 motus aspectu V LM] motus, aspectus W.

77 ita ut W] itaut LM.

78 Geographia W] Geograhia (sic) LM.

79 Idrographia W LM] deb. Hydrographia.

80 prenunciandos W] prænunciandos recte LM.

81 praemiis V præmiis LM] praemis W.

82 problema W] probleblema (sic) LM.

83 ephemeridas V Ephemeridas LM] effemeridas W.

84 post proprios scr. et del. Oty W.

85 propriumque V LM] propiumque W.

86 Orologium W] Horologium recte LM.

87 Catholico V LM] Catolico W.

88 Regi Wp.corr. LM] Regi Wa.corr. .

89 Hollandiæ V LM] Hollandiæ, et W.

90 Haeroicâ W] hæroicâ LM deb. heroicâ.

91 secretioria W] secretiora recte LM.

92 Microscopij W] Microscopii ope recte LM.

93 duplici V LM] duplice W.

94 post dono scr. et del. M W.

95 Posteris V LM] posteris W.

96 infinitam in infinita corr. et denuo in infinitam corr. V.

97 post tum scr. et del. in W.

98 missilium V LM] Missilium W.

99 se ipsa W] om. LM.

100 triumphabit V LM] triumphauit W.

101 animum V LM] Animum W.

102 post ob scr. et del. aureas (?) W.

103 textatum W] testatum recte LM.

104 Cosmi I. V] Cosmi primi W FERDIN. I. recte LM.

105 II. V LM] secundi W.

106 II. V LM] secundi W.

107 genethliacae V LM] genetliacae W.

108 Ciuilis V LM] ciuilis W.

109 uitæ V LM] uitæ sanctitatem redolentis W.

110 eligere curauerit alia manu Wp.corr. LM] eligerit Wa.corr. .

111 Nonnullas W] Nonnulla recte LM.

112 abditis, V LM] abditis, ac Deo coaeuis W.

113 deprompserit V LM] depromerit W.

114 post Quod scr. et del. Hin W.

115 Maleficia V LM] maleficia W.

116 exsoluenda V] essoluenda W exolvenda LM.

117 post acquisita scr. et del. prose W.

118 reicienda W] reiicienda LM.

119 post alieno scr. et del. sol W.

120 mærentibus W] merentibus recte LM.

121 post Genitoribus scr. et del. et W.

122 maximis cum in mg. add. W.

123 III. V LM] tertio W.

124 incoparabili W] incomparabili recte LM.

125 is V LM] his W.

126 fere s. l. corr. ex quinque W.

127 Nauarræ V LM] Nauarra W.

128 augustæ V LM] auguste W.

129 prepetua W] perpetua recte LM.

130 Prothoplasmate W] Protoplasmate recte LM.

131 celebri Wp.corr. LM] celebris Wa.corr. .

132 II: V LM] secundo W.

133 Galilaei Wp.corr. Galilæi LM] Galilaeo Wa.corr. .

134 perfectoremque s. l. add. W.

135 Patricium W] Patritium LM.

136 uirtuti W LM] deb. uirtute.

137 Antogonistarum W] Antagonistarum recte LM.

138 Patricio W] Patritio LM.

139 1564= W] 1563 recte LM.

140 Februari W] Februarii recte LM.

141 post die scr. et del. uic W.

142 ottaua W] octaua recte LM.

143 post Annus, scr. et del. ora W.

144 et semis V LM] semis W.

145 læthalis Wp.corr. LM] lætalis Wa.corr. deb. letalis.

146 conscriptis W] conscripti perperam LM.

147 preclare V] precabo (?) W præclare recte LM.

148 lætharis W] lætaris recte LM.

149 enim Wsl LM] uero W.

150 abditis V LM] additis W.

151 animum V LM] Animum W.

152 amantissimo W LM] deb. amantissime.

153 cum W] (quum LM.

154 aes V LM] æx W.

155 proprium V LM] propium W.

156 occultè V LM] obcultè W.

157 edidisset W] edidisset) LM.

158 Præsidiis V præsidiis LM] Præsidibus W.

159 post suo scr. et del. Anno a Christo W.

160 post Nato scr. et del. in fine lineae MDCXL W.

161 Christo Nato MDCXLII. W] Christi Incar. MDCXLI. LM.

162 Ianuari W] Ianuarii recte LM.

163 post quarta scr. et del. ns W.

164 astarunt W] adstarunt recte LM.

165 Paroecie W] Parœciæ recte LM.

166 Mensæ V LM] Mense W.

167 memoriam hanc W] memoranda hæc LM.

168 conspectam W] conspecta recte LM.

169 Cognatis, Amicis V] cognatis, amicis W LM.

170 auditam W] audita recte LM.

171 Cultore V LM] cultorem W.

172 post munificentissimo add. In Diaglyptico Phrenoschemate G | Este Duces, ô si qua via est. Virgil. Æneid. lib. VI. | In Diaglyptico Phrenoschemate H | In Sole, quis credat? retectas | Arte tua, Galilæe, labes. urb. viii. p.m. LM.

173 Imprimatur Thomas — Celsitudinis Auditor W L] om. M.

174 Imprimatur — Generalis manu Thomae de Gherardesca W || Generalis W] Generalis Flor. L.

175 De mandato — Florentiæ manu Lucii Augustini Cecchini W.

176 tipis W] typis recte L.

177 Ego frater Antonius — feci manu Antonii Francisci Cioppi W || f(eci) W] om. L.

178 Attenta — Florentiae manu Lucii Augustini Cecchini W.

179 ante Imprimatur scr. et del. Si Stampi Fili manu Philippi Bonarrota W.

180 Ph. Bonarota W] Philippus Bonarrota L.

181 Imprimatur — Auditor manu Philippi Bonarrota W.

182 Louis XIV (1638–1643), also known as Louis the Great (Louis le Grand) or the Sun King (le Roi-Soleil), who was crowned on 14 May 1643 (his mother, Anne of Austria, was regent for him 1643–1651). He was named Louis Dieudonné (Louis the God-given), hence Viviani's pun in the first line. Viviani appeals to the same pun twice in the first few pages of De Locis Solidis: ‘amplas ædes a se inscriptas A DEO DATAS comparavit instauravit ornavit’, and ‘in admirationem A DEO DATO Numini suo Munificentissimo’ (ff. ✠ 4r and 5r). And again in Grati Animi Monumenta: ‘in Fronte Ædium A DEO DATARUM’ (see Viviani, op. cit. (21), ff. ✠ 4r and 5r, and 1702, title page).

183 Viviani's house is in via Sant'Antonino 11, formerly via dell'Amore (‘Street of Love’) 13, in Florence. By appealing to this high-flown expression, Viviani seems oblivious of the comic and sarcastic connotation that ‘via dell'Amore’ had for Florence's citizens: indeed, via dell'Amore is the location in which Machiavelli set La Mandragola (The Mandrake): ‘Quella via, che è colà in quel canto fitta, / è la via dello Amore, / dove chi casca non si rizza mai’ (‘That alley, at that corner there, / is named Street of Love / where he who falls does not rise again’); see Niccolò Machiavelli, Mandragola, [Florence: s.l.], 1524; critical edition in Stoppelli, Pasquale, La Mandragola: Storia e Filologia. Con l'Edizione Critica del Testo secondo il Laurenziano Redi 129, Rome: Bulzoni, 2005, p. 173 (‘Prologo’, 15–17).

184 In his Narratio Prima, Joachim Rheticus, too, refers to Copernicus by calling him ‘D. Praeceptor meus’ (see Georg J. Rheticus, De Libris Revolutionum … Nicolai Copernici … Narratio Prima, [Gdańsk: s.e., 1540], f. Aijr, and passim).

185 Galileo became a member of the Accademia dei Lincei – founded in Rome by Prince Federico Cesi (1585–1630), Francesco Stelluti (1577–1653), Anastasio De Filiis (1577–1608) and Johannes van Heeck (1574–1616), in 1603 – on 25 April 1611: see OG 19, p. 265. Both Galileo's On Sunspots (op. cit. (43)) and The Assayer (Il Saggiatore, Rome: Giacomo Mascardi, 1623; in OG 6, pp. 209–372; English translation by Stillman Drake, The Assayer, in Drake, Stillman and O'Malley, Charles D. (eds.), The Controversy on the Comets of 1618, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960, pp. 151–336 ) were printed in Rome and published under the auspices of the Academy, whose symbol appears prominently on their title pages. Galileo's affiliation also appears on the title pages of the Dialogue ( Dialogo sopra i Due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo Tolemaico, e Copernicano, Florence: Giovanni Battista Landini, 1632 ; in OG 7, pp. 23–489; English translation by Drake, Stillman, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems Ptolemaic and Copernican, 2nd edn, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967 ) and Two New Sciences (Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche, intorno à Due Nuoue Scienze attenenti alla Mecanica & i Mouimenti Locali, Leiden: Elsevier, 1638; in OG 8, pp. 41–318 ; English translation by Drake, Stillman, Two New Sciences: Including Centers of Gravity & Force of Percussion, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974 ). The so-called ‘first’ Academy (1603–1630) is the oldest and one of the most illustrious of modern learned scientific societies; the word ‘Lincei’ refers to lynxes, fabled for their acuteness of vision. See also Viviani in OG 19, p. 612.

186 That is, the Copernican system. Philolaus of Croton (c.470–c.385 BC) was the first to suggest displacing the Earth from the centre of the cosmos and making it a planet, setting it in motion around a central fire. The disguised reference to Copernicus (whose De Revolutionibus was suspended donec corrigatur in 1616) and to the ebb and flow of the sea clearly point to Galileo's Dialogue, banned by the Inquisition in 1633, and listed in the Index of forbidden books in 1634. This is the only implicit reference to Galileo's Dialogue and his defence of the Copernican hypothesis; most interestingly, in the Racconto Istorico Viviani briefly mentions Galileo's magnum opus as a dialogue between two people, Filippo Salviati e Giovanni Francesco Sagredo, avoiding even a mention of the third character, Simplicius (in whose words Pope Urban VIII read a mockery of his own arguments).

187 Christina of Lorraine (1565–1637), the daughter of Charles III, Duke of Lorraine, and Claude of Valois, second daughter of King Henry II of France and Catherine de’ Medici. She was the wife of Ferdinand I de’ Medici (1549–1609; brother of Francesco, 1541–1587), the mother of Cosimo II de’ Medici (1590–1621), and the grandmother of Ferdinand II de’ Medici (1610–1670), all Grand Dukes of Tuscany. When Cosimo II died, leaving his ten-year-old son Ferdinand as Grand Duke, Christina and her daughter-in-law, Maria Maddalena of Austria, acted as regents until the boy came of age. Together, they aligned Tuscany with the papacy and redoubled the Tuscan clergy; upon the death of the last Duke of Urbino, instead of claiming the duchy for Ferdinand, they permitted it to be annexed by Pope Urban VIII. To Christina, Galileo addressed one of his most famous Copernican works, the Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, originally written in 1611 and circulated in manuscript in 1615 (it was eventually published only as Galilei, Galileo, Lettera … Scritta alla Granduchessa di Toscana, Florence: [s.e.], 1710 ; in OG 5, pp. 309–348; English translation by Finocchiaro, Maurice A., ‘Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina’, in Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989, pp. 87–118 ). In the letter, Galileo offers a carefully considered summary of his opinions on the proper relation of science to religion: the Holy Scripture cannot err, but it has to be properly understood, going beyond a purely literal reading of the text. Nature and Scripture are both dictated by God, and cannot contradict each other, and when an apparent contradiction surfaces, between sensory experiences and necessary demonstrations, on the one hand, and textual interpretations, on the other, we should review the latter.

188 See Galilei, Galileo, Sidereus Nuncius, Venice: Tommaso Baglioni, 1610 ; in OG 3.1, pp. 53–96; English translation by Van Helden, Albert, Sidereus Nuncius, or The Sidereal Messenger, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989 . See also Viviani in OG 19, pp. 609–610. Libration is a perceived oscillating motion of the Moon relative to the Earth, caused by actual changes in its physical distance from our planet, and due to the Moon's elliptical orbit around Earth. The phenomenon is manifested as a slow rocking back and forth of the Moon as viewed from Earth, permitting an observer to see slightly different halves of the surface at different times.

189 See Galileo, op. cit. (43). See also Viviani in OG 19, pp. 611 and 613–614.

190 Here (with the term aemulari) Viviani implicitly refers the anagram with which Galileo announced the discovery of the phases of Venus to the Grand Duke's ambassador to Rudolph II, in Prague, 11 December 1610: see his letter to Giuliano de’ Medici on 11 December 1610 (in OG 10, no 435, p. 483). Once decoded, three weeks later (letter to Giuliano de’ Medici, 1 January 1611, in OG 11, no 451, p. 12) it read: Cynthiae figuras aemulatur mater amorum; that is, ‘the mother of love (i.e. Venus) imitates the faces of Cynthia (i.e. the Moon)’. The discovery of the phases of Venus implied that Venus orbited the Sun, a fatal blow for the Aristotelian–Ptolemaic picture of the universe. Galileo appealed to another anagram to communicate his discovery of the shape of Saturn to Johannes Kepler: see Galileo to Giuliano de’ Medici in OG 10, no 384* (23 August 1610), p. 426; and Kepler, Johannes, Narratio de Observatis a Se Quatuor Iovis Satellitibus Erronibus, Frankfurt: Zacharias Palthenius, 1611 , f. *3v. See also Viviani in OG 19, pp. 611–612. Viviani enjoyed anagrams, too: on 4 April 1692 he published his famous mathematical challenge, ‘Ænigma Geometricvm de Miro Opificio testudinis Quadrabilis Hemisphæricæ’, under the name of ‘D. Pio Lisci Posillo Geometra’; that is, ‘Postremo Galilaei Discipulo’; see also Gal. 70, f. 11ar and Gal. 179, ff. 1r–2v (where he engages in several anagrams); Gal. 183, f. 17r, where he offers different anagrams of ‘Ultimo scolare di Galileo’, the title he chose for himself; and Gal. 243, f. 199r, where he comes up with ‘L'umido e gelato Carlo Lilles’ (‘The wet and cold Carlo Lilles’) as a transposition of ‘L'ultimo scolare del Galileo’.

191 See Galileo's letter to Giuliano de’ Medici, 1 January 1611, in OG 11, no 451, pp. 11–12; and his third Letter on sunspots, in Galileo, op. cit. (43), pp. 258–264; see also Viviani in OG 19, p. 612.

192 See Galileo's 30 July 1610 letter to Belisario Vinta, the Grand Duke's Secretary of State (in OG 10, no 427, p. 410), where he describes Saturn with the help of a diagram, showing three circles (a bigger central one, with two smaller ones on each side). A similar diagram is also in Galileo's 13 November 1610 letter to Giuliano de’ Medici (in OG 10, no 427, p. 474), where he also reveals the meaning of the anagram about Saturn: Altissimum planetam tergeminum observavi (‘I have observed the highest of the planets three-formed’), which had driven Kepler mad. See also Galileo's third Letter on sunspots, in OG 19, pp. 234–239.

193 See Galileo, op. cit. (187).

194 See Psalms 18:22 (= KJV 19:1): ‘caeli enarrant gloriam Dei et opera manuum eius adnuntiat firmamentum’ (‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handywork’).

195 The idea of the Sun, at the centre of the universe, giving motion to the planets, can be found in Copernicus, Rheticus, and Kepler. In the Third Day of the Dialogue, Salviati says that fixed stars are suns: ‘le stelle fisse, che sono tanti Soli, conforme al nostro Sole godono una perpetua quiete’ (‘fixed stars, which are many suns, agree with our Sun in enjoying perpetual rest’): Galileo, op. cit. (185), p. 327. What is surprising is Viviani's ascribing to Galileo the idea (daringly close to Giordano Bruno's, although no reference is made to possible inhabitants) of fixed stars with their own planetary systems; that is, with planets and possibly satellites orbiting them: there is no trace of this in Galileo's works. Perhaps this is the sort of thing about which Galileo talked with Viviani (and other Galileisti). Viviani also highlights that fixed stars revolve around their own axis like the Sun: see OG 4, p. 164.

196 The date, without further specification, is computed according to the Florentine style, i.e. as if the year began on March 1 (ab Incarnatione). The discovery took place in January, so Viviani wrote 1609; according to our calendar, it was 9 January 1610.

197 Theories, tables and ephemerides: these were the three standard genres of astronomical works in the Renaissance and early modern times; they belonged to distinct genres, although they often happened to be different parts of the same work. Theoretical works included Ptolemy's Almagest, Copernicus's De Revolutionibus, Tycho's De Mundi Aetherei Recentioribus Phaenomenis, or Kepler's Astronomia Nova: they dealt with cosmological theories. Astronomical tables were designed to facilitate the computation of the positions of the Sun, the Moon and the planets relative to the fixed stars, lunar phases, eclipses and calendric information (Ptolemy's Almagest and Copernicus's De Revolutionibus, for instance, included astronomical tables, too); when independently published, they often included explanations of astronomical instruments: most important were the Toledan Tables, completed around the year 1080 by a group of Arabic astronomers in Toledo; the Alfonsine Tables (first published in 1483), named after Alfonso X of Castile, who supported their creation; the Prutenic Tables, compiled by Erasmus Reinhold on the basis of Books 2–6 of Copernicus's De revolutionibus, and published in 1551; and Kepler's Rudolphine Tables, published in 1627, using the observational data gathered by Tycho over four decades. Finally, ephemerides (literally, ‘calendars’) tabulated the positions of naturally occurring astronomical objects in the sky at regular intervals of date or time.

198 See Viviani's recollections in his letter to Leopoldo de’ Medici, 20 August 1659 (in OG 19, pp. 648–659); Viviani's notes in Gal. 248, ff. 87r–v, 88r–89r, and 101r–v; and his Racconto Istorico as published by Favaro in OG 19, p. 603. See also Huygens's remarks at the beginning of his Horologium Oscillatorium, siue De Motu Pendulorum ad Horologia Aptato Demonstrationes Geometricæ, Paris: François Muguet, 1673, p. 3 ; as well as his 1673 exchange with Leopoldo, as published in Fabroni, op. cit. (20), vol. 1, nos 90–91, pp. 222–225. On the whole issue see Favaro, Antonio, Nuovi Studi Galileiani, Venice: Antonelli, 1891, pp. 389–418 .

199 Philip III of Spain (1578–1621), who reigned from 13 September 1598.

200 Almost as soon as he discovered Jupiter's satellites, Galileo tried to compile tables in order to be able to predict their situations, relations and eclipses, thereby determining the longitude of the place of observation at any hour of the night (a ready method of finding longitudes at sea had long been an object of search by all the maritime powers of Europe). In July 1612, Belisario Vinta started a correspondence on this subject with the representative of the Spanish court, Orso d'Elci; the correspondence went on for a few months (Galileo wrote a letter on 7 September, too), but stopped in October. The negotiations were resumed in June 1616 and protracted until December 1620 (also including Galileo's design for the celatone, in 1617), with several exchanges between Orso d'Elci, Curzio Picchena and Giuliano de’ Medici, but once again led nowhere. The issue was finally taken up again in May 1630, but failed and any plans were eventually given up in October 1632, after several exchanges between Esaù Del Borgo and Andrea Cioli. New negotiations were started with representatives of the States General of Holland in August 1636, through the good offices of Galileo's friend Elia Diodati in Paris (Galileo knew about the prize established by the Holland Provinces for a solution of the problem of longitude, already in October 1627, from a letter of Alfonso Antonini; at the time, however, he was interested in the negotiations with the Spanish court, whose third phase he resumed in 1630). These new negotiations dragged on for a while, but were interrupted by the sudden death of Martin van den Hove (Hortensius), in August 1636, and were eventually suspended in April 1640, also due to Galileo's health conditions. On the whole issue see Viviani's Racconto Istorico, in OG 19, pp. 614–615, 618–621, as well as his recollections in the letter to Prince Leopoldo, ibid., pp. 650–657. See also Favaro, op. cit. (197), pp. 101–148 (Spain) and 289–338 (Holland).

201 See Viviani in OG 19, pp. 614–615, 618–621.

202 The Italian mathematician and astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini (1625–1712), who became a French subject in 1673. In 1671 he was appointed director of the Paris Observatory; he determined the rotation periods of Mars and Jupiter, and was the first to discover the four moons of Saturn (1671, 1672 and 1684), which he initially named Sidera Lodoicea (‘Louis’ Stars’), just as Galileo had named Jupiter's moons Medicea Sidera – cuius regio, eius sidera, one might say. Cassini also made successful measurements of longitude by Galileo's method, using eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter as a clock.

203 See Galileo, The Assayer, op. cit. (185); Guiducci, Mario, Discorso delle Comete, Florence: Pietro Cecconcelli, 1619 ; in OG 6, pp. 39–105; English translation by Stillman Drake, in Drake, Stillman and O'Malley, Charles D., eds., The Controversy on the Comets of 1618, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960, pp. 21–65 . See also Viviani in OG 19, pp. 615–616.

204 As Nelli correctly remarked (see Nelli, op. cit. (11), vol. 2, p. 861), here Viviani is actually referring to King Sigismund III Vasa (1566–1632), who was crowned on 27 December 1587. Possibly Viviani confused King Sigismund with his son John II Casimir (1609–1702), king of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, who reigned from 19 January 1649 to 29 September 1669.

205 See Galileo's youthful ‘Archimedean’ writings, now collected in OG 1: Theoremata Circa Centrum Gravitatis Solidorum (pp. 187–208), La Bilancetta (pp. 215–220), Tavola delle Proporzioni delle Gravità in specie de i Metalli e delle Gioie pesate in Aria e in Aqqua (pp. 221–228), and Postille ai Libri De Sphaera et Cylindro di Archimede (pp. 229–242). See also Viviani in OG 19, p. 605.

206 See the works collected in OG 4, especially Galilei, Galileo, Discorso intorno alle Cose che Stanno in su l'Acqua o che in Quella si Muovono, Florence: Cosimo Giunti, 1612 ; in OG 4, pp. 58–140 (English translation of the second edition (1612) by Drake, Stillman, in Cause, Experiment, and Science: A Galilean Dialogue, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981 ); OG 4 also includes several other works related to it, or critically engaged with it. See also Viviani in OG 19, pp. 612–613.

207 See the draft for the Sixth Day of Galileo's Two New Sciences: op. cit. (185), pp. 281–306; as well as the section entitled ‘Of the Force of Percussion’, in OG 2, pp. 188–190 (see also Galilei, Galileo, Le Mecaniche (ed. Gatto, Romano), Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2002, pp. 20–21 , 76–77 (English translation in Galilei, Galileo, On Motion, and On Mechanics (ed. and tr. Drabkin, Israel E. and Drake, Stillman), Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1960, pp. 179–182 ).

208 See Galileo's Two New Sciences, op. cit. (185). See also the works collected in OG 2, as well as Viviani in OG 19, pp. 606–607, 621–622, 625.

209 The rather convoluted structure of E is as follows: ‘The very last disciple of so great a man’ (i.e. Viviani) ‘first publicly set up’ ‘this bronze bust’ ‘To Galileo Galilei’ ‘For … For … For … Finally, for’ (Viviani is here talking about himself, listing the reasons why he is dedicating the bust).

210 The word inquam (‘I say’) resumes the text of D, which starts with a dedication to Galileo, too.

211 In the printed version (see Viviani, op. cit. (21), p. 124; as well as Viviani, op. cit. (17), p. 4) ‘Cosimo I’ is corrected into ‘Ferdinand I’. Indeed, Cosimo I was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1537 to 1574, whereas Ferdinand I, the predecessor of Cosimo II, from 1589 to 1609.

212 That is, Vincenzo Viviani himself. We find this epithet also in the title pages of Viviani, op. cit. (20); Viviani, op. cit. (21); and Viviani, Formazione, e Misura di Tutti i Cieli, Florence: Piero Matini, 1692 ; as well as in his will: Viviani, op. cit. (12), p. 3. In the letter to ‘Noble Beginner Geometers’ (‘Nobili Geometri Principianti’) of Viviani, op. cit. (20), f. *5r, he says, ‘FORSE alcuno vi sarà che m'attribuirà a soverchia ambizione il palesarmi in fronte di quest'Opera per ultimo Discepolo del Galileo; ma però molti più saranno quei, che me n'invidieranno. Il fatto si è che, per mia grande ventura, io son l'ultimo suo Discepolo, perchè egli mi fu continuo Maestro per gli ultimi tre anni di sua Vita, e di quanti ci trovammo presenti all'ultimo suo respiro, (che oltre a due Sacerdoti, v'interuennero il Torricelli, il Dottor Vincenzio Galilei suo figliuolo, e gli altri di sua Casa) io solo, (benchè l'ultimo, nell'essermene approfittato) sono a tutti sopravvissuto, e quasi anche rimasto l'ultimo di quanti più intimamente lo praticarono’ (‘There might be someone who will blame my self-description as the last pupil of Galileo, on the title page of this work, on excessive yearning; but many more will be those who will crave for it. As a matter of fact, I was very fortunate to be his very last pupil, as he was my teacher continuously, throughout the last three years of his life; and of those who were present when he breathed his last (besides two priests, Torricelli, Doctor Vincenzo Galilei his son, and other relatives of his) I alone – although the least to take advantage from this – have outlived them all, and am nearly the last of those who assiduously frequented him’). Indeed, all other pupils of Galileo died shortly after him, or at any rate before 1674, when Viviani first used the epithet: Benedetto Castelli in 1643; Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger and Mario Guiducci in 1646; Bonaventura Cavalieri, Vincenzo Renieri and Evangelista Torricelli in 1647; Clemente Settimi probably in the late 1640s or early 1650s; Braccio Manetti in 1652; Giovanni Battista Rinuccini in 1653; Pier Francesco Rinuccini in 1657; Antonio Santini in 1662; Famiano Michelini in 1666; Andrea Arrighetti in 1672. Galileo's son, Vincenzo, died in 1649, and his sister Livia in 1659; Galileo's other daughter, Virginia, had already died in 1634. Galileo outlived some of his pupils, too: Niccolò Aggiunti died in 1635, Niccolò Arrighetti in 1639, Dino Peri in 1640, and Iacopo Soldani in 1641. No doubt, of all of them Viviani was the most devoted, and spent his entire life in the effort to have Galileo's works and correspondence published, as well as his memory celebrated: see Favaro, op. cit. (19), pp. 1097–1130.

213 Inevitably, the pun – aes, ‘bronze’, and aer, ‘air’ – is lost in the translation.

214 Viviani is appealing to the literary topos of the wise person's good use of wealth. It is a recurrent topic in ancient philosophy and literature: see, for example, Seneca, De Vita Beata, 21–26 (esp. 23, 1–3).

215 Ferdinand II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1621 to 1670.

216 Cosimo III de’ Medici, son of Ferdinand II, Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1670 to 1723.

217 Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre from 1643 to 1715.

218 The bronze bust of Galileo was cast by Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652–1725) from a terracotta model, made by Giovanni Battista Caccini (1556–1613) on behalf of Grand Duke Cosimo II: see Viviani's letter to Foggini, 7 December 1691, in Gal. 159, f. 256r, as well as Nelli, op. cit. (11), vol. 2, pp. 855, 871. Foggini is also the author of the bas-reliefs in the scagliola cartouches on the two sides of Galileo's bust, above the entrance of the palace: see Lorenzo Bellini's letter to Viviani, 8 February 1693, in Gal. 257, f. 120r.

219 Cosimo II de’ Medici, son of Ferdinand I de’ Medici and Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1609 to 1621.

220 Minerval is a satirical word to refer to the fee paid by pupils for their instruction: see Varro, Rerum Rusticarum Libri, III 2.18, and Juvenal, Saturae, X 116. Here it is a learned reference to the gift, or homage, paid by Viviani to his preceptor, Galileo.

221 Viviani was appointed primary mathematician of the Grand Duke in 1666; apparently, he was told about the future appointment when he was only sixteen years old, in 1638: see Viviani's letter to Abbott Salviati, 5 April 1697, in Fabroni, op. cit. (20), vol. 2, no 2, p. 6.

222 Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564). In fact, Michelangelo died on 18 February 1564, in Rome, and was buried in the church of Santi Apostoli: see Eseqvie del Divino Michelagnolo Buonarroti, Florence: Giunti, 1564 , A2v. His body was later moved to Florence by his nephew, Leonardo Buonarroti, on 11 March; he was buried in Santa Croce the next day: see Ticciati, Girolamo, ‘Supplemento alla Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti’, in Condivi, Ascanio, Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti, 2nd edn, Florence: Gaetano Albizzini, 1746, pp. 59–63 , 62. Galileo's remains were eventually moved to their present location, directly across from the tomb of Michelangelo, in 1737, on the same day (12 March) on which Michelangelo was buried: see Giovanni Camillo Piombanti's Instrumento Notarile, in the public records of the city of Florence (Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Notarile Moderno, Prot. 25439, 12 March 1737). In the various versions we have of the Racconto Istorico, which he kept revising throughout his last years, and was published only posthumously, Viviani offers two dates for Galileo's birth: 19 February 1564 (in OG 19, p. 599) and 15 February 1564 (in Viviani, op. cit. (6), p. 397, where he also refers to Michelangelo). On the actual date of Galileo's birth (15 February 1564) see Favaro, Antonio, Miscellanea Galileiana Inedita: Studi e Ricerche, Venice: Giuseppe Antonelli, 1887, pp. 9–17 ; and Favaro, ‘Sulla Veridicità del “Racconto Istorico della Vita di Galileo” dettato da Vincenzo Viviani’, Archivio Storico Italiano (1915) 73, 1, pp. 323–380 , 329–334 (on p. 334 Viviani's wilful error is described as a peccatuzzo, a ‘peccadillo’).

223 See Viviani in OG 19, p. 627.

224 In 1645 Ianus Nicius Erythraeus (Giovanni Vittorio de’ Rossi, 1577–1647) claimed that Galileo was the illegitimate son of Vincenzo Galilei and Giulia Ammannati: see his Pinacotheca Imaginum, Illustrium, Doctrinæ vel Ingenii Laude, Virorum, Cologne: Cornelium ab Egmondt, 1643, p. 279 . See Bernardo Benvenuti's letter to Viviani, 9 January 1695, in Gal. 11, f. 172r: ‘Il Sigr: Domenico Soderini mi ha finalm.e mandato di Pisa la fede autentica del Matrimonio del Padre del nostro diuino. Ne trasmetto a SS. Ill.ma l'istessa originale, essendomi riseruata la copia, e mi rallegro che cosi resti scoperta la uerità, ad onta dell'imposture di quel mal Bacchettone di Nicio Eritreo’ (‘Domenico Soderini has finally sent me, from Pisa, the official record of the wedding of the father of our divine Galileo. I herewith include, for Your Most Illustrious Lordship, the original record, of which I keep a copy for myself; and I rejoice that, with this, truth is uncovered, for the shame of that Pharisee of Nicius Erythraeus’ libel’). See also Gal. 11, ff. 174r–179r; and Salvini, op. cit. (6), pp. 433–434.

225 Vincenzo Galilei (1520–1591), author of Dialogo della Musica Antica et della Moderna, Florence: Giorgio Marescotti, 1581 (2nd edn, Florence: Filippo Giunti, 1602).

226 Giulia Ammannati (1538–1620); she married Vincenzo Galilei in Pisa, on 5 July 1562. See OG 19, pp. 17–18.

227 In the Florentine style, the year should be stated as 1563 (as both the printed versions, L and M, report): in Florence, the year was thought as beginning with Christ's incarnation, nine month before Christmas (Feast of the Annunciation, 25 March).

228 See the household notebooks of Lionardo Buonarroti (Michelangelo's nephew), in Florence, Casa Buonarroti, Archivio Buonarroti, vol. 38: Debitori, Creditori e Ricordi. Cod. segnato B, c. cxiiii: ‘1563 [i.e. 1564]. I record that today, 18 February, Friday, at 23.30, Michelangelo, son of Ludovico, son of Lionardo Buonarroti Simoni, passed away. He was 88 years, 11 months and 14 days old. His body was deposited at Santi Apostoli, in Rome, on Saturday, at 7pm; and it remained in Rome until the following 2 March, after which it was moved to Florence by Simone, son of Bernardo, a carrier. It was put in San Pietro Maggiore, where it remained for two days; on 22 February, the painters and sculptors of the Florentine academies carried the body to Santa Croce, where it was put in a walled depository so as to preserve it while a sepulchre was prepared. I, Lionardo Buonarroti, went to Rome on 19 February 1564, and got there on 24 February. I found the above-mentioned Michelangelo dead, and sent his body to Florence, as said above: I remained in Rome until 6 May 1564, when I left for Florence; I got there on 12 February’ (‘An. 1563. Ricordo come oggi questo di xviij di febraio in uenerdi a ore 23 2 passo di questa presente uita Michelangelo di Ludouico di Lionardo Buonarroti Simoni quale mori in roma auente anni .88. messi 11. dj 14. fu meso in deposito in santi aposto<li> il sabato alli 19 detto<.> in roma stetteui infino alli .2. di marzo prossimo dipoi si fece portare affire<n>ze per le mani di simone di bernardo uetturale. ariuo in fire<n>ze alli 20 di marzo detto e deposito in santo piero magiore doue stette giorni due dipoi alli 22. fu portato in santa croce dalli aca[me]demici di pittori e scultori fiorentini doue si fece uno deposito murato per saluarl[l]o per farli uno sepulcro. Io Lionardo Buonaroti andai a roma alli 19 di febraio 1564 et ariuai alli 24 detto<.> trouai il sudetto michelangelo morto e lo mandai affire<n>ze come di sopra si dice e vi stei fino alli 6 di magio 1564 et mi parti detto di<.> ariuai affire<n>ze alli 12 detto’). See also ibid., c. xxxxvi, as well as Gal. 11, ff. 169r–171r.

229 See Giorgio Vasari, La Vita di Michelangelo nelle Redazioni del 1550 e del 1568 (ed. and annotated by Paola Barocchi), 5 vols., Milan and Naples: R. Ricciardi, 1962, vol. 1, p. 116: ‘And so on 17 February 1563, at 11pm, Florentine style (1564, in the Roman style) [Michelangelo] breathed his last, and passed away’. On the birth dates of Michelangelo and Galileo, see also Wallace, William E., ‘Matters of life and death: Galileo in the afterlife of Michelangelo’, Source (1998) 17(3), pp. 20–24 . In the Racconto Istorico, written earlier than the text for the inscriptions on the facade of his palace, Viviani chose a different ‘parallel life’, placing Galileo side by side with another eminent Florentine, Amerigo Vespucci: see OG 19, p. 624, as well as Salvini, op. cit. (6), p. 393. In the Preface to the Racconto Istorico (written when Viviani was considering to turn the text from a lengthy letter into a fully fledged biography) he adds a parallel with Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of the New World: see OG 19, p. 600 n. 1. On this see Battistini, Andrea, ‘“Cedat Columbus” e “Vicisti Galilaee!”: due eploratori a confronto nell'immaginario barocco’, Annali d'Italianistica (1992) 10, pp. 116–132 .

230 See Viviani's Racconto Istorico, in OG 19, especially pp. 617–618, 621–624.

231 See also Viviani in OG 19, p. 620; and Salvini, op. cit. (6), p. 442.

232 To strengthen the parallel between Michelangelo and Galileo, Viviani does not refrain from using similar expressions: Viviani's Lenta tandem correptus febre is a clear loan from Vasari's ‘in fine della vita sua … amalatosi Michelagnolo di una lenta febbre’ (Vasari, op. cit. (229), vol. 1, p. 106). See also Viviani, op. cit. (6), p. 423, and in OG 19, p. 623.

233 Maffeo Barberini (1568–1644), elected Pope Urban VIII in 1623. A friend and early supporter of Galileo, he was the dedicatee of The Assayer.

234 This corresponds to our modern calendar.

235 Esaù Martellini (1580–1650), the owner of the Villa Il Gioiello, in Pian de’ Giullari, Arcetri, where Galileo spent his last years. Galileo rented it on 22 September 1631 (see OG 20, Supplementi, no. XLbis (b), pp. 587–588), so that he could live closer to his daughter Virginia (Sister Maria Celeste, 1600–1634), who was in the nearby Convent of San Matteo; see Virginia's letter to her father, 12 August 1631, in OG 14, p. 288. Two centuries before Galileo, a distant relative of his (Galileo Galilei, of the Bonaiuti family) lived in the same area; a well-known Florentine physician, he was buried in Santa Croce, and his picture appears, in bas-relief, on the gravestone of the Galilei family, in the central nave of the basilica, between the current funeral monuments of Galileo and Michelangelo.

236 ‘Imo octo’, Nelli remarks (op. cit. (11), vol. 2, p. 866); see also Nelli, op. cit. (28), p. 15: ‘immo novem tantum’); Albèri, in turn, corrects Nelli: ‘Imo decem’ (Albèri in Le Opere di Galileo Galilei, op. cit. (26), vol. 15, p. 380). In fact, whereas Galileo did live in Arcetri from September 1631 to January 1642 (that is, for a little over ten years), Viviani is not talking about the time Galileo actually lived in the estate of Esaù Martellini, but the time he spent ‘occupying himself with the sciences’ (scientijs uacauerat). Most likely, moreover, Viviani was not specifically referring to Galileo's last residence (Villa Il Gioiello) in Arcetri but used it to refer, more generally, to the time Galileo spent in Florence and its surroundings, practising and writing about science. Indeed, during the years he spent in Padua (early December 1592–early September 1611) Galileo often returned to Florence for the summer, living either in one of the summer residences of the Grand Duke (such as the Medici villas at Pratolino or La Ferdinanda in Artimino), or with his sister Virginia (in the neighbourhood of the Church of the Carmine). And from the time he took up his position as the primary mathematician and philosopher of the Grand Duke (save for his journeys, of course, especially those to Rome), he spent ‘over thirty years’ in or near Florence, as Viviani says, working on a number of scientific issues: first, in a house he rented on the south shore of the river Arno; then (from 15 August 1617) at the Villa L'Ombrellino, in Bellosguardo; and finally (from 9 September 1631) in the Villa Il Gioiello in Arcetri (in 1638 he was granted to move temporarily to his house in Costa San Giorgio, in Florence, next to his son Vincenzo's). He also spent time at the Medici Villas La Petraia and in Marignolle, on the outskirts of Florence; at the so-called Villa Michelangelo, in Settignano, as a guest of Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger; and he spent long and fruitful periods at Filippo Salviati's Villa Le Selve in Lastra a Signa. In Florence Galileo published On Floating Bodies, in 1612, after extensive discussions documented in several letters; see also the 1625 correspondence on hydraulics in OG 13, pp. 291–294. In Florence, he observed the moon, Jupiter's satellites, lunar eclipses, ‘tricorporeal’ Saturn, the phases of Venus, and sunspots; he also engaged in long negotiations with representatives of the Spanish Court about using the period of Jupiter's satellites in order to calculate longitudes: see, for example, Galileo's letters to Christopher Clavius and Benedetto Castelli, 30 December 1610 (in OG 10, nos 446–447, pp. 499–505); to Gallanzone Gallanzoni, 16 July 1611 (in OG 11, no 555, pp. 141–155); to Christoph Grienberger, 1 September 1611 (in OG 11, no 576, pp. 178–203); to Maffeo Barberini, later to become Pope Urban VIII, 2 June 1612 (in OG 11, no 684, pp. 304–311); and to Pedro de Castro, Francisco de Sandoval and Orso d'Elci, 13 November 1616 (in OG 12, nos 1233–1235, pp. 289–295). In Bellosguardo, Galileo worked on the microscope, on his reply to Francesco Ingoli, and on his theory of tides and other parts of the Dialogue, as well as making several telescopic observations: see, for example, the calculations recorded in OG 3, pp. 473, 701–702; and Galileo's letters to Federico Cesi, 23 September 1624 (in OG 13, no 1665, pp. 208–209) and to Benedetto Castelli, 2 August 1627 (in OG 13, no 1832, pp. 370–371). In Bellosguardo, Galileo worked on fluid mechanics, too, and offered suggestions for the design of the facade of the cathedral of Florence: see, for example, Galileo's report on the river Bisenzio (1631), in OG 6, pp. 627–647; and his letter to Andrea Cioli, 7 March 1631 (in OG 14, no 2115, pp. 215–218). During his frequent stays at Salviati's Villa Le Selve, Galileo conceived and wrote the first and third letter on sunspots (see OG 5, pp. 94–113, 186–239; Galileo dedicated Letters on Sunspots to his good friend Filippo Salviati, who is one of the interlocutors of his Dialogue and Two New Sciences), and made many telescopic observations of sunspots and Jupiter's satellites, as well as performing several other scientific activities (such as the study of the centre of gravity of solids): see, for example, Galileo's letter to Federico Cesi, 5 January 1613 (in OG 11, no 827, pp. 459–461); and the many observations recorded in OG 3, pp. 446, 448, 452–453. Finally, in Arcetri, Galileo worked for several years on Two New Sciences, as well as performing many astronomical observations (discovering the librations of the moon, for example: see Galileo to Alfonso Antonini, 20 February 1638, in OG 17, no 3684, pp. 291–297), responding to objections, and discussing at length with Benedetto Castelli about geometrical issues. He also spent considerable time on negotiations about his solution to the problem of longitude with representatives of the United Provinces of Holland, and engaged in exchanges, equally friendly and critical, with Fortunio Liceti. See, for example, Galileo's letters to Alfonso Antonini, 20 February 1638 (in OG 17, no 3684, pp. 291–297); to Giovanni Battista Baliani, 1 August 1638 (in OG 18, no 3897, pp. 75–79); and to Pierre de Carcavi, 5 June 1637 (in OG 17, no 3494, pp. 88–93); and those he received from Bonaventura Cavalieri, 22 July 1634 (in OG 16, no 2968, p. 113), and Benedetto Castelli, 12 December 1637 (in OG 17, no 3618, pp. 233–234) and 19 August 1639 (in OG 18, no 3905, pp. 85–86).

237 Vincenzo Galilei (1606–1649), third-born son of Galileo and Marina Gamba (1570–1612), after Virginia and Livia, and the only one he recognized; he graduated in law at the University of Pisa, on 5 June 1628: see OG 19, no 27c, pp. 427–430.

238 Sestilia Bocchineri (d. 1669), who married Vincenzo Galilei on 28 January 1629.

239 Evangelista Torricelli (1608–1647), from Faenza.

240 See Viviani's letter to Abbott Salviati, 5 April 1697, in Fabroni, op. cit. (20), vol. 2, no 2, pp. 6–7.

241 The printed version and the actual inscriptions also offer two other short texts, which appear in the two scagliola cartouches on either side of Galileo's bust. The cartouche on the left presents a bas-relief of a man looking at Jupiter's satellites with the telescope, on the stern of a ship (a reference to Galileo's telescopic discoveries, published in Sidereus Nuncius, and to their possible applications in the determination of longitude); the text reads: ‘Este Duces, ô si qua via est. Virgil. Æneid. lib. VI’ (‘Be my guides, if any way there be. Vergil, Aeneid, VI 194’). The second cartouche, on the right of the bust above the entrance, represents a man observing sunspots with a telescope, a man watching the (parabolic) course of a cannonball, and a beam breaking under its own weight; the text reads (with obvious references to Galileo's On Sunspots and Two New Sciences): ‘In Sole, quis credat? retectas / Arte tua, Galilæe, labes. urb. viii. p.m.’ (‘Spots revealed on the Sun, who would believe that? Thanks to your science, Galileo. Urban VIII, Pope’); the source is the ‘Adulatio perniciosa’, a poem Cardinal Maffeo Barberini (later to become Pope Urban VIII, in 1623), an early admirer of Galileo, wrote in celebration of his telescopic discoveries: see Barberini, Maffeo, Poemata, Paris: Antoine Estienne, 1620, pp. 46–49 (the quotation is from p. 47, lines 21–22); Cardinal Barberini sent Galileo the poem on 28 August 1620, attached to a letter expressing his profound admiration and consideration for Galileo's work: see OG 13, no 1479, pp. 48–49. We also have a few letters Cardinal Barberini and Galileo exchanged in June 1612, praising the discovery of sunspots. In the printed version, these two quotes are introduced, respectively, by ‘In Diaglyptico Phrenoschemate G’ (‘In the carved emblem G’) and ‘In Diaglyptico Phrenoschemate H’ (‘In the carved emblem H’). The adjective diaglypticus is loan from the Greek διάγλυπτος, ‘carved’. For the translation of phrenoschema, see Donati, Alessandro, Ars Poetica, Rome: Guglielmo Facciotti, 1631, pp. 378–388 (Book 3, Chapter XXXII: ‘Figurata Epigrammata, vulgò Impresiæ’); and Kircher, Athanasius, Œdipvs Ægyptiacus: Hoc Est Universalis Hieroglyphicae Veterum Doctrinae Temporum Iniuria Abolitae Instavratio, 3 vols., Rome: Vitale Mascardi, 1652–1654, vol. 2(1), pp. 7–8 (Chapter II: ‘De Emblemate, & Impresia, siue Phrenoschemate’). The two bas-reliefs, designed by Foggini, are also cast in a bronze medal, c.1680: on one side, Galileo's profile; on the other, besides the symbolic images in the second cartouche, a representation of a pendulum and of free fall, as well as of Jupiter's satellites, the phases of the Moon and Venus, and a comet. On the side with Galileo's profile, we read the inscription: ‘GALILEVS LYNCEVS’ (‘Galileo, Lyncean’); on the opposite side, the inscriptions: ‘NATVRAMQVE NOVAT’ (‘Renovator of Nature’) and ‘MEMORIÆ OPTIMI PRÆCEPTORIS VINC. VIVIANIVS’ (‘To the memory of the Greatest of Preceptors, from Vincenzo Viviani’). See OGA 1, M4, pp. 520–521.

242 Tommaso Bonaventura (1654–1721), member of the noble Florentine family of Della Gherardesca. After graduating in utroque iure at the University of Pisa, in 1679, he was appointed metropolitan canon of Florence, later to become Dean of the Chapter and Vicar General (on 5 October 1700). In 1691 he was appointed auditor of the Tribunal of the Apostolic Nunciature. In 1703 he became Bishop of Fiesole, and one year later Archbishop of Florence, following the sudden death of Leone Strozzi.

243 Filippo Buonarroti (1661–1733). A learned intellectual and archaeologist, great-great-grandson of Michelangelo's brother, he was the son of Leonardo Buonarroti and Ginevra Martellini, daughter of Esaù Martellini, the owner of Villa Il Gioiello, Galileo's house in Arcetri. See Anton Francesco Gori, ‘Notizie Storiche ed Annotazioni’, in Condivi, op. cit. (222), pp. 87–124, 95–99; Gori (op. cit., p. 95) describes Esaù (not to be confused with his son, Esaù, brother of Ginevra) as ‘one of the most renowned pupils of Galileo’.

Figure 0

Figure 1.Facade of Viviani's palace (known as the Palazzo dei Cartelloni), in via S. Antonino 11, Florence. Photo by Stefano Gattei.

Figure 1

Figure 2.W, f. 7v: imprimatur granted by the inquisitors to Viviani's text (Wellcome Library, London, Ms. 4949).

Figure 2

Figure 3.Gal. 203, f. 15r: sheet from Viviani's mathematical annotations (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence).

Figure 3

Figure 4.W, f. 2v: sheet from Viviani's text, in the copyist's handwriting, with occasional corrections by Viviani (Wellcome Library, London, Ms. 4949).

Figure 4

Figure 5.W, f. 2r, detail: Section C of Viviani's text, in the copyist's handwriting, crossed out and rewritten by Viviani (Wellcome Library, London, Ms. 4949).

Figure 5

Figures 6–21.Palaeographic analysis: details from Galileo's manuscripts in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, and from Ms. 4949, Wellcome Library, London.