Chapter Five
-II-
Dangerous Concept, Dangerous Times - Galileo, Kepler and the Church
Sixteen Years to Indictment - Closing in on the man Galileo.
"Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these one is wandering in a dark labyrinth." - from Galileo's book Il saggiatore (The Assayer)
"You cannot help it, Mr. Sarsi, that it was granted to me alone to discover all the new phenomena in the sky and nothing to anybody else. This is the truth which neither malice nor envy can suppress" - from Galileo's book Il Saggiatore, The Assayer, 1623
"Men pay heed to an astrologer who contends that it is the earth that moves, and not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. If a man yearns for a reputation as a profound scientist, he should invent some new system. This madman would subvert the whole science of astronomy; but Scripture tells us that Joshua bade the sun, and not the earth, to stand still." - Luther's Table-Talk of Astronomy and Astrology [ 1 ] & [ 2 ]
"In general, Galileo's deceptiveness has created no end of difficulties for his interpreters. One scholar has made the comment that perhaps, "All the pronouncements of Galileo have to be taken cum grano salis [ with a grain of salt - k.p. ]. Many of Galileo's dissimulations were no doubt rooted in prudence. Nevertheless, those whose ridicule he feared were not members of the clergy, but his own lay colleagues who occupied chairs of astronomy and philosophy at Bologna, Pisa, Padua, and elsewhere. The risk of ecclesiastical censure during the first fifty years of his life never occurred to him. On his own account, Galileo regarded the Jesuits of the Roman College, who were the leading astronomers of the day, as "modern-minded humanists, friends of science and discovery." - Professor Donald Demarco [ 3 ]
-I-
Finding the Character of Galileo
"I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei of Florence, aged 70 years, tried personally by this court, and kneeling before You, the most Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinals, Inquisitors-General throughout the Christian Republic against heretical depravity, having before my eyes the Most Holy Gospels, and laying on them my own hands; I swear that I have always believed, I believe now, and with God's help I will in future believe all which the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church doth hold, preach, and teach." - Galileo's Abjuration from Modern History Sourcebook
Whether he believed those words or not, Galileo certainly believed in the tools and implementations that could be put to use in order to make him a "beliver". At the age of seventy he certainly was no longer in a mood or even health to argue the point; so Galileo signed the document. But that seems to belie the character of the man, a character that, until the inquistion, fought with acid tounge and firery pen for what he seemed to believe was the obvious truth, embellished or not. And who was this man Galileo?
Someone has suggested that the character of a person can often be descerned by way of his talents; only if it were that easy! It is with less effort and much simpler to look towards the geographic region wherein this man resided. For Galileo, we can definitely say he was a Florentine; outgoing, ambitious, fiery, and impatient of opposition. Though that seems to be a nice stereotypical convenience, such ambition has, as far as the life of Galileo is concerned, been employed to historically characterize him, often negatively. Be that as it may, these attributes do seem to be prevalent amongst the notable persons of that region and a truism when summing up Galileo's later life. But perhaps we're jumping ahead of ourselves; better to start at the beginning, with the young Galileo.
-II-
The Young Galileo
Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy in 1564, to Vicenzo Galilei and Gulia Vincenzo and was the eldest son of the family. In 1572, when Galileo was eight, his family returned to Florence, his father's home town, while he stayed for 2 years in Pisa to live with Muzio Tedaldi, a relative of Galileo's mother. [ 4 ]
"When he reached the age of ten, Galileo left Pisa to join his family in Florence and there he was tutored by Jacopo Borghini. Once he was old enough to be educated in a monastery, his parents sent him to the Camaldolese Monastery at Vallombrosa [ Santa Maria di Vallombrosa ] which is situated on a magnificent forested hillside 33 km southeast of Florence. The Camaldolese Order was independent of the Benedictine Order, splitting from it in about 1012. The Order combined the solitary life of the hermit with the strict life of the monk and soon the young Galileo found this life an attractive one. He became a novice, intending to join the Order, but this did not please his father who had already decided that his eldest son should become a medical doctor." [ 5 ]
"From his earliest childhood Galileo, the eldest of the family, was remarkable for intellectual aptitude as well as for mechanical invention. His favorite pastime was the construction of original and ingenioustoy-machines; but his application to literary studies was equally conspicuous. In the monastery of Vallombrosa, near Florence, where his education was principally conducted, he not only made himself acquainted with the best Latin authors, but acquired a fair command of the Greek tongue, thus laying the foundation of his brilliant and elegant style." [ 6 ]
Since his father had envisioned a medical career for him, Galileo was enrolled at the University of Pisa to study the art. He was, however, not interested in medicine, having more of an affinity for the mathematics discipline as well as natural philosophy. In pursuit of this interest, Galileo would return to Pisa during the summer months, studying under Filippo Fantoni who held the chair of mathematics at the university. This was 1581 and Galileo was seventeen years of age.
-III-
Stubbornness
"What would my people say if I told them that they happen to be on a small knob of stone twisting endlessly through the void round a second-rate star, just one among myriads?" - mathematically minded monk to Galileo
"Your family is hungry because the Church does not provide for them, and that the beauty of science cannot be marred by lies..." - Galileo's retort [ 7 ]
Up to this point, it is fair to say that Galileo's life seemed to be within the normal bounds of one living within the means and style of a young man in seventeenth century Italy. His brief entry into a monastery was a normal course, during this and other centuries, for young sons of some stature and while his father had other ideas there seems to be no evidence that anything was out of the ordinary for Galileo. But Galieo was anything but ordinary and in his refusal to follow the career picked for him, we find a small glimpse of his future character: stubbornness. It would rear it's ugly head during the critical junctions in his life, causing Galileo to stubbornly adhere to his own statements, even when he knew these to be wrong on both empirical and theoretical grounds. This trait would rise with such regularity as to be one of the most conspicuous of Galileo's many, and it would also grow to such extent that it would eventually become one of his most self-defeating.
Meanwhile, in 1582-83 Gailieo attend a lecture that was to have a profound impact upon his future career. That year one Ostilio Ricci, a mathematician of the Tuscan Court and a former pupil of Tartaglia [ 8 ], taught a course on Euclid's Elements at the University of Pisa which was attended by Galileo. [ 9 ] Galileo's stubborn resolve to remain in mathematics shows very brightly at this point in his life for,
"...Galileo, still reluctant to study medicine, invited Ricci (also in Florence where the Tuscan court spent the summer and autumn) to his home to meet his father. Ricci tried to persuade Vincenzo to allow his son to study mathematics since this was where his interests lay. Certainly Vincenzo did not like the idea and resisted strongly but eventually he gave way a little and Galileo was able to study the works of Euclid and Archimedes from the Italian translations which Tartaglia had made. Of course he was still officially enrolled as a medical student at Pisa but eventually, by 1585, he gave up this course and left without completing his degree." [ 10 ]
-IV-
Ambition & Perseverance
By the age of twenty-one Galileo had definitely become ambitious, effectively starting out on his own, undaunted by failure, a fact which is borne out by the records which show us his actions and movements durning this period of his life.
In 1585-86 he held a public appointment in the city of Siena and during the summer of 1586 he taught at Vallombrosa. [ 11 ] It was in this same year that Galileo wrote his first scientific book, La Balancitta or The little balance which sets out the Archimede method of finding specific gravities of substances using a balance tool. [ 12 ] The following year saw Galileo setting out to Rome to visit Clavius, a professor of mathematics at the Jesuit Collegio Romano, in order to discuss mathematics,
"A topic which was very popular with the Jesuit mathematicians at this time was centres of gravity and Galileo brought with him some results which he had discovered on this topic. Despite making a very favourable impression on Clavius, Galileo failed to gain an appointment to teach mathematics at the University of Bologna." [ 13 ]
"After leaving Rome Galileo remained in contact with Clavius by correspondence and Guidobaldo del Monte was also a regular correspondent. Certainly the theorems which Galileo had proved on the centres of gravity of solids, and left in Rome, were discussed in this correspondence. It is also likely that Galileo received lecture notes from courses which had been given at the Collegio Romano, for he made copies of such material which still survive today. The correspondence began around 1588 and continued for many years. Also in 1588 Galileo received a prestigious invitation to lecture on the dimensions and location of hell in Dante's Inferno at the Academy in Florence." (Emphasis mine) [ 14 ]
Here again, we see Galileo in the light of his own character - a stubbornness coupled to an ambition which drove him to succeed regardless of any failure.
"I salute Galileo for perseverance and determination that he displayed and his willingness to share to his ideas even in the face of opposition. A single drop of water has the potential to cause a great flood, just as a single idea has the potential to cause a great revolution in thought. Galileo provided the idea and others followed in his path, which caused a revolution in the philosophical mindset of the world. In conclusion, I propose to be a thinker like Galileo and follow my theories to my death, but ensure that no one steals my ability to think for myself." [ 15 ]
Both Galileo's ambition and stubborness were, in his early life, definte pluses, attributes that certainly helped him endeavoure to persevere, another of his early character traits.
Next page will be:
Chapter Five, Section III
Galileo, Kepler and the Church: Sixteen Years to Indictment - Closing in on the man Galileo
- References -
[ 1 ] Parsons, Rev. Reuben - from Some Lies and Errors of History by the Rev. Reuben Parsons, D.D.; Notre Dame, Indiana: The Ave Maria; 7th edition; 1893; pp. 95-122. http://www.elfinspell.com/LiesandErrorsGalileo.html
[ 2 ] Sewell, Kathy - from THE TABLE-TALK OF MARTIN LUTHER, TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM HAZLITT, Esq. Philadelphia: The Lutheran Publication Society, June 1, 1997 This book is in the public domain. http://www.reformed.org/master/index.html?mainframe=/documents/Table_talk/table_talk_8.html
[ 3 ] Demarco, Donald - see William Wallace, Galileo and His Sources (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984). The author studies two early manuscripts of Galileo which are the results of lectures by Jesuits at the Collegio Romano, and shows how the materials in these lectures contributed to the evolution of Galileo's thought. from The dispute between Galileo and the Catholic Church http://catholiceducation.org/articles/science/sc0043.html
[ 4 ] O'Connor, J.J. & Robertson, E.F. - Article by, Galileo Galilei, November 2002, from MacTutor History of Mathematics
[http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Galileo.html] http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Printonly/Galileo.html
[ 5 ] Galileo, The Early Life of - from http://www.2020site.org/galileo/childhood.html
[ 6 ] Ibid, see [ 5 ] above
[ 7 ] Rohn, Jennifer - from Review Silencing the music of the spheres, Galileo by Bertolt Brecht , 12 November 2006 http://www.lablit.com/article/172
[ 8 ] Cuomo, Serafina - from Niccoló tartaglia, mathematics, ballistics and the power of possession of knowledge, doi:10.1016/S0160-9327(98)01089-8, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V81-3SX88H7-B&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=d76c6a71a36776e204d228e6ad2e32b9
[ 9 ] Tartaglia, Niccolò Fontana - Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccolo_Fontana_Tartaglia, page history and revisions http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Niccol%C3%B2_Fontana_Tartaglia&action=history
[ 10 ] Galilei, Galileo - Ibid [ 4 ].
[ 11 ] NOVA - Galileo's Battle for the Heavens | His Life | PBS - NOVA Fall 2005, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/galileo/life.html
[ 12 ] CHRONOLOGY, Galileo - University of Rochester, http://www.rochester.edu/college/MLC/arezzo/pdf/Galileo_Chronology.pdf
[ 13 ] Galilei, Galileo - Ibid [ 4 ].
[ 14 ] Galilei, Galileo - Ibid [ 4 ].
[ 15 ] Galileo Biography: The Man Behind The Lessons - copyright: AllSands are the owners of all intellectual property rights in relation to this website and its content, see http://www.allsands.com/history/people/galileobiograph_tdo_gn.htm
- Additional References -
[ 16 ] Caputo, Michael - GALILEO AND GOD, A CHRONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF HIS BELIEFS ON GOD, RELIGION AND THE BIBLE, http://michaelcaputo.tripod.com/galileoandgod/
[ 17 ] January Calendar's Page - from http://www.scied.science.doe.gov/nsb/pdf/January09Spread.pdf
[ 18 ] Galileo Galilei: Moons - from http://www.lycos.com/info/galileo-galilei--moons.html
[ 19 ] Institute and Museum of the History of Science, Italy - see http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/itineraries/gallery/BirthAndEarlyLifeAndEducation.html
[ 20 ] Statisticians, Portraits of - The University of York, United Kingdom, go here
[ 21 ] Italy, Mathematicians from - Wikipedia, revision history: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Mathematicians_from_Italy&action=history, main page: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mathematicians_from_Italy
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