I recently spent fortunate but fleeting moments in Florence and Krakow, in the homelands of the great heliocentrist ‘heretics’.
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New York Minutes by Sabbi Lall
Science-related news, culture, characters and curiosities in New York.
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Firenze minutos, Krakow minutas
- Date:
- Friday, 30 May 2008 - 03:21 UTC
Though hardly planned that way, the trip meant I was lucky enough to go to Galileo Galilei’s homeland, then head to the haunts of Nicolaus Copernicus.
There’s so much to see in Florence that the hours I spent were far too brief, but the rich scientific history was nevertheless evident. There is an ongoing exhibition at the Pitti Palace which celebrates the Medici and science that I missed. However, wherever you go in Florence, it’s clear this family knew what it liked, and any visit to this city distills how their interests have percolated through and affected history. Meanwhile I went to a celebration of the history of the telescope in an exhibition at the Museo di Storia della Scienza. Here they have a telescope apparently given to Cosimo (II) d’Medici by Galileo, a cracked lens that belonged to him and, incredibly, Galileo’s shopping list jotted on the back of a letter and specifying a need for chickpeas and rice as well as objects for optics work.
Galileo’s telescopesIf it’s not enough to see the products of Galileo’s hand, upstairs they have what is gruesomely attributed to be part of his actual hand: a bony middle finger encased in what for all intents and purposes resembles a reliquary. This ironic treatment of the man (or at least his finger) treated as a heretic in his time has been noted by others.
Moving Northeast now, below is the courtyard of the Collegium Maius in Krakow.
Copernicus quadBased on number of public depictions around Krakow, Pope John Paul II is one beloved alumnus and another, Copernicus, studied at the Collegium Maius at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, in the 1490’s. The college has a reconstruction of his instrument and a poster depicting the careful astronomical observations in the quad, wonderful to glimpse after seeing Galileo’s meticulous observations of Jupiter’s satellites.
A fantastic trip, I’m back home now, and excited for New York’s World Science Festival which started last night in our own fair streets!
Last updated: Friday, 30 May 2008 - 03:21 UTC
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Comments
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Hey… unlike a lot of blogs, you have to give an email address and password to get to comment on your stuff. I guess there’s nothing you can do about that… I’ll let you know if I start getting unwated emails from NPG. Maybe commenting on other major science blogs, and providing a link here, would up your readership a bit?
I like the bit of writing about Galileo’s hand… clever. Any chance we could extract some DNA from it? Perhaps this is a completely naieve and absurd thought, but wouldn’t it be cool to find out if there any shared polymorphisms/alleles between, say, Galileo, Einstein, and Da Vinci? Or maybe you just can’t find the genes that make a genius (so to speak).
I said attributed as how can we even tell if it’s Galileo’s for sure? If he has descendants maybe? I think you could probably get some DNA from it, but it’s encased in a fancy glass presentation case and has probably been around, so fairly protected, but probably not exactly uncontaminated?