Vincenzo Galilei

“ The science of mathematics was not then held in much esteem, as it led to nothing practical. Its use, as applied to the laws of nature, had scarcely begun to be recognised. But the world-wide mission for which Galileo's genius destined him had been too imperiously marked out by fate for him to be held back by the mere will of any man. Old Vincenzo had to learn the unconquerable power of genius in young Galileo, and to submit to it. ”

“ Galileo Galilei, eldest son of Vincenzo de Bonajuti de Galilei, a noble Florentine, was born at Pisa, 18th of February, 1564. At the age of 17 was sent to the University of Pisa to study medicine. Observed the swing of a pendulum and applied it to count pulse-beats. Read Euclid and Archimedes, and could be kept at medicine no more. At 26 was appointed Lecturer in Mathematics at Pisa. Read Bruno and became smitten with the Copernican theory. Controverted the Aristotelians concerning falling bodies, at Pisa. Hence became unpopular and accepted a chair at Padua, 1592. Invented a thermometer. ”

“ Up to the time when Galileo entirely lost his sight, absolutely nothing had been able to be done for his liberation at Rome. Even the faithful Castelli wrote on 12th September, to Galileo's son Vincenzo, that he had not been able to do anything whatever for his father ”

“ His son Vincenzo, his daughter-in-law Sestilia Bocchineri, his pupils Torricelli and Viviani, and the parish priest, were around his bed. [26] And when Vincenzo closed his father's sightless eyes for their last long sleep, they gave not a thought at Rome to the severe loss sustained by science by Galileo's death, but only prepared in hot haste to guard the interests of the Church, and as far as it lay in their power, to persecute the Cæsar of science even beyond the grave. The aim was now, as far as possible, to extinguish his memory, with which so many perils for Rome were bound up. ”

“ On 12th April Galileo appeared in great distress of mind, for his first hearing in the Palace of the Inquisition, before the Commissary-General of the Holy Office, Father Vincenzo Maccolani da Firenzuola, and the fiscal attorney of the Holy Tribunal, Father Carlo Sincero. In all his answers to the Inquisitor, he is actuated by one idea—that of shortening the proceedings and averting a severe sentence by submissive acquiescence. This resigned attitude must be borne in mind in order to form a correct judgment of his depositions before the dread tribunal. ”

“ His son Vincenzo is soon afterwards spoken of as being at Rome; and it is not improbable that Galileo sent him thither on the appointment of his friend and pupil, the Abbé Castelli, to be mathematician to the pope. Vincenzo had been legitimated by an edict of Cosmo in 1619, and, according to Nelli, married, in 1624, Sestilia, the daughter of Carlo Bocchineri. There are no traces to be found of Vincenzo's mother after 1610, and perhaps she died about that time. ”

“ But even then there were many who were envious of Galileo in consequence of his unusual abilities and his rejection of the traditional authority of Aristotle. They succeeded in inducing the Grand Duke to refuse poor Vincenzo's petition, in consequence of which the young student had to leave the University, after four years' residence, without taking the doctor's degree. ”

“ It was his intention to employ the eyes and hands of his son Vincenzo, a very clever mechanician, to put his idea in practice, and he told him of his plan. Vincenzo was to make the necessary drawings according to his father's instructions, and to construct models accordingly. But in the midst of these labours Galileo fell ill, and this time he did not recover. [23] His faithful pupil, Castelli, who probably foresaw the speedy dissolution of the revered old man, came to see him about the end of September, 1641. ”

“ The old school rose up once more to refute him, as a matter of course; but their polemics cut a pitiful figure, for the champions of antiquated wisdom had in their impotence mostly to content themselves with wretched sophisms as opposed to Galileo’s hard facts, and as a last resort to insist on the authority of Aristotle.
The combatants who took the field with various writings to [43] defend the Peripatetic school against these fresh attacks of Galileo were the professors Giorgio Corressio, Tommaso Palmerini, Lodovico delle Colombo, in 1612, and in 1613 Vincenzo di Grazia. ”

“ I, on the contrary, wish to be allowed freely to question and freely to answer you without any sort of adulation, as well becomes those who are truly in search of truth." Sentiments like these were of rare occurrence at the close of the sixteenth century, and it is 4to be regretted that Vincenzo hardly lived long enough to witness his idea of a true philosopher splendidly realized in the person of his son. Vincenzo died at an advanced age, in 1591. His family consisted of three sons, Galileo, Michel Angelo, and Benedetto, and the same number of daughters, Giulia, Virginia, and Livia. ”

“ Seven years after Galileo’s death, Vincenzo was occupied in constructing the first pendulum clock after these drawings and models, when he suddenly fell ill and died. For all this see Albèri’s excellent essay: “Dell’orologio a pendolo di Galileo Galilei e di due recenti divinazioni del meccanismo da lui imaginato.” (Op. Suppl. pp. 333-358; Nelli, vol. ii. pp. 688-738.)
[593] Comp. Torricelli’s letters to Galileo of 15th March, 27th April, 1st and 29th June, 17th August, and 28th September, 1641. (Op. x. pp. 412, 413, 417, 418, 420, 421, 423-426, 432, 433.) ”

“ During our stay in Rome in the spring of 1877, Leone Vincenzo Sallua, ↑ See despatch of 23rd April. (Op. ix. p. 441.) ↑ See Op. ix. pp. 334, 339, 345, 346, 354, 355. Pieralisi tries to palliate even this act, but without much success. (Comp. pp. 134, 135.) ↑ Thanks to the kindness of Prof. Riccardi, of Modena, in whose valuable library there is, among other treasures, a copy of Galileo's "Dialogues" of 1632, I was enabled to compare Inchofer's quotations with a copy of the very edition which was in the hands of the consultators of the Holy Office. ”

“ Another figure rises at the window of the Tuscan Ambassador's great villa, with the face of a man concerning whom legend has also found much to invent and little to say that is true, a man of whom modern science has rightly made a hero, but whom prejudice and ignorance have wrongly crowned as a martyr—Galileo Galilei. Tradition represents him as languishing, laden with chains, in the more or less mythical prisons of the Inquisition ”

“ But, however powerful be their contrasts, they are not unusual in their proportions. The balance which has been struck between his days of good and evil, is that which regulates the lot of man, whether we study it in the despotic sway of the autocrat, in the peaceful enquiries of the philosopher, or in the humbler toils of ordinary life.
Galileo Galilei was born at Pisa, on the 15th of February, 1564, and was the eldest of a family of three sons and three daughters. ”

“ Before very long it became evident that Galilei had no special taste for medicine, a study selected for him chiefly as leading to a reasonably lucrative professional career, and that his real bent was for mathematics and its applications to experimental science. He had received little or no formal teaching in mathematics before his second year at the University, in the course of which he happened to overhear a lesson on Euclid's geometry, given at the Grand Duke's court, and was so fascinated that he continued to attend the course, at first surreptitiously, afterwards openly ”

“ But having been often and often convinced by experience of the tricks fate plays me, I can but expect from its obstinate perfidy, that what would be an advantage to any one else will never bring anything but harm to me. But even in this bitter adversity I do not lose my peace of mind, for it would be but idle audacity to oppose inexorable destiny.” [553]
Galileo, who thought his hours were numbered, dictated his will on 21st August, in the presence of a notary and witnesses, and directed that he should be buried in the family vault of the Galilei in the Church of Santa Croce at Florence. ”

“ LECTURE IV GALILEO AND THE INVENTION OF THE TELESCOPE
Contemporary with the life of Kepler, but overlapping it at both ends, comes the great and eventful life of Galileo Galilei, [5] a man whose influence on the development of human thought has been greater than that of any man whom we have yet considered, and upon whom, therefore, it is necessary for us, in order to carry out the plan of these lectures, to bestow much time. A man of great and wide culture, a so-called universal genius, it is as an experimental philosopher that he takes the first rank. ”

“ Galilei's final contribution to it was published in 1623 under the title II Saggiatore (The Assayer) , which dealt incidentally with the Coppernican theory, though only in the indirect way which the edict of 1616 rendered necessary. In a characteristic passage, for example, Galilei says:—
"Since the motion attributed to the earth, which I, as a pious and Catholic person, consider most false, and not to exist, accommodates itself so well to explain so many and such different phenomena, I shall not feel sure . . . ”

“ Galileo Galilei, most humble servant of your most worthy Eminence, most respectfully showeth that whereas, by command of the Holy Congregation, he was imprisoned outside Florence four years ago, and after long and dangerous illness, as the enclosed medical certificate testifies, has entirely lost his eyesight, and therefore stands in urgent need of medical care: he appeals to the mercy of your most worthy Eminences, urgently intreating them in this most miserable condition and at his advanced age to grant him the blessing of his liberty. ”

“ The chief representative of physical science, however, was by no means obscure. Galileo Galilei was born in 1564, the year of the death of Michael Angelo. The scientific achievements of this mighty genius do not concern us as such. It must not be forgotten, however, that he was also an accomplished author in the vernacular. His immortal Dialogue (1632) , the glory and the shame of his age, is written in Italian, and is enumerated by Italians among exemplars of diction, testi di lingua. ”

“ Whatever may be our judgment of his candour, we may at least feel assured that if this had indeed been a fair specimen of Galileo's philosophy, he might to the end of his life have taught that the earth moved round the sun, or if his fancy led him to a different hypothesis, he might like the Abbé Baliani have sent the earth spinning round the stationary moon, and like him have remained unmolested by pontifical censures. ”

“ Scartazzini alone that the odium of the accusation rests; in the annals of history, the name of Niccolini stands untarnished, and every Italian, every educated man, will think with gratitude of the man who nobly and disinterestedly stood by the side of Galileo Galilei at the time of his greatest peril. Honour be for ever to his memory!
We give, in conclusion, one more instance of a curious kind of evidence that Galileo really was subjected to torture. ”

“ Having arrived at the fine monument to Luigi, at the east corner of the north aisle, to avoid confusion it is better to return to the main entrance, and walk up the north aisle, commencing with the monument and resting-place of
Galileo Galilei,
who died in the village of Arcetri (p. 248) , in 1642. Over the cenotaph is his bust, and a representation of his first telescope. Then follows the monument to Pompeio Josephi, a jurist; 3d, to G. Lani (1770) , by Spinazzi,—on the column before this monument is a Pietà by A. Bronzino; 4th, to Angelus Tavantus, sarcophagus below flat pyramid ”

“ He received every mark of private favour. The pope admitted him to six long audiences in the course of two months, wrote an enthusiastic letter to the grand-duke praising the great astronomer, not only for his distinguished learning, but also for his exemplary piety, and granted a pension to his son Vincenzio, which was afterwards transferred to himself, and paid, with some irregularities, to the end of his life. But on the subject of the decree of 1616, the revocation of which Galileo had hoped to obtain through his personal influence, he found him inexorable. ”

“ It will be convenient to discuss more fully at the end of this chapter Galilei's contributions to mechanics and to scientific method, and merely to refer here briefly to his first experiments on falling bodies, which were made at this time. Some were performed by dropping various bodies from the top of the leaning tower of Pisa, and others by rolling balls down grooves arranged at different inclinations. It is difficult to us nowadays, when scientific experiments are so common, to realise the novelty and importance at the end of the 16th century of such simple experiments. ”

“ A letter from Galileo's Venetian friend Micanzio, dated about a month later, is in rather a bolder and less formal style:—"The efforts of your enemies to get your book prohibited will occasion no loss either to your reputation, or to the intelligent part of the world. As to posterity, this is just one of the surest ways to hand the book down to them. But what a wretched set this must be to whom every good thing, and all that is founded in nature, necessarily appears hostile and odious! The world is not restricted to a single corner ”