Galileo's parts on show
Source: Agencies |
June 9, 2010, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A TOOTH, thumb and finger cut off from the body of renowned Italian scientist Galileo, who died in 1642, go on display this week in Florence after an art collector found them by chance last year.
The body parts, along with another finger and a vertebrae, were cut from Galileo's corpse by scientists and historians during a burial ceremony 95 years after his death.
"The laymen and masons that were attending the ceremony thought that they should have some souvenir of Galileo's body," said Paolo Galluzzi, director of Florence's Galileo Museum. "They thought that having a piece of the man would have been a homage to his tradition. The idea of having relics of science is very similar, is a mirror of the relics of religion."
The remains, along with two telescopes, a compass and a wealth of other instruments designed by Galileo, are the main attraction at the refurbished museum, which reopens tomorrow after two years of renovation work.
One of Galileo's fingers and the vertebrae had been kept in Florence and Padua since 1737, but the other finger, the thumb and the tooth had passed between collectors until they went missing in 1905.
Alberto Bruschi bought them with other religious relics last October at an auction, where they were being sold as unidentified artefacts in a 17th century wooden case.
When Bruschi and his daughter noticed that Galileo's bust topped the case, and read a book documenting how parts of the scientist's body had been cut off at his burial, they contacted the museum. Tests confirmed they were Galileo's missing remains.
For 95 years after his death, ecclesiastical authorities refused to allow Galileo to be buried in consecrated ground because his findings - that the sun, and not the Earth, is the center of the universe - were contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church.
The body parts, along with another finger and a vertebrae, were cut from Galileo's corpse by scientists and historians during a burial ceremony 95 years after his death.
"The laymen and masons that were attending the ceremony thought that they should have some souvenir of Galileo's body," said Paolo Galluzzi, director of Florence's Galileo Museum. "They thought that having a piece of the man would have been a homage to his tradition. The idea of having relics of science is very similar, is a mirror of the relics of religion."
The remains, along with two telescopes, a compass and a wealth of other instruments designed by Galileo, are the main attraction at the refurbished museum, which reopens tomorrow after two years of renovation work.
One of Galileo's fingers and the vertebrae had been kept in Florence and Padua since 1737, but the other finger, the thumb and the tooth had passed between collectors until they went missing in 1905.
Alberto Bruschi bought them with other religious relics last October at an auction, where they were being sold as unidentified artefacts in a 17th century wooden case.
When Bruschi and his daughter noticed that Galileo's bust topped the case, and read a book documenting how parts of the scientist's body had been cut off at his burial, they contacted the museum. Tests confirmed they were Galileo's missing remains.
For 95 years after his death, ecclesiastical authorities refused to allow Galileo to be buried in consecrated ground because his findings - that the sun, and not the Earth, is the center of the universe - were contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church.
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