Galileo Galilei kneels in front of the church

Galileo Galilei kneels in front of the church
 
 
Galileo Galilei, one of the biggest scientists of the world was born in Pisa in 1564 and died in Florence in 1642. He was supported by the Medici family; Cosimo II invited him to stay in the  "Villa il Gioiello" :  Galileo discovered the four Satellites of Jupiter during his florentine period (1610) and he dedicated them to Cosimo. 

In 1632 the scientist published his "Discorso sui massimi sistemi" and he risked to be burnt at the stake: in his treaty he supported Copernico's eliocentric theory against the geocentric one supported by the church. He was 70 years old when the Inquisition in Rome condemned him for heresy: he must deny everything to survive.


Florence celebrates Galileo:
1.The Galileo museum  preserves his original telescope: it is situated next to a  finger and some teeths of the scientist.
2. Galileo is one of the Illustrious men sculpted in XIX century for the porch of the Uffizi gallery: it is not a case if he directs his gaze to the sky!
3.The tribune at the first floor of the Specola museum celebrates Galileo: Leopoldo II commissioned it in 1841 for the third Congress of Italian Scientists with frescoes representing his most famous discoveries.
4. Galileo died in 1642: the Pope Urbano VIII didn't want his body to be buried together with the other illustrious men in the church of Santa Croce. Only in 1737 Gian Gastone dei Medici commissioned his tomb to Giovan Battista Foggini. It is situated in front of Michelangelo: a curious case because Galileo was born in 1564 and Michelangelo died the same year in Rome!


 

The bust of Galileo sculpted by Marcellini 

 
Galileo's telescope

Tomb in S Croce.
 
Altri articoli
Gambassi Terme
Gambassi Terme

Prominence on Via Francigena.

Santa Reparata and its precious remains
Santa Reparata and its precious remains

Santa reparata was destroyed only at the end of the XIV century when works for the edification of the new one were going on.

Two particolar details
Two particolar details

Giorgio Vasari and Giovanni Stradano painted the "Arrival of the Pope In Florence" between 1555-1562.

What are these two men
What are these two men

Even the genius Leonardo studied it and reproduced wooden models of the machines Brunelleschi employed to move the material he needed!