This summer I spent my vacation in Tuscany and I took the opportunity to follow Galileo Galilei's footsteps. My first stop was in Pisa, the Birthplace of Galileo. Galileo was born on February 15, 1564. A statue of Galileo can be seen @ Largo Ciro Menotti, just 100m from scientist's childhood home.
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| Statue of Galileo in Pisa (credit Pascal Hilkens) |
It was in the Duomo di Pisa (the Cathedral of Pisa) that according to Vincenzo Viviani, a young pupil of his and later his biographer, Galileo in 1583, while observing in the Cathedral of Pisa the oscillation of a lamp, had asked ‘whether the times of oscillation between two points, for large, medium and small arcs, were the same.
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| Duomo Di Pisa in the Piazza Dei Miracoli (credit Pascal Hilkens) |
Next stop was Florence @ the Museo Galileo near the famous Ponte Vecchio.
Outside the Museum and in front of the entrance a gnomon of a giant sundial is installed.
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| Galileo's Telescopes (1609&1610) credit Pascal Hilkens |
At the Uffize Gallery (Galleria degli Uffizi), Galileo as a Mathematician can be found on a fresco with tempera retouches by Agnolo Gori made in 1663 at the ceiling of the west corridor, span 74.
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| Ceiling with Fresco of Galileo (credit Pascal Hilkens) |
In one of the many Uffizi rooms I found a portrait of Galileo Galilei made by the Flemsih painter Justus Sustermans, in 1636.
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| Galileo by Justus Sustermans - Oil on Canvas at Uffize Gallery (credit Pascal Hilkens) |
I finished my tour at the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. The remains of Galileo Galilei are located in a marble tomb created by Giulio Foggini. The polychrome marble tomb of Galileo was sculpted between 1734 and 1737. The brown and black marble tomb is flanked by two allegorical sculptures of robed female figures representing Astronomy by Vincenzo Foggini, and Geometry by Girolamo Ticciati. Galileo died on the night of January
8th, 1642.
His body was first placed in a little room below the
bell tower of the Basilica and only in 1737 got Galileo his monumental tomb.
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| Original tomb of Galileo - credit Pascal Hilkens |
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| Galileo monumental tomb - credit Pascal Hilkens |
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| Sculpture of Galileo with below Jupiter and it's four Galilean moons - Credit Pascal Hilkens |
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| Latin text below Galileo's tomb - Credit Pascal Hilkens |
English translation of the text below the tomb:
Galileo Galilei, Florentine patrician, the greatest restorer of Geometry, Astronomy and Philosophy to be compared to none of his era, may rest well in this place. Lived 78 years - Died in 1642. |
| Basilica Sante Croce, Florence - Credit Pascal Hilkens |
Some interesting facts of Sante Croce: not only Galileo is buried in the Basilica but also:
- Niccole Machiavelli
- Michelangelo Buonarotti died on February 18, 1564 - 3 days after Galileo was born
- Florence Nightingale
- Memorial of Enrico Fermi
- Memorial of Guglielmo Marconi
- a cenotaph for Dante
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