V. 1 is a detailed analysis of a previously unknown proof copy of the first edition of Galileo's Sidereus nuncius, in which watercolor drawings appear in place of the etchings of the published edition, consigned in 2005 to the antiquarian bookselling firm of Martayan Lan. V. 2 is an account of the composition and production of the edition, based on analysis of extant copies as well as the New York proof copy. V. 3 was written in response to (...) the discovery, soon after the publication of v. 2, that the proof copy was in fact an elaborate forgery produced between 2003 and 2005 under the direction of Marino Massimo de Caro, as first reported in the article "A very rare book," by Nicholas Schmidle, in The New Yorker issue of 16 December 2013. V. 4, in German, is a heavily revised edition of Horst Bredekamp's Galilei der Künstler, which had included a chapter on the then unrecognized forgery. (shrink)

V. 1 is a detailed analysis of a previously unknown proof copy of the first edition of Galileo's Sidereus nuncius, in which watercolor drawings appear in place of the etchings of the published edition, consigned in 2005 to the antiquarian bookselling firm of Martayan Lan. V. 2 is an account of the composition and production of the edition, based on analysis of extant copies as well as the New York proof copy. V. 3 was written in response to (...) the discovery, soon after the publication of v. 2, that the proof copy was in fact an elaborate forgery produced between 2003 and 2005 under the direction of Marino Massimo de Caro, as first reported in the article "A very rare book," by Nicholas Schmidle, in The New Yorker issue of 16 December 2013. V. 4, in German, is a heavily revised edition of Horst Bredekamp's Galilei der Künstler, which had included a chapter on the then unrecognized forgery. (shrink)

Este ensaio introdutório faz uma breve apresentação do tratado de óptica atribuído a Euclides de Alexandria, inserindo-o no contexto das teorias sobre a visão formuladas pelas doutrinas filosóficas antigas. Ressalta-se o antagonismo entre a análise geométrica da visão, empreendida por Euclides, e as considerações filosóficas acerca dos processos físicos subjacentes à sensação visual. Pretende-se mostrar que o objeto da óptica euclidiana é a percepção visual daquilo que Aristóteles denomina "sensível comum". This introductory essay provides an abridged presentation of the optical (...) treatise attributed to Euclid of Alexandria, placing it in the context of theories about vision formulated by the ancient philosophical doctrines. I emphasize the antagonism between the geometric analysis of vision, undertaken by Euclid, and the philosophical considerations about the physical processes underlying visual sensation. In addition, I aim to show that the object of Euclidean optics is the visual perception of what Aristotle calls "common sensible". (shrink)

Horst Bredekamp (General Editor). Galileo's O. Volume 1: The Sidereus Nuncius of 1610: A Comparison of the Proof Copy (New York) and Other Paradigmatic Copies (Graz, Paris, Münster). Edited by, Irene Brückle and Oliver Hahn. 188 pp., illus., apps., bibl., indexes. Volume 2: Galileo Makes a Book: The First Edition of the Sidereus Nuncius, Venice 1610. Edited by, Paul Needham. 249 pp., illus., apps., bibl., index. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011. €128 (cloth).

After the publication of Sidereus Nuncius, in the controversy with Ch. Scheiner, Galileo developed several arguments on behalf of the hypothesis that sunspots are contiguous to the surface of the Sun, and presented them in his Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle macchie solari e loro accidenti. One of them, named by Galileo a Practical Method, advocates very clearly the correctness of the hypothesis. In the paper the method in question is briefly described. It is argued that the Practical (...) Method is not a thought experiment, but rather a mental model proposed precisely in order to solve the problem of sunspots’ location. (shrink)

Vydání Galileova Hvězdného posla vyvolalo okamžitou reakci mnoha evropských učenců, s jednou důležitou výjimkou, kterou tvořili jezuitští matematici Římské koleje pod vedením uznávaného matematika Christophora Clavia. Cílem článku je prozkoumat možné důvody opožděné reakce římských jezuitů, kteří se k nebeským objevům vyjádřili více než rok po vydání Galileovy knihy. Existují důkazy nasvědčující tomu, že i když byli římští matematici nakloněni uznání novinek odhalených teleskopem, nástrojem, který ještě musel dokázat svou důvěryhodnost, byli omezeni přísnými pravidly, která měla za úkol udržet jednotu (...) jezuitského řádu. (shrink)

Libertas philosophandi è una indagine del rapporto disciplinare tra filosofia e teologia che ruota intorno alla celebre Lettera alla granduchessa Cristina di Lorena di G. Galilei, lettera-trattato con cui lo scienziato cerca di salvare uno spazio di libertà di ricerca nel contesto della cultura controriformata. La prima parte del libro illustra criticamente le polemiche sorte a partire dalla pubblicazione del Sidereus nuncius e proseguite fino alla condanna del copernicanesimo nel 1616. La seconda è dedicata all'analisi strutturale della Lettera (...) e alla ricerca delle fonti testuali che l'hanno ispirata, identificandone talora l'edizione precisa. La terza parte sviluppa i diversi temi della Lettera, presentando alcuni elementi fin qui ignoti o ignorati, tra i quali un forte indebitamento con la tradizione del trattato aristotelico De anima (in particolare con Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Pietro Pomponazzi e Cesare Cremonini); la scoperta di un plagio da parte di Cremonini; la sensibilità politica di Galileo. Viene poi discusso il problema del cosiddetto concordismo del trattato e proposta una lettura controcorrente; si presenta una analisi iconografica che evidenzia, tra l'altro, il legame tra la Lettera a Cristina e l'Accademia dei Lincei. Ancora, si offre un documento inedito che getta luce sul ruolo del cardinale Bellarmino nella condanna del 1616. Infine una rilettura dei documenti dei due processi a Galileo mostra come una lieve, ma decisiva manipolazione della sentenza del primo processo riproponga la problematicità del secondo. La quarta parte del libro contiene il testo della Lettera accompagnato da numerose note di commento storico. (shrink)

This paper discusses a passage from the Second Day of Galileo’s Dialogue in which explicit reference is made to the game of tennis and, more specifically, to spinning balls. This often overlooked passage forms part and parcel of the tightly-knit argumentative structure of the work, and provides key arguments against Aristotelian physics. Furthermore, Galileo’s choice of terms shows how careful he was in his use of analogies as effective tools to reconcile the new physics that he was struggling to introduce, (...) with common sense. Finally, and most interestingly, by comparing this passage with a similar one from Galileo’s unpublished writings, this paper shows the extent to which Galileo was interested in the physics of spinning balls and how he planned to include a discussion of it in a work that he began shortly after the publication of the Sidereus Nuncius, but never managed to finish. (shrink)

A main area of Hans Blumenberg’s works, the history of science, has received little attention, in particular Blumenberg’s history of astronomy. Since 1955 Blumenberg [1920-1996] had undertaken a research on Copernican astronomy, and published many papers during the 50’s and 60’s, later put together in Die kopernikanische Wende [1965]. Blumenberg had also prepared preliminary studies on Galileo Galilei’s Sidereus Nuncius and Cusa’s De coniecturis. All this work will culminate in Blumenberg’s monumental Die genesis der kopernikanischen Welt [1975] and (...) his posthumous book Die Vollzähligkeit der Sterne [1997]. The aim of this paper is to undertake a review on this neglected area of Blumenberg’s works. We will focus on the Heideggerian background in Blumenberg’s history of astronomy. Our thesis is that in Blumenberg’s history of astronomy we can find a metaphysics of existence in a Heideggerian way, as astronomical existential paradigms. (shrink)

In the years after the first circulation of Sidereus Nuncius, Galileo’s Padua anti-Copernican colleague, the staunch Aristotelian philosopher, Cesare Cremonini, published a book on ‘traditional’ cosmology, Disputatio de coelo in tres partes divisa which puzzled the Roman authorities of the Inquisition and the Index much more than any works on celestial novelties and ‘neo-Pythagorean’ astronomy. Cremonini’s disputation on the heavens has the form of an over-intricate comment of Aristotle’s conceptions, in the typi­cally argumentative style of Scholasticism. Nonetheless, it (...) immediately raised the concern of Cardinal Bellarmin, the Pope and other Inquisitors. At a close reading, Cremonini’s interpretation of Aristotle’s cosmos proved radically anti- Christian. It represented a radicalization of Pomponazzian Alexandrism. In fact, Cremonini did not only circulate Aristotelian principles used by Pom­ponazzi to argue for the soul’s mortality. He also wiped away all transcendence from the Aristotelian cosmos. In fact, he marginalized the function of the motive Intelligences by explaining heavenly motions through the action of animal-like inseparable souls although he did not erase nor reduced all Intelligences to only one, in accordance with Alexander. Also, he put at the center of Aristotle’s cosmos the idea of its eternity, a thesis which he explicitly connected with the rejection of the idea of God the Creator. Cremonini assumed that the univer­sal efficiens, that is the efficient cause of all motion and change in the world, is nothing but the first heaven. As a result of this radically naturalist reading of Aristotle, he banned God from the cosmos, reduced Him to the final cause of the world, and deprived Him of any efficiency and will. This essay on less ex­plored sources of Renaissance astronomical debates considers the institutional, cultural and religious setting of Cremonini’s teaching and conceptions. It as­sesses the reasons for his troubles with the religious authorities, and the politi­cal support he was granted by the Serenissima Republic of Venice inspite of the scandalous opinions he circulated as a university professor. My reconstruction of his views is based on the Disputatio de coelo of 1613 and later works, which are directly connected with cosmo-theological polemics with the religious au­thorities: his Apologia dictorum Aristotelis de quinta coeli substantia and the unpublished book De coeli efficientia, two manuscript copies of which are preserved in the libraries of Padua and Venice. (shrink)

While it is well known that Plutarch’s De facie in orbe lunae was a major source of inspiration for Galileo’s Sidereus nuncius, its influence on his Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, and especially on his views on gravity, has not been sufficiently explored. This essay offers the first systematic comparison of Plutarch’s and Galileo’s accounts of gravity by focusing on four themes: the thought experiment of a stone falling in a tunnel passing through the center (...) of the Earth; the account of gravity as a tendency to unite with the whole; the view that the Moon is a separate center of attraction; and the impossibility of attraction by an incorporeal point. The essay analyzes the role that these themes play in De facie and in the Dialogo, trying to understand how Galileo appropriated, reworked, and expanded on Plutarch’s views. (shrink)

Paolo Beni da Gubbio (1553-1625) has been studied almost exclusively for his literary and rhetorical production. However, he finds an important place among the scholars of the Renaissance who developed a novel reading of Plato as an alternative to the predominant exegesis of Ficino and his followers. His writings represent a prime example of the interplay between exegetical discussions (both of literary and philosophical texts) and the emerging sciences. In the unpublished part of his commentary on Plato’s "Timaeus", Beni discusses (...) Platonic natural philosophy – cosmology in particular – in the light of the interpretations of other authors as well as the new scientific theories, mostly in relation to the Paduan scientific circles. From Galileo’s correspondence with Giovan Battista Manso, we know that Beni weas well-informed about Galileo’s astronomical observations and discoveries at the beginning of 1610, which were soon published thereafter in the "Sidereus Nuncius". Further, we have information concerning Beni’s active role in the circulation of these observations. We wish to cast new light on the reception of these novelties by an advocate of the classical tradition such as Beni. Beni’s praise of the new discoveries is testified by his unedited commentary to the Ciceronian "Dream of Scipio" (1610-15), in which he criticizes the Aristiotelian cosmological model, referring to the newly invented telescope and referring to Galileo’s astronomical observations. Echoes of new scientific and cosmological theories appear also in Beni’s commentaries on Tasso’s "Delivered Jerusalem". (shrink)

1 The Iuvenilia–Early Galilean works When Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) published the Sidereus Nuncius in 1610 [Galilei 1890-1909, III, pt 1, 51-96], he was a famous enough scientist, who was not young: for, he was 46. Nevertheless, this little book represented the fundamental turning point in Galileo’s life and scientific production. The Sidereus Nuncius was very successful and gave rise to numerous discussions. Some scholars defended Galileo—the most important was Kepler—, many others, with a...

V. 1 is a detailed analysis of a previously unknown proof copy of the first edition of Galileo's Sidereus nuncius, in which watercolor drawings appear in place of the etchings of the published edition, consigned in 2005 to the antiquarian bookselling firm of Martayan Lan. V. 2 is an account of the composition and production of the edition, based on analysis of extant copies as well as the New York proof copy. V. 3 was written in response to (...) the discovery, soon after the publication of v. 2, that the proof copy was in fact an elaborate forgery produced between 2003 and 2005 under the direction of Marino Massimo de Caro, as first reported in the article "A very rare book," by Nicholas Schmidle, in The New Yorker issue of 16 December 2013. V. 4, in German, is a heavily revised edition of Horst Bredekamp's Galilei der Künstler, which had included a chapter on the then unrecognized forgery. (shrink)

Indice: 1. Astronomia e tecnica di Ilario Altobelli; 2. Altobelli e i sistemi di mondo; 3. Altobelli e Regiomontano nella Demonstratio Ostendens artem dirigendi; 4. Conclusioni. Ilario Altobelli nasce nel 1610 nella regione italiana delle Marche, precisamente a Montecchio. Fu frate minore conventuale, ben presto occupato in incarichi didattici e pastorali dell’Ordine prima e come annalista poi2. La sua attività si svolse soprattutto tra Fermo, Ancona e Verona. Conosciuto per l’abilità retorica, fu teologo presso vari cardinali e fu il cardinale (...) Conti ad Ancona a mostrargli il Sidereus nuncius di Galileo 3. Altobelli si occupava infatti di matematica e di astronomia, ed ebbe... (shrink)

J’analyserai des déclarations et des idées proposées par Galilée dans son Sidereus Nuncius et j’en proposerai des interprétations non conventionnelles. Je vais essayer de montrer qu’avec un esprit logique et de nouvelles hypothèses, il est possible de parvenir à de nouvelles interprétations possibles de la pensée de Galilée.

Galileo’s telescopic lunar observations, announced in Siderius Nuncius (1610), were a triumph of observational skill and ingenuity. Yet, unlike the Medicean stars, Galileo’s lunar “discoveries” were not especially novel. Indeed, Plutarch had noted the moon’s uneven surface in classical times, and many other renaissance observers had also turned their gaze moonward, even (in Harriot’s case) aided by telescopes of their own. Moreover, what Galileo and his contemporaries saw was colored by the assumptions they already had. Copernicans assumed the moon (...) was a terrestrial satellite, thus Galileo saw its mountains and Kepler “saw” the dwellings of its inhabitants. Aristotelians assumed the moon was a perfect sphere, so they saw differences in density and rarity in the lunar body. Theory corrected the results of observation, so Galileo’s lunar observations, like those that had come before, proved nothing. Yet this failure contained the germ of Galileo’s success, since the Siderius Nuncius gave observation a rhetorical force it did not have before. Observers on all sides set out to see for themselves what Galileo reported. Hence, all parties now had to answer to what they saw, whatever they believed. Thus, the Siderius Nuncius ultimately changed the grounds upon which natural philosophical argument and debate was carried out. In this new empirical arena, the Galilean science would eventually prevail. (shrink)

ACERBI Fabio« Archimedes and the Angel: Phantom Paths from Problems to Equations » Aestimatio 2 (2005), paru en 2006, p. 169-226. Compte-rendu J. Schönbeck, Euklid, Basel/Boston/Berlin, Birkhaüser 2003, dans Nuncius 21 (2006), p. 157-159. BABAULT SophieLangues, école et société à Madagascar. Normes scolaires, pratiques langagières, enjeux sociaux, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2006, 320 p. BENDJABALLAH SabrinaAvec Patricia Cabredo Hofherr, « Modification of the Noun in Somali: Comparative Evidence from..

Acerbi Fabio- Euclide, Tutte le Opere. A cura di F. Acerbi. Milano, Bompiani 2007, 2713 p. - « Una scuola matematica alessandrina ? »,, in C. Bartocci, P. Odifreddi (éds.), La Matematica, Vol. 1. I luoghi e i tempi. Torino, Einaudi 2007, pp. 65-89. Comptes-rendus - H.L.L. Busard, Campanus of Novara and Euclid's Elements, Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag 2005, in : Nuncius 22 (2007), pp. 139-140. - J. Evans, J.L. Berggren (éds.), Geminos’s Introduction to the Phenomena: A Translation and (...) Study .. (shrink)

It is this paper’s aim to shed some light on the debate about the cultural debt of Niels Bohr towards his mentor and teacher of philosophy, Harald Høffding. The debate began at the end of seventies between two Danish scholars, Jan Faye and David Favrholdt, and in a broader sense it stands for way to show how philosophical influences may shape the scientist’s outlook on the world and consequently the approach to his field of studies. In my view, Edgar Rubin, (...) the famous psychologist and Bohr’s friend, is the key person to reconsider the Bohr-Høffding’s relationship. I shall adopt Gerald Holton’s thematic analysis for enucleating the possible thematic concept that supports the claim of a common line of thought emerging from Høffding, Rubin and Bohr’s conceptions with respect to their own field of study. Such a line of thought, i.e. the concept of unity, moulded Bohr’s view on the world and exerted its heuristic power in the formulation of the first atomic theory. (shrink)