Il Saggiatore di Galileo a 400 anni dalla sua pubblicazione
International conference
Roma, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Palazzo Corsini, Via della Lungara 10
23-25 October 2023
One of Galileo's most significant works saw the light in 1623 under the banner of the academic lynx. Dedicated to the vice-prince of the Lincei, Virginio Cesarini, and offered as an augural gift to the newly elected new pope Urban VIII, Il Saggiatore (The Assayer) marked the Tuscan scientist's direct intervention in the lively controversy over the interpretation of comets that had ploughed the skies of Europe between 1618 and 1619. Conceived as a response to the Libra astronomica (1619) by the Jesuit Orazio Grassi, who, following Tycho Brahe, had interpreted recent cometary phenomena as a confirmation of the geocentric structure of the universe, the Galilean work questioned his conclusions. It also took the opportunity to radically contest the foundations of scholastic philosophy on which the Jesuit's arguments rested, to which Galileo countered his own conception of a nature organized on the basis of rigorous mathematical principles that admit no exceptions.
The conference, which is the result of a collaboration between the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and the Museo Galileo, aims to return to those epochal discussions, favouring the context in which they took place and focusing on the role played there by Federico Cesi and the members of the first Lincean Academy at the time of its greatest influence.
Online registrations are required to attend the conference.
All information is available at: https://www.lincei.it/it/manifestazioni/il-saggiatore-di-galileo-400-anni-dalla-sua-pubblicazione
The proceedings can also be followed by the audience via streaming.
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Useful linksRelated resources (in Italian)