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Re: Galileo's _Dialog..._



Charles, hello.

In my 1967 edition (Stillman Drake's translation) of Dialogues Concerning
Two Chief World Systems, a footnote appears at the very end of the text
(Fourth Day) to the effect that Galileo put one of the favorite arguments
of Pope Urban VIII (against the conclusiveness of the proof of the earth's
motion) into the mouth of the character Simplicio. Galileo thus indirectly
called the Pope a simpleton, which was not the wisest of actions given the
social and political order of the day. In fact, this passage was later
used in evidence against Galileo as one of the points in the text offensive
to the Church.

Whether or not Galileo meant this particular jab to be "underhanded" or not
is a matter for debate, but his detractors evidently found it to be rather
'heavy-handed' and proceeded accordingly.

Nick

Nicholas R. Guilbert

The Peddie School
Hightstown, NJ

nguilber@peddie.org




Charles
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Greetings -

I'm teaching an intro to astronomy course and I'm going to be discussing
Galileo for a day. I recall hearing somewhere that Galileo used the names
(Salviati, Sagredo, Simplicio) as underhanded jabs against the geocentric
paradigm. Obviously, Simplicio denotes an idiot/simpleton, but I don't
remember
the translation of the other names.

From the preface to The Dialog it seems that he has borrowed the names
from real people. I'm not sure that I understand who those people were,
though.
Can anyone help me out here?

Thanks much -


Charles Figura
figura@wartburg.edu http://www.wartburg.edu/mcsp/figura
Department of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Physics
(319) 352-8373 "The only capital crime in nature is stupidity.
(319) 352-8606 (fax) The penalty is death, and it is administered
promptly, and without mercy."
-R. A. Heinlein