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the surface of the moon was rough and mountainous like that of the earth,
quite unlike the perfect, luminous sphere of aristotelian cosmology.
Galileo published his discoveries in a 1610 pamphlet, Starry Messenger,
which he dedicated to Grand duke cosimo d’Medici of Tuscany. Galileo
quickly realized that his discovery of the moons of Jupiter was his ticket
out of the university world and into the Tuscan court. cleverly, he chris-
tened the newly discovered satellites “the Medicean stars” after the ducal
family. it was, according to the logic of patronage—which required a gift
to the prospective patron—his “gift” to the Grand duke. The strategy
worked. Within weeks after the publication of Starry Messenger, Galileo
had moved to Florence, where he was given the title court Philosopher
and Mathematician.100
Galileo’s new position, which was a huge boost to his career, thrust
him into an unremitting succession of controversies with academics and
clerics. The ultimate outcome of the story was Galileo’s 1633 condem-
nation following his publication of the Dialogue on the Two Chief World
Systems, which advanced a variety of arguments supporting the earth’s
motion. although the work was carefully crafted as a hypothetical dia-
logue without openly espousing the copernican doctrine, the church
authorities were not fooled. Galileo was brought before the inquisition
and forced to abjure his belief in the copernican system and to spend the
rest of his life under house arrest. as far as science in italy was concerned,
the chill had set in.101
After Galileo: The Enlightenment and Science in VeniceBy the time edward Gibbon made his Grand Tour of europe in 1764, a
journey that included an obligatory trip through the italian Peninsula,
most europeans regarded italy as a cultural backwash. Galileo’s works
remained on the index of Prohibited Books and, compared to northern
europe, scientific development seemed to be at a standstill. Though Venice
offered Gibbon hours of diversion, the University of Padua, he lamented,
“is a dying taper.”102
100 Mario Biagioli, Galileo Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism
(chicago, 1993).
101 For a survey of science in late renaissance italy, see Paula Findlen, “Science and
Society,” in John a. Marino, ed., Early Modern Italy, 1550–1796 (oxford, 2002), pp. 166–87.
102 Gibbon, Memoirs of My Life and Writings (1887 ed.); quoted by owen chadwick,
“The italian enlightenment,” in roy Porter and Mikulá Teich, eds., The Enlightenment in
National Context (cambridge, 1999), p. 91.