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Discovery of Galileo's long-lost letter highlights the value of physical repositories
Modern scholars don't always have to physically visit museums and archives around the world to seek secrets of the past. Many collections have been digitized, and much can be done with these online resources. But can anything beat the thrill of being there and finding an item assumed lost to history? That's what happened last month at the London archives of the Royal Society, with the discovery of a letter of great historical importance.
Written by Galileo Galilei in 1613, the letter sets down for the first time the scientist's gripes with the Vatican's doctrine on astronomy. His forthright objections launched one of science history's most famous battles, which culminated in the Inquisition's condemnation of Galileo for heresy 20 years later. Different copies of the letter had circulated, and their content has been tirelessly analysed and discussed by historians. But seeing the original for the first time, with its scorings-out and word substitutions, solves a long-standing mystery about whether a version sent to the Inquisition in Rome had been doctored — and, if so, by whom.
Galileo, it now seems clear, doctored his original letter himself, to make the language less aggressive, as soon as he realized the trouble heading his way. This suggests that the editing was not the malign work of theologians trying to make a stronger case against him, as had been assumed by the nineteenth-century scholar Antonio Favaro, whose 20-volume The Works of Galileo Galilei is a main reference work.
Also at Smithsonian Magazine and Live Science.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 27 2018, @01:54AM (5 children)
*sigh*
Dems and fascism, I can see. Dems and the Catholic Church? Dems and inquisitors? I'm having a hard time with the parallels. Inquisitors believed in something, however distorted their beliefs were. Dems? What do they believe in?
(Score: 2, Redundant) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday September 27 2018, @04:04AM (2 children)
I said it -- they want fame, money, whatever. For themselves. They don't care about God. Don't care about Country. They have no policies or ideas. All they do is delay and complain. If they believe in anything it's OBSTRUCTIONISM. The Dems will not approve hundreds of good people. They are maxing out the time on approval process for all, never happened before. Disaster for Country!
(Score: 4, Funny) by Bot on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:25AM (1 child)
welcome to politics.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 27 2018, @02:38PM
+1 Funny, Tragic.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday September 27 2018, @08:00PM (1 child)
JFK was Catholic. https://www.americamagazine.org/content/all-things/pope-and-president-paul-vi-and-john-f-kennedy-solemn-handshake-and-bittersweet [americamagazine.org]
Sure, you may say he wasn't as left wing as left wing is today, but I'm not so sure about that.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 28 2018, @02:37PM
Actually, the consensus seems to be that the left is far less left than it was in JFK's day. Many of our Euro members tell us that we have a right and a further right party. We seem to have as many left war mongers as we do right war mongers.