GALILEO'S HERITAGE: PLANETS, ARTS AND HISTORY

Abstract

Everyone knows Galileo Galilei as an astronomer, physicist and writer of books that changed our perception of the world. Few people know that Galileo also wrote poetry in elegant XVI century Italian. In 1590, aged 26, Galileo was a lecturer of mathematics at the University of Pisa, the poorest paid of the faculty. He dutifully taught Euclid, but quickly ran into trouble: he despised and openly challenged Pisa's strict academic traditions. Especially the rule by which all professors had to wear their gown at all times, under penalty of a stiff fine. To chastise and mock such rule, he wrote his longest poem, the 301-line Capitolo "Against the Donning of the Gown".