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to his works a dialectic organization that,together with scientific
reasoning, is meant to win public favour (“because I need every
single person to be able to read it”) in a sort of dialectic ‘propa-
ganda’ that goes beyond mere scientific reasoning. as a matter of
fact, the strictly technico-scientific parts of galilean works are
hardly comprehensible for a non-specialized reader, even though
they are presented in vernacular. galileo did not use the vernacular
as a simple ethical issue connected to the broader diffusion of
knowledge; if so, he could have employed – in the two aforemen-
tioned letters – more appropriate expressions than “because I need
every single person to be able to read it” and “It was convenient for
me to write this Discourse in Italian”. The words galileo uses seem
rather to refer to a sphere of political expediency, that is, to the
necessity of arousing great interest in his own works and of draw-
ing positive criticism from the largest possible part of the public in
order to defend himself against the threat of influential personali-
ties. Indeed, consciousness of his own dialectic ability might have
endowed the Tuscan scientist with the compelling strength with
which, in spite of the trial and the sentence of 1616, he overcame
the difficulties of that period of his life. It closed with the triumph
of Il Saggiatore (The Assayer, 1623), generally recognized by crit-
ics as galileo’s literary, rather than scientific masterpiece.
2. galileo, the literary man
galileo galilei’s interest in literature dates from his youth. In 1588,
at the age of twenty-four, one year before obtaining a post as lec-
turer in mathematics at the Studio of Pisa, he was invited by the
Accademia Fiorentina to give two lessons on La figura, il sito e la
grandezza dell’Inferno dantesco (The Configuration, the Site and
the Dimensions of Dante’s Inferno). During his stay in Pisa he also
dedicated himself to reading and commenting on an edition of
Petrarch’s Canzoniere (ca. 1336–1374) and Trionfi (ca. 1340–
1374), and to the composition of the manuscript on Tasso’s poem,
which will be treated below. In Pisa he started to write poems him-
self, some of which showed his aversion for authority and hierar-
chies, especially within the Accademia. galileo’s brief poem enti-
STEFanO rOSaTTI
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