Milli mála - 01.01.2010, Blaðsíða 266
ter, for instance those connected to the character of the scientist, to
his exuberant, combative ‘tuscanity’, which never shrank from a
dialectical fight.49 galileo discusses science (and, in the
Considerazioni al Tasso, literature) by using the vernacular, but the
real galilean revolution consists in adopting genres (i.e. the dia-
logue and the epistle) which – in their peculiar characteristics – the
Tuscan scientist modifies in a literary-artistic sense. With galileo,
if the concept of gnoseology is not slavish adherence to the princi-
ple of authority anymore, it is mostly due to the formal-dialectical
transformation galileo brought to ‘scientific’ language, that is to
say to its mimetic evolution. at the top of the argument, the refined
metaphor predominates by virtue of its own elegance, the one
which leads giacomo Leopardi, one of the most important Italian
poets and philosophers of the nineteenth century, to write:
“Concerning the association between precision and elegance,
galileo’s style is a splendid example among the Italian writers.”50
In The Assayer, for instance, the ‘equestrian’ metaphor, which
refers to the dialectic process, is celebrated:
I cannot help being surprised when Sarsi wants to persist in
proving his case by bringing witnesses for what I can see
every time by experience. If the discussion about a difficult
question were just like carrying weights, so that several hors-
es could carry more corn sacks than one horse could do, I
should acknowledge that many discussions count more than
one; but discussion is like running, not like carrying, and one
single Berber horse will be able to run more than a hundred
Friesian horses.51
SIMILarITIES BETWEEn SCIEnTIFIC LanguagE …
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49 andrea Battistini, Galileo e i gesuiti. Miti letterari e retorica della scienza, Milano: Vita e
pensiero, 2000, pp. 132–133.
50 giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone di pensieri, Milano: arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1994 [first
edition, 1937], p. 477. Zibaldone di pensieri is a sort of huge philosophical diary, which con-
sists of 3619 pages. Leopardi began to work on it in 1817 and wrote the last page in 1832.
It was published posthumously in seven volumes in 1898 with the original title of Pensieri
di varia filosofia e bella letteratura (Various thoughts on philosophy and literature). In 1937
the work, enriched with notes and indexes by the literary critic Francesco Flora, was pub-
lished with the name by which it is known today.
51 “Io non posso non ritornare a meravigliarmi, che pur il Sarsi voglia persistere a provarmi
per via di testimonii quello chi’io posso ad ogn’ora veder per via d’esperienze. […] Se il
discorrere circa un problema difficile fusse come il portar pesi, dove molti cavalli porteran-
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