Milli mála - 01.01.2010, Blaðsíða 259

STEFanO rOSaTTI
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on the peculiar history of Considerazioni al Tasso.18 astonishingly,
galileo lost this work, and Viviani, who is not able to explain how,
declares that galileo was rather disappointed at the loss:
In Pisa, a friend of galileo’s – I think it was probably Mr.
Iacopo Mazzoni –asked him several times for this demand-
ing work and finally galileo gave it to him, but after that he
never was able to retrieve it, and he sometimes talked about
his sadness over the loss of that study, as he claimed he wrote
it with complaisance and delight.19
The dimensions of the treatise and the dedication it demanded of
its author makes one imagine that galileo wrote this work not only
for reasons of pure ‘complaisance and delight’. The work remained
unknown until the abbott Pier antonio Serassi (1721–1791) found
a manuscript (known as Barberiniano XLV.2) in a roman library
and recognized in it an apograph of galileo’s Considerazioni al
Tasso. Serassi transcribed the text and hid it, since he was a devot-
ed admirer of Tasso and did not approve of galileo’s destructive
criticism of Jerusalem Delivered. When Serassi died, Don
Baldassarre Odescalchi, Duke of Ceri, obtained his documents,
discovered the important work among them, and passed it to the
roman literati Pietro Pasqualoni, who finally published it (1793)
with a brief introduction by himself.20
18 according to Pietro Pasqualoni’s introduction of Considerazioni al Tasso (see footnote 12),
galileo wrote Considerazioni in 1590, at the age of twenty-six, when he still lived in Pisa
(see p. IV of this introduction). Pasqualoni does not adduce any historico-philological evi-
dence to support his own opinion. actually, there are no elements that testify the exact peri-
od of composition of Considerazioni al Tasso. according to antonio Favaro (see footnote
1), the text could have been written in different moments in galileo’s life and the possibili-
ty that some passages of the work were written when Tasso (who died in 1595) was still
alive cannot be ruled out. In all probability, Considerazioni al Tasso was written prior 1609.
(See Edizione digitale delle opere complete di Galileo Galilei, Vol IX, p. 12–13).
19 “Questa fatica gli fu domandata più volte con grandissima instanza da amico suo, mentre
era in Pisa, e credo fusse il Sig.r Iacopo Mazzoni, al quale finalmente la diede, ma poi non
poté mai recuperarla, dolendosi alcuna volta con sentimento della perdita di tale studio, nel
quale egli stesso diceva aver avuto qualche compiacenza et diletto.” Vincenzio Viviani,
Racconto istorico di Vincenzio Viviani, from Edizione digitale delle opere complete di
Galileo Galilei, Vol. XIX, p. 627, http://pinakes.imss.fi.it:8080/pinakestext/home.jsf
(accessed november 5, 2010).
20 angelo Solerti, Vita di Torquato Tasso, Torino-roma: Ermanno Loescher, 1895, Vol. I, pp.
451–452, http://www.archive.org/stream/vitaditorquatot02solegoog#page/n525/mode/1up
(accessed november 5, 2010).
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