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references to the readers themselves, that is the public in general.
In Considerazioni al Tasso, the public is directly invoked to testify
Tasso’s literary subterfuges: “But please, go to the next verses and
imagine goffredo showing himself to the soldiers as a bride to her
relatives”44; “Hear, for your lives’ sake, the harshness in these two
verses”45.
On the other hand, in the The Assayer, the public is called upon
in an indirect way – Mr. Cesarini being the proper addressee – and
sometimes it needs to be protected and supported as a ‘victim’ –
just like galileo himself was – against Sarsi’s deceptive theories
and procedures: “It seems to me that Sarsi tries to dupe the reader,
as he feels unable to do anything else: but I will try to uncover his
tricks.”46 Sometimes the readers display the same kind of ‘intelli-
gence’ the author displays, so that they can not be misled by the
grossness of the opponent: “My surprise is growing and growing
inside me when I see how frequently Sarsi pretends he is not see-
ing things that are just in front of him. Maybe he hopes that his
actions could have the effect of making other people really
blind.”47; “actually, Mr. Lothario, you really need a very simple
minded and a not very enlightened reader.”48
These examples demonstrate how the structural categories of
narrator and narratee, which usually apply to narrative, could be
perfectly applicable to galileo’s two treatises. In fact, the previous
examples testify how, in the two works in question, the category of
narratee is even variable, so that these works could be analysed
from different points of readerly perspective, that is to say from
different epistemological dimensions (the latter being unusual, in
SIMILarITIES BETWEEn SCIEnTIFIC LanguagE …
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44 “Ma venite pure a quel che segue appresso e figuratevi il mostrarsi di goffredo a’ Soldati,
come la sposa al parentado”, galileo galilei, Considerazioni al Tasso, from Edizione digi-
tale delle opere complete di Galileo Galilei, Vol IX, p. 67, http://pinakes.imss.fi.it:8080/
pinakestext/home.jsf (accessed november 5, 2010).
45 “Sentite, per vita vostra, che dureza è in questi due versi”, ibid, p. 73.
46 “Parmi che ’l Sarsi, sentendosi di non poter far altro, cerchi d’avviluppare il lettore: ma io
cercherò di disfare i viluppi.” galilo galilei, Il Saggiatore, p. 57.
47 “Séguita, anzi pur cresce, in me la meraviglia nata dal veder quanto frequentemente il Sarsi
vada dissimulando di vedere le cose ch’egli ha dinanzi agli occhi, con speranza forse che la
sua dissimulazione abbia negli altri a partorire non una simulata, ma una vera cecità.” Ibid,
p. 158.
48 “Veramente, Signor Lottario, voi siete molto bisognoso che nel lettore sia una gran sempli-
citá ed una piccola avvertenza.” Ibid, p. 167.
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