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The reference to canonical figures is clear whenever galileo
presents the animal figure by using a demonstrative (i.e. “that
snake”, “that ape”94), which means that he takes the semantics of
the metaphor for granted and commonly known. This reference
occurs, for instance, when galileo is ironic about the laboured
efforts of Sarsi’s reasoning: “Mr. Sarsi, this behaviour is like that
of the snake which was torn and crushed: since its only vital ener-
gy left was on the tip of its tail, it kept on shaking the tail, with the
result that people could believe the snake was still healthy and
strong.”95 With the same ironical aim, galileo emphasizes the
necessity of the repetition in the experimental experience, in oppo-
sition to the procedure of Sarsi, who superficially trusts his own
senses: “I confess […] that I am like that ape which looks at the
mirror and strongly believes that it is looking at another ape. and
it runs four or six times behind the mirror before recognizing its
own mistake, as the representation of that image is so much alive
and real.”96
as vulgar comedy (in Considerazioni) or canonical representa-
tion (in The Assayer), the animal metaphor is a “structural constant
in the rhetoric of the parody”97 and may therefore be considered to
be another element of the mimetic representation that characterizes
the galilean text.
5. Conclusion
In spite of his global fame as a scientific revolutionary, galileo’s
work still has its critics. Most of these take the view that in his
work the Tuscan scientist managed to hide a great number of sci-
SIMILarITIES BETWEEn SCIEnTIFIC LanguagE …
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94 See footnotes 95–96.
95 “Questo, Signor Sarsi, è […] un far come quella serpe che, lacerata e pesta, non le sendo
rimasti piú spiriti fuor che nell’estremitá della coda, quella va pur tuttavia divincolando, per
dare a credere a’ viandanti d’essere ancor sana e gagliarda.” galileo galilei, Il Saggiatore,
p. 102.
96 “Io confesso […] d’esser come quella scimia che crede fermamente veder nello specchio
un’altra bertuccia, né prima conosce il suo errore, che quattro o sei volte non sia corsa die-
tro allo specchio per prenderla: tanto se le rappresenta quel simulacro vivo e vero.” Ibid, p.
119.
97 “una costante strutturale nella retorica della parodia”, andrea Battistini, Galileo e i gesuiti,
p. 154.
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