Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
$XWKRUV0DULR%LDJLROL
5HYLHZHGZRUNV
6RXUFH,VLV9RO1R-XQSS
3XEOLVKHGE\The University of Chicago PressRQEHKDOIRIThe History of Science Society
6WDEOH85/http://www.jstor.org/stable/233685 .
$FFHVVHG
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
The University of Chicago Press and The History of Science Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to Isis.
http://www.jstor.org
Resumen: El artculo explora las estratgias polticas que empleo Galileo a lo largo de un periodo de su vida para lograr establecerse
como miembro de la Corte de los Medici y hacer que sus descubrimientos (ej. las lunas de Jupiter) fuesen aceptados. Presenta la
manera en la que la sociedad, particularmente la clase aristocrata, estableca su poder y dominio a travs de emblemas, symbolos y
sobre todo mitos (branding of a family as natural leaders). Y como Galileo uso esto para establecerse dentro de la Corte.
Galileo
the
Emblem
Maker
By Mario Biagioli*
THE SUMMER OF 1609 Galileo, then a professor of mathematicsat the
University of Padua, succeeded in constructinga telescope that was remarkably better than those previously built in northernEurope. With this new instrument he made a numberof astronomicaldiscoveries that contradictedthe dominant Aristoteliancosmology and supportedthe claims of the Copernicans.In the
springof 1610he presentedhis exceptionaldiscoveries in the Sidereus nuncius, a
short but revolutionarytext dedicated to the grandduke of Tuscany, Cosimo II
de' Medici. He announced that the surface of the moon was far from being
smooth, as the philosophershad claimed, and that the numberof stars was much
greaterthan had been previouslybelieved. He also made the explosive claim that
there were four more planets-which he called Medicean stars-than the dominant cosmology recognized, and that these circled Jupiter, not Earth. The
Sidereus nuncius broughtGalileo internationalvisibility and opened for him the
doors of Medici patronage.By September1610Galileo was back in Florence; he
was now philosopherand mathematicianof the grandduke, with no teachingload
and with the remarkablestipend of 1,000 scudi a year.
The awardof a 1,000-scudistipendwas exceptionalby comparisonto the salaries of other importantartists and officials of the Medici court. Although it is
difficultto produce absolute comparisonsof courtiers'incomes, Galileo's stipend
appears to have been at least three times that of any artist or engineer and one
and a half times that of a primo segretario like Belisario Vinta or Curzio Picchena. Galileo's stipend was comparableto that of the maggiordomomaggiore
-the highest court official. Even the sculptor Giambologna-the most famous
among the Medici artists at the beginningof the century, and one who was repeatedly courted by two emperors-made less than half what Galileo would receive a few years laters.I As far as I can tell, Galileo's salarywas among the ten
highest in the grandduchy of Tuscany at that time.2
Having been socialized in a culture that takes for grantedthe scientific imporIN
230
GALILEOTHE EMBLEMMAKER
231
232
MARIOBIAGIOLI
Some reasons for the Medici's interest in the satellites of Jupiter are easy to
grasp. As Galileo asserted in the dedicationof the Sidereus nuncius, these bodies
were monuments to the Medici dynasty.6 Moreover, they were monuments of
exceptional durabilityand worldwide visibility (at least for audiences equipped
with good telescopes). But there were other reasons behind the Medici enthusiasm for Galileo's discoveries, reasons fully apparentto a Florentine audience
familiar with the mythology the Medici had been articulatingsince Cosimo I
establishedthe dynasty in the middleof the sixteenth century. In this mythology
a correspondencewas drawnbetween cosmos and Cosimo, and Jupiterwas regularly associated with Cosimo I, the founder of the dynasty and the first of the
"Mediceangods."7Consequently,while Galileo could have dedicatedthe newly
discovered planets to any patron, they were particularlysignificantto the Medici, for whom Jupiter'ssatellites would appearas dynastic emblems.
Althoughthe Medicis had been de facto rulersof an allegedlyrepublicanFlorCosimo I &
ence
since the early fifteenth century, the dukedom itself was of more recent
his
branding origin. In fact, Cosimo I became duke of Florence in 1537 and was made grand
strategy to duke of Tuscany only in 1569. Duringthe 1540she had to create the political and
establish administrativestructureof the new state, along with a new political mythology
the Medici that would legitimize the Medici rule as a dynastic one. The powerful Florentine
as the families were to be transformedfrom political leaders into a docile court aristonatural cracy,8 and the new mythology was to represent the ducal rule as natural and
dynasty of necessary and indicate the role the Florentinefamilies had to assume within it.
Florence
Cosimo's strategy was to represent the Medici rule as Florence's manifest
destiny. The city's horoscope, so commonly cast since the Middle Ages, was
normalizedto suggest the astrological necessity of Medici rule by linking that
rule to the history and fate of the city. New Medici-orientedhistories and
Medici-sensitive reinterpretationsof ancient myths were commissioned, while
Medici-relatedimagery was introduced into Florentine art.9 Most important,
Talk about branding strategies!!!
6
Galileo Galilei, Sidereus nuncius, trans. Albert Van Helden (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press,
1989),pp. 29-33.
7 Giorgio Vasari, Ragionamenti di Giorgio Vasari sopra le invenzioni da lui dipinte in Firenze nel
Palazzo di loro Altezze Serenissime con lo Illustrissimo ed Eccellentissimo Don Francesco de' Medici
Janet Cox-Rearick,Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Art (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press,
1984); see p. 231 for Medici-relatedimagery in art. On the early Renaissance city horoscopes in
Florence see RichardTrexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York: Academic Press,
233
Ibid.
Ragionamenti (cit. n. 7), p. 85. These and all other translations are mine.
234
MARIOBIAGIOLI
7 Terrace of Saturn
17 Room of the
Elements
18 Room of Ceres
19 Room of Calliope
20 Room of Ops
21 Room of Jupiter
22 Room of Hercules
23 Porch of Juno
Figure 1. Apartmentof the Elements, adapted from EttoreAllegri and Alessandro Cecchi,
Palazzo Vecchio e i Medici (Florence: SPES, 1980), p. xxv.
235
27 Room of Leo X
28 Room of Cosimo
il Vecchio
29 Room of Lorenzo
il Magnifico
30 Room of Cosimo I
31 Room of Giovanni
dalle Bande Nere
Vecchio
e i Medici, p.
236
MARIOBIAGIOLI
Feste e apparati medicei da Cosimo I a Cosimo II (Florence: Olschki, 1969); Alois Maria Nagler,
Theatre Festivals of the Medici, 1539-1637 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1964); and
19:219-293,esp. pp. 273-275. The adoptionof the life-style and cultureof the upper classes was a
prerequisitefor artists looking for social legitimationand status; see Francis Haskell, Patrons and
Painters (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1980),pp. 18-19.
237
StillmanDrake, in Drake, Galileo against the Philosophers(Los Angeles: Zeitlin & Ver Brugge,
1976), pp. 33-53. On Ruzante see Ludovico Zorzi's introductionto Ruzante, L' Anconitana, ed.
Zorzi (Turin:Einaudi, 1965),pp. v-xi.
20 AnnibalCaro, Comediadegli straccioni(Turin:Einaudi, 1967),p. 24; and Jacopo Soldani, Contro i peripatetici, as quoted in Alberto Asor Rosa and Salvatore Nigro, I poeti giocosi dell'eta bar-
occa (Bari: Laterza, 1975),p. 167. On Galileo's literarystyle and its audience see Robert S. Westman, "TheReceptionof Galileo'sDialogue,"in Novita celesti e crisi del sapere, ed. Galluzzi(cit. n.
1), pp. 331-335.
tissimo," in Studi sulla Divina Comedia di Galileo Galilei, Vincenzo Borghini ed altri, ed. Ottavio
238
MARIOBIAGIOLI
from the Vocabolario degli accademici della Crusca, first published in Florence in 1612; see Salva-
The Lezione di Benedetto Varchi nella quale si disputa della maggioranza delle arti, which Varchi
read to the AccademiaFiorentinain 1547,is an exampleof this academicgenre;it is partiallyreproduced in Paola Barocchi, ed., Scritti d'arte del Cinquecento(Turin:Einaudi, 1977), Vol. I, pp.
99-105, 133-151.
24 ApparentlyGalileo's literaryefforts were quite successful, for his academicfriends in Florence
kept writinghim in Paduato ask for commentson their own sonnets and books; see Galileo, Opere,
Vol. X: no. 52, pp. 63-64; no. 72, pp. 82-83; no. 76, pp. 86-87. On the Florentinecourtierswho acted
as patronsor brokersfor Galileo before his arrivalat the Medici court in September1610see Mario
Biagioli, "Galileo'sSystem of Patronage,"Hist. Sci., 1990,28:1-62, esp. pp. 6-13.
25 Krzysztof Pomian, Collectionneurs, amateurs et curieux (Paris: Gallimard,1987), pp. 81-158,
213-287;Gino Benzoni, Gli affanidella cultura(Milan:Feltrinelli,1978),esp. pp. 7-77; Benzoni, "Le
accademie,"in Storia della culturaveneta, ed. G. Arnaldiand M. Pastore Stocchi (Vicenza: Neri
Pozza, 1984), Vol. IV, Pt. 1; GaetanoCozzi, Paolo Sarpi tra Venezia e l'Europa(Turin:Einaudi,
1979),pp. 135-234;AntonioFavaro,Amici e corrispondentidi Galileo, ed. Paolo Galluzzi(Florence:
Salimbeni,1983),Vol. I, pp. 65-91, 191-322,Vol. II, pp. 703-736;Favaro, "Un ridotto scientificoin
Venezia al tempo di Galileo Galilei,"Nuovo Archivio Veneto, Ser. 2, 1983,5:199-209;and Favaro,
Galileo Galilei e lo Studio di Padova (Padua: Antenore, 1966), Vol. II, pp. 69-102.
26
AlbertoTenenti,Piracy and the Decline of Venice, 1580-1615 (Berkeley:Univ. CaliforniaPress,
239
tury Venice (Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniv. Press, 1976);and EdwardMuir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice (Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniv. Press, 1982).
27 Galileoto BelisarioVinta, 7 May 1610,no. 307, in Opere,Vol. X, pp. 348-353.
28 Favaro, Galileo e lo Studio di Padova (cit. n. 25), Vol. I, pp. 36-77, Vol. II, pp. 1-7, 18-32;
Benzoni, Affani della cultura(cit. n. 25), p. 176;and Galileo, Opere, Vol. XIX, pp. 207-208.
29 Galileo to Cristina,Sept. 1608, no. 199, in Opere,Vol. X, pp. 221-223;Giovio, Dialogo dell'impresse militarie amorose (cit. n. 15), ed. MariaLouisa Doglio (Rome:Bulzoni, 1978),p. 37. On the
political symbolismof cosmologies during(and before) the ScientificRevolutionsee Keith Hutchison, "Towarda PoliticalIconology of the CopernicanRevolution,"in Astrology, Science, and Society, ed. PatrickCurry(Woodbridge,Suffolk:Boydell Press, 1987),pp. 95-141. I owe this last reference to StephenPumphrey.
240
MARIOBIAGIOLI
241
early as 1513 Leo X, the Medici pope who was instrumentalin securing the
duchy of Florence for the Medici, had institutedan annualholiday-the Cosmalia-allegedly in honor of Saint Cosma. In fact the Cosmalia were dedicated to
the memory of Cosimo il Vecchio and were meant as tributes to the Medici
rule.32
For Galileo's later use of the Cosimo-Cosmosanalogy see Galileo to Vinta, 10 Feb. 1610, no.
265, in Opere, Vol. X, p. 283. On Cosmopoli see Amaldo Segarizzi, Relazioni degli ambasciatori
veneti al senato (Bari: Laterza, 1916), Vol. III, p. 256. On the new patron saints of Florence see
Wazbinski, L'Accademia Medicea del Disegno a Firenze nel Cinquecento (cit. n. 15), Vol. I, p. 83.
Cosimo-cosmos motif include Gabriello Chiabrera, La pieta di Cosmo: Dramma musicale rappresentato all' Altezze di Toscana (Genoa, 1622); and Giovanni Carlo Coppola, Cosmo, ovvero l'Italia
trionfante(Florence, 1650).
34 Galileoto Cristina,Sept. 1608,p. 223.
35 Galileoowned Paolo Giovio's and Ettore Tasso's texts on impresas;see Favaro, "La libreriadi
Galileo"(cit. n. 18), pp. 285, 287. One of his sonnets is dedicatedto the enigmaitself: "Enimma,"in
Galileo, Opere, Vol. IX, p. 227. As I have mentioned,he was in charge of the impresasof Padua's
Ricovrati(see at n. 28). Finally, he liked to play with enigmasto communicatehis discoveries, as in
the case of the phases of Venus (Galileoto Giulianode' Medici, 1 Jan. 1611,no. 451, ibid., Vol. XI,
p. 12) or of the shape of Saturn(ibid., 13 Nov., 11 Dec. 1610,nos. 427, 435, Vol. X, pp. 474, 483).
242
MARIOBIAGIOLI
CiprianoSaracinellito Galileo, 5 Dec. 1605,no. 129, in Opere,Vol. X, p. 150. See also Castig-
Vinta to Galileo, 22 Mar. 1608,no. 178, p. 198;and Galileo to Vinta, 4 Apr., 3 May 1608, nos.
Allegriand Cecchi, Palazzo Vecchio e i Medici (cit. n. 11), pp. 113, 149;and KarlaLangedijk,The
Portraitsof the Medici, 2 vols. (Florence:SPES, 1980),p. 212, n. 110,on the use of technologicaland
scientificimpresasin Mediciimagery.
GALILEOTHE EMBLEMMAKER
243
pieces of some unspecifiedmaterial?)made it unacceptable.39Nevertheless, Galileo's attempt was not a total failure but one step in a trial-and-errorstrategy.
Whathe did two years later in bindingthe Medici name to the satellites of Jupiter
was a successful replay of the same strategy. By turningan astronomicaldiscovery into a dynastic emblemhe became a very importantclient-a sort of "cosmic
midwife." At the same time he turned Medici power to the legitimationof his
discoveries and of his telescope.
IV. FROM CLASSIFIED INSTRUMENTS TO DYNASTIC HOROSCOPES
After donating his telescope to the Venetian Senate in August 1609 and being
rewarded with tenure and a remarkable salary increase, Galileo wrote his
brother-in-lawBenedetto Landucci that, given the new developments, he perceived his life and career as permanentlybound to Padua and its university.
However, a few months later he was negotiatingwith Vinta for his position as
"Filosofo e Matematicodel Granducadi Toscana," which he formally obtained
in July 1610.40 The four satellites brought about this striking change in socioprofessionalstatus and patronagestrategies.
For all the remarkablecharacteristicsGalileo recognized in the telescope in
August 1609, he presented it to the Doge Leonardo Dona as a military instrument. The telescope was a marvel, but one not tailoredfor any specific patron.
Despite its truly exceptional features, it was patronage-generic,a gift for everybody and for nobody in particular.Galileo correctly perceived the telescope as
belongingto the same patronagecategory as the militarycompass, the only importantdifference being that the telescope was much more useful than the compass and therefore could triggerthe curiosity and interest of a much wider audience. From his correspondence of the period we see that until he discovered
Jupiter'ssatellites, Galileo did not make any serious attemptto use the telescope
to move to the Medici court. At this point in Galileo's career, the telescope was
still a thing: it was not yet a messenger of dynastic destiny. Although Cosimo II
asked Galileo for a good telescope, his interest in the instrumentwas not essentially differentfrom that he had shown in Sagredo'slodestone a few years before.
Galileo's commitmentto Copernicanismseems to fluctuatewith his grasp of
possibilities for court patronage.The conditionsof his gift of the telescope to the
Venetian Senate indicate that, at that time, Galileo representedthe telescope not
as a scientific instrumentthat could supportthe Copernicancause, but as a sort
of classified weapon. In this, Galileo's representationof the telescope's use was
identical with that of his Dutch predecessor Hans Lipperhey. In his letter to the
Doge LeonardoDona, Galileo claimed that, judgingthe telescope as "worthyof
being received and estimated as most useful by Your Lord, I decided to present
it to you and have you decide about the future of this invention, orderingand
providing accordingto your prudence whether telescopes should or should not
39 Giovio, Dialogo dell'impresse militari e amorose, p. 37. On the obscurityof impresassee also
Frances Yates, "The ItalianAcademies,"in CollectedEssays, Vol. II (London:Routledge, 1983),
p. 11.
40 Galileo to Benedetto Landucci,29 Aug. 1609,no. 231; and Cosimo II to Galileo, 10 July 1610,
no. 359; in Opere, Vol. X, pp. 253-254, 400-401. Favaroquestionedthe authenticityof the letter to
Landucci, but EdwardRosen convincinglyrefuted his argumentin "The Authenticityof Galileo's
Letter to Landucci," Modern Language Quarterly, 1975, 12:473-486.
244
MARIOBIAGIOLI
be built.''41 This last statementindicates that initiallyGalileo was ready to withhold an effective instrumentfrom other astronomers. Such behavior does not
qualify him as heavily committedto the Copernicancause. But Galileo's Copernican leanings reemergedand his patronageperspectives and strategies changed
abruptlywhen, four months later, he observed Jupiter'ssatellites.
The story of the negotiation that Galileo and Cosimo II conducted through
Vinta during the first half of 1610 has been told many times.42What has not
received much attentionis Galileo's strategyfor gainingsocial status for himself
and epistemological legitimationfor the Medicean stars by representingthem
withinthe discourse of the Medici mythology, as he had previouslytried to incoralthough one cannot speak of science yet.
porate Gilbert'sviews on magnetism.
Astrologicalpredeterminationwas a recurrenttheme in Galileo's presentation
of his discoveries to the Medici. Whathe had observed, Galileo claimed, was not
a discovery but a confirmationof the Medici's destiny-almost a scientific proof
of their dynastic horoscope. As he told Cosimo in the dedicationof the Sidereus
nuncius, it was not by chance that the "brightstars offer[ed] themselves in the
heavens" right after Cosimo II's enthronement.It was not by chance that these
stars were circling aroundJupiter(Cosimo I's planet) like his offspringand that
Jupiterwas actuallyjust above the horizon at the time of Prince Cosimo's birth,
thus passing on to him the virtues of the founderof the dynasty. And-one might
add-it was not by chance that the stars were four in number,like Cosimo II and
his brothers.43Consequently, Galileo's role in the appearanceof this dynastic
omen could not have been a casual one either.
In the dedication Galileo tended to hide the economic dimensions of the patronage relationshiphe was trying to establish. As he presented it, he was not
trying to sell the Medici a particularlyfitting dedication. His relationshipwith
them was a most disinterested one. It was more than completely voluntary: it
was predetermined.Yes, the Medici and Galileo were broughttogether by the
stars. It could not be by chance that Galileo, a Medici subject and the private
mathematicstutor of Prince Cosimo II himself, had discovered the stars: only he
could discover them. And in a sense the stars did not need to be dedicatedto the
Medici: they had always been theirs. As Galileo put it, four stars had been reserved for the illustriousname of Medici-assigned to them, like Galileo himself,
from the beginning.44
Appropriately,Galileo referrednot to a discovery but to an "encounter"be41 Galileo to Doge Leonardo Dona, 24 Aug. 1609, no. 228 in Opere, Vol. X, p. 251 (emphasis
added). Lipperheytried to obtain a patentfor his telescope in 1608.In presentingthe instrumentto
Prince Maurice,he-like Galileo a year later-stressed its militaryusefulness; see Albert Van Helden, "The Invention of the Telescope," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 1977,
245
tween the Medici and their destiny. His role in this encounter was that of the
mediator,and a lowly one at that. As he told Vinta, it was in the best interest of
the Medici to "ennoble"him because "thereis only one thing that largely diminishes the greatness of this encounter, and that is the ignobleness and low status
of the mediator. Nevertheless .
the range of possibilities of His Most Serene Highness than the demonstrationof
my most devout observance was in mine."45If the Medici hesitated, the celestiality of the encountermightbe pollutedby the hands of the lowly mediator.
However, Galileo was not asking the Medici for a title in exchange for a dedication. If the "encounter"was a predestinedone, then his role as mediatorwas
predestined too. He was de facto (or ex Deo) the Medici oracle. The Medici
needed only to recognize it. And, with some help from Galileo, they eventually
did.
Cosimo's "ennoblement"of Galileowas more than a simple matterof noblesse
oblige. The more the Medici recognized Galileo's "nobility"and disinterestedness, the more they legitimizedtheir dynasty by representinghis discovery as a
preordainedcelestial encounter with their destiny. For this discovery to be an
omen from the stars (a sidereus nuncius) Galileo must be given the status of
starry ambassador-that is, of philosopherof the grandduke. Similarly,Galileo
presentedthe telescope to the Medici both as a scientificinstrumentand as a sort
of dynastic relic. When, in March 1610, he sent the telescope to Cosimo II together with the presentationcopy of the Sidereus nuncius, Galileo told him that
the rough-lookingand unpolishedinstrumentshould be left in its state, for it was
the "instrumentthroughwhich such a great discovery was achieved." The grand
duke, Galileo continued, would receive many and more elegant-looking telescopes, but only this one was "there"at "that time."46It alone, of all possible
telescopes, carriedthat special auraof hinc et nunc with it. It alone was notjust a
telescope but a nuncius.
In a sense, Galileo was perfectly right in presenting himself as a "natural"
client of the Medici. When he observed the satellites at the end of 1609, he realized that, given the structureof the Medici's mythology and the patronageconnections he had developed over the years, the Medici were the best (if not the
only) patrons he could possibly attract. Quite probablyJupiterplayed a role in
the political mythologies of other Europeandynasties, but there is no evidence
that Galileo knew of them or had brokers in those courts who could help him
quickly negotiate a dedication.
V. SUSPICIOUS STARS
Galileo's strategyfor the legitimationof both his new instrumentand the discoveries it made possible does not seem essentially differentfrom the one he had
tried out with Cosimo's 1608 impresa. By transformingthe instrumentand the
discoveries into Medici fetishes, he tried to tie his patron's image and power to
them. But the use of patronsas legitimizinginstitutionswas not an unproblematic
strategy. Patronsdid not usually want to risk their status for their clients', even
45 QuotingGalileo to Vinta, 19 Mar. 1610,no. 277 in Opere, Vol. X, p. 301. For the theme of the
encountersee ibid., p. 298, and Galileoto Vinta, 13 Mar. 1610,no. 271, p. 289.
46 Galileoto Vinta, 19 Mar. 1610,pp. 297-298.
246
MARIOBIAGIOLI
Galileo then suggested that the distributionof copies of the Siderius nuncius and
of telescopes to Europeankings and princes would be most appropriatelycarried
out by the Medici ambassadorsin the various Italianand Europeanstates.48That
would have lent legitimationto his discoveries while giving those princes a reliable "viewer" and the related "instructions"to observe the Medici's glory. But
while the Medici accepted Galileo's proposal of distributingthe books and instrumentsthroughtheir official diplomaticchannels, they avoided taking an official stand on the reality of the satellites of Jupiter.49
Writingagain to Vinta on 7 May, Galileo went back to the same issue. After
reassuringVinta and the Medici that he had both publicly refutedhis challengers
at Paduaand received a long and very supportiveletter from the "Mathematician
to the Emperor,"Galileo claimedthat the Medici's image in connection with the
discoveries had been safely defended. But now: "We-but especially our Most
Serene Lords-have to sustainthe importanceand reputationof the discovery by
demonstratingthe esteem such a remarkablenovelty deserves, it being so considered by everybody who speaks sincerely." But the Medici maintainedtheir
cautious stand. Vincenzo Giugni-the supervisor of the Medici artistic workshops-wrote Galileo on 5 June to say that productionof the dies to strike the
medal celebratingthe discovery of the Medicean-stars had been put on hold by
the grandduke himself. Cosimo II had told Giugnito wait until the debate on the
stars was settled.50
By this time Galileo had received a long letter from Johannes Kepler (published soon after as Dissertatio cum Nuncio sidereo) in which he confirmedGalileo's observations. Confident of the internationalcredibility brought him by
Kepler's endorsement,Galileo showed himself annoyed by the grandduke's extreme caution and mentionedto Giugnithat the king of France had intimatedhis
willingnessto accept the dedicationof whateverplanets Galileo mightdiscover in
the future. Therefore, Galileo suggested to Giugni that, "whenever possible,
please make sure that Your Most Serene Highness would not delay the flight of
fame by taking an ambiguousstand about what he has seen many times by him,self-something that fortune reserved to him and denied to everybody else. 951
Biagioli, "Galileo'sSystem of Patronage"(cit. n. 24).
Galileoto Vinta, 19 Mar. 1610,pp. 298 (quotation),299.
Vinta to Galileo, 22 May 1610,no. 311, in Opere, pp. X, pp. 355-356.
50 Galileo to Vinta, 7 May 1610, no. 306; and Vincenzo Giugnito Galileo, 5 June 1610, no. 326,
ibid., pp. 349, 368-369.
51 Galileoto Giugni,25 June 1610,no. 339, ibid., pp. 381-382(see also pp. 379-380);and Johannes
Kepler to Galileo, 19 Apr. 1610, no. 297, ibid., pp. 319-340. We know of a numberof people who
47
48
49
247
Althoughby the time Galileo sent this letter he had been assured by Vinta of his
position at the Medici court, it may be not by chance that he had not yet received
a contract, which in fact reached him only in July.
Cosimo II was not alone in his cautiousness. The Florentineacademiciansand
court writers were not celebratingthe Medicean stars as enthusiasticallyas Galileo hoped and expected they would. Two weeks after the publication of the
Nuncius, Alessandro Sertini-a longtime Florentine friend of Galileo's and a
memberof the AccademiaFiorentina-wrote him saying that his efforts to mobilize the "TuscanMuses" had not been very successful. The Medici court writers
seemed to be waitingfor one of them to give the signal:"TheMuses are moving a
bit slowly, because nine of them are laggingbehindwaitingfor a tenth one to take
the lead. Your Lord should write him if you want to make sure that he will write
somethingon the Medicean Stars."52
In a letter of 10 July, SertiniinformedGalileo that attacks by GiovanniMagini
and MartinusHorky on his discoveries had been widely publicized in Florence
and that Ludovico delle Colombe seemed to join the challengers' side. Thus
Sertiniwas unsure of the Florentinewriters' willingness to publish their sonnets
on the stars. Galileo had proposed to the grand duke the publicationof a more
elegant version of the Sidereus nuncius in the Florentinelanguage,one including
the sonnets dedicated to the Medicean stars.53Such a version would have been
tailored for the Florentine court audience, for the sonnets would spell out the
connections between the stars and the Medici mythology. Those connections
were not elaboratedin the first Latin version of the Nuncius because the European audience to which it was primarilyaddressed could not have understood
them. In fact, it was, I think, because he had a Europeanaudience in mind that
Vinta, when consulted by Galileo on the name to be assigned to the satellites in
the Sidereus nuncius, replied that, of the two names proposed by Galileo, "Medicea Sydera" seemed more appropriatebecause "CosmicaSydera" might have
been misunderstoodas referringto "cosmos"ratherthan to "Cosimo."54A Florentine audience would have not made that mistake.
The writers were still unenthusiasticin August, when Sertini wrote Galileo:
"everybody here is worried because you said you wanted to print [the poems].
[Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger] would prefer not to have his name
printedbut-like Piero de' Bardi-he would be happierif it would say: 'Made by
the Impastato, Member of the Academy of the Crusca.'" The court writers,
knowing that Galileo now wanted to publish not only their sonnets but the challenges to his discovery, together with his responses, in the new edition of the
Nuncius, were uncomfortablewith the idea of being perceived as Galileo's allies
in his predictablyaggressivecounterattacks.Sertiniwent so far as to suggest that
tried to replicate Galileo's patronage strategies; see Westfall, "Scientific Patronage" (cit. n. 1), p. 20,
n. 36. It seems that Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc planneda "Frenchversion" of the Sidereus
nuncius dedicated to Mariade' Medici. The sketch for the frontispiecesurvives. It depicts Maria
sittingon Jupitersurroundedby the four stars, which Peiresc had namedafter the four granddukes:
Cosmus Major, Franciscus, Ferdinandus,and Cosmus Minor:La corte, il mare, i mercanti;La
rinascita della scienza; Editoria e societa; Astrologia, magia e alchimia (Florence: Edizioni Medicee,
248
MARIOBIAGIOLI
GALILEOTHE EMBLEMMAKER
249
Figure 3. Gaspare Mola, oval medal struck around 1610 to commemorate Cosimo II and the
discovery of the Medicean stars. From KarlaLangedijk,The Portraitsof the Medici (Florence:
SPES, 1983), Vol. I, p. 579.
knowledge" did not have skills. They could certify, but they often could not
figureout how or what to certify.
VI. THE CAREEROF THE MEDICEANSTARS
Although Galileo was not successful in his first attempts to tie the court writers
to his wagon, the Medicean stars eventually became an integralpart of the discourse of the court.58The medal celebratingGalileo's discovery of the satellites
was eventually struck. Jupitersittingon a cloud with the four stars circlingabout
him was presented as an emblem of Cosimo II, whose effigy occupied the other
side of the medal (Fig. 3). The stars were representedin sonnets, in theatrical
machines, in operas, in medals, and in frescoes celebratingthe divine pedigreeof
the house of Medici. We encounterthem again in the most importantcourt spectacle of the carnivalof 1613-the barrieraof 17 February.
It began at two o'clock Florentinetime in the theaterof the Pitti Palace in front
of a selected courtly audience.59After a virtuoso display of spectaculartheatrical
machines and effects designed by the court engineer Giulo Parigi, the spectacle
deployed its mythologicalplot.
58 The vernacularversion of the Sidereus nuncius was never printed. Survivingsonnets to the
Mediceanstars includethose of Buonarroti(in Galileo, Opere, Vol. X, p. 412), Salvadori(ibid., Vol.
IX, pp. 233-272), and Piero Bardi (ibid., Vol. X, p. 399). ClaudioSeripandi'sis lost; Niccol6 Arrighetti's was left in manuscriptform untilit was publishedin Nunzio Vaccaluzzo,GalileoGalileinella
poesia del suo secolo (Milan:Sandron,1910),pp. 59-60. We do not know whetherChiabrerawrote a
sonnet after Sertini's invitation, only that Galileo sent him an autographedcopy of the Sidereus
nuncius(now at the Universityof Oklahomaat Norman).Salvadori's"Perle Stelle Mediceetemerariamenteoppugnate"makes explicit the use of patronagefor the legitimationof Galileo's discoveries.
After retracinga mythologicalhistoryof the Medicifamilythat stresses the link between the Medici
and Jupiter(and his tremendouspower), Salvadoridisplays his incredulityat the arroganceof those
who, by challengingthe existence of the Medicean stars, were challengingJupiter's(or Cosimo's)
own power (Galileo, Opere, Vol. IX, p. 272).
S Nagler, TheatreFestivals of the Medici (cit. n. 16), pp. 119-121.
MARIOBIAGIOLI
250
Cupid set his own realm over Tuscany, inauguratinga Golden Age, but peace
was soon threatened. Cupid and his knights (six court pages) were faced by a
monstrousdragonspittingflames and smoke and twelve Furies led by Nemesis.
Although the dragon, Nemesis, and the Furies were eventually made to disappear into a trapconveniently connected to hell, Cupidand Tuscany were not safe
yet. Sdegno Amoroso (Disdain of Love) and his five ferocious and barbarouslooking "Egyptianknights"jumped on stage from the hellmouth.60 A new tilt
began, but peace and Tuscany's Golden Age were quickly reestablishedby divine (Cosimo I's?) intervention.
Thunderwas heard, and Jupiterarrivedon a shimmeringcloud (partof a very
complicated machine that changed in appearanceas it moved about the stage).
Jupiterwas not alone:
Down below, amongthe clouds, appearedthe four stars that circle Jupiterdiscovered
by GalileoGalileifrom Florence, Mathematicianto His Highness, with the marvelous
spyglass, and like the ancients who transposedto the sky their greatest heroes, hehaving discovered these stars-called them Medicee, and has dedicated the first to
His Most Serene Highness, the second to Prince Don Francesco, the thirdto Prince
Don Carlo, the fourthto PrinceDon Lorenzo.61
The machine brought Jupiter close to the grand duchess, to whom he sang an
aria;then it slowly disappearedfrom the stage. In the process the four Medicean
stars turned into four flesh-and-bloodknights: "After Jupiter finished his song
some thunders were heard, the cloud vanished and there appeared four stars
which soon turnedinto four knightswho stood up." The Cyclops (who had come
on stage right before Jupiter's arrival)handed thunderboltsto the four knights.
With such weapons, they were ready to start the new joust in Jupiter's name.
The name of the tilt was "The Arrival of the Knights of the Medicean Stars."
Peace soon followed. The ladies in the audiencejoined the knights on stage and
the finalball began.62
The rest of the city had its share of the Medicean stars: two days later a
simpler version of the barrierawent throughthe city as a carnival procession.
The Medicean stars, together with the Furies and Nemesis, were in the second
troupe of the pageant.
Probably as a result of the Bellarmin'sadmonitionto Galileo in 1616 and of
Cosimo II's declininghealth and control over culturaland politicalpolicies, Galileo's discoveries did not continue the career in the Medici mythology they had
begun so brilliantly.Their visibility declined even furtherafter 1621 when-following Cosimo II's death-the GrandDuchess Cristinaand her counselors took
over the governmentof Tuscany and the managementof court culture. Carnival
festivals were played down, and sacred comedies became the dominantgenre.63
Moreover, the lack of an actual prince (FerdinandII would reach majorityonly
in 1628) made it difficult to develop new prince-centeredcultural productions.
Jupiterwas unemployed.
When FerdinandII finallytook power in 1628,Galileo had alreadydeveloped a
60
Giovanni Villifranchi, Descrizione della barriera e della mascherata fatte in Firenze a' XVII & a'
XIX di febbraio 1613 ... (Florence: Sermartelli, 1613), pp. 32-33.
62 Ibid., p. 38; and Nagler, Theatre Festivals of the Medici (cit. n. 16), pp. 123-125.
63 Ludovico Zorzi, Il luogo teatrale a Firenze (Milan:Electa, 1975),p. 88.
61
GALILEOTHE EMBLEMMAKER
:-
251
new patronage niche in Rome. However, the Medicean Stars enjoyed a minor
revival duringthe later partof Ferdinand'sreign. As a result of the court moving
from the Palazzo della Signoria to Palazzo Pitti, a new Medici Olympus was
painted in the new palace's PlanetaryRooms. Just as Galileo linked the Medicean stars to Jupiter-CosimoI's virtues in the dedication of the Sidereus nuncius, the Palazzo Pitti's Room of Jupiter(one of the PlanetaryRooms) presented
the god surroundedby the Mediceanstars qua the four cardinalvirtues (Fig. 4)."
The Medicean stars figured even more conspicuously in Medici mythology
duringthe reign of Cosimo III. The grandduke's name lent itself to references to
the Medicean stars-especially because, having five ancestors, he could be portrayed as directly relatedto Jupiterand the four stars. Cosimo III's revival of the
Medicean stars was most evident in 1661, on the occasion of his marriageto
Marguerite-Louised'Orleans-the cousin of Louis XIV. The Mondo festeggiante, an equestrian ballet, was the highlightof a long series of ceremonies,
pageants, and spectacles celebratingthis importantpolitical event. Accordingto
the official description, twenty thousandspectators attendedthe ballet.65
The spectacle began with the entrance of an exceptionally large theatrical
"The frescoes in the room of Jupiterwere begunby Pietroda Cortonaand completedaround1665
by his pupilCiro Fern; see Langedijk,Portraitsof the Medici (cit. n. 38), Vol. II, pp. 210-212.
65For accountsof the weddingfestivities see Memoriedellefeste fatte in Firenzeper le reali nozze
de' SerenissimiSposi Cosimo Principe di Toscana e MargheritaLuisa d'Orleans (Florence, 1662)
(for the size of the crowd see p. 106);and AlessandroCarducci,Il mondofesteggiante, balletto a
cavallofatto nel teatro congiuntoal Palazzo del Sereniss. GranDuca per le reali nozze de' Serenissimi Principi Cosimo Terzo di Toscana e MargheritaLuisa d'Orleans (Florence, 1661). See also
HaroldActon, TheLast Medici (London:Methuen, 1958),pp. 68-83.
MARIOBIAGIOLI
252
-.
=:-.*.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
i. ;;w..... ....
'
!1'
...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~..
.1.
;l.
F.
.._:.
!.:11
: I
|
::1,,-
4_~~~
,.:
: l,
i.
.- ..1.,
, } 11
t,
_.11o
t*...
..;f;;...
;
..A
~~~
~~~
~~~
~~~
~~~
~~~
~~~
~~~
~~~
~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~
Ibid., quotingfrom pp. 49, 53, 61; for Jupiter'ssong see p. 51.
GALILEOTHE EMBLEMMAKER
^~st
-<
~~;
.
~~~
...............
1_
253
t
:'j,
.>
iw::
.................................A.....-.
w>w
V.
t-.
..............
.....
,
A
I
T,
III's wedding. His impresa was a ship at sea guided by the Medicean stars, with
the motto Certafulgent sidera (Fig. 7). When Cosimo III died in 1723, a similar
medal with the Medicean stars was placed on his chest (Fig. 8). The Medici
dynasty survived him by only fourteen years.
VIL COURTCULTURE,ABSOLUTISM,ANDTHELEGITIMATION
OF SCIENCE
Even as the Medicean stars began to reappearin court mythology during the
reign of FerdinandII, their association with Galileo was on the wane. His condemnationin 1633hastened the process. Galileo's role in the satellites' discovery
was mentioned in the barriera of the carnival of 1613, but no such reference
occurs in the Mondofesteggiante of 1661. By that time Medici court culture had
severed the Medicean stars not only from their discovererbut from astronomyas
well, so that, stars no longer, they became a dynasticfetish, a name ritualistically
assigned to Jupiter-Cosimo's knights. Analysis of this process of fetishization
uncovers both the avenues and the limits Medici court patronageoffered to the
legitimationof science.
Because Medici patronagerewardedmarvelsthat would fit the discourse of the
court but not scientific theories or research programs,Galileo tended to present
the satellites of Jupiternot as astronomicaldiscoveries supportinga new cosmology but as dynastic emblems, and himself not as a discoverer, but only as the
mediatorof an encounter. Thus, paradoxically,for Galileo's patronagestrategy
to be succesful, he had to efface his authorshipin the discovery so as to become
a more legitimate author-that is, a philosopher. Or, to put it differently, he
needed to efface both the astronomicalrelevance of his discovery and the role his
254
MARIOBIAGIOLI
GALILEOTHE EMBLEMMAKER
255
Figure 7. Francesco Travani,later copy (1666) of a medal Travanimade on the occasion of the
marriage of Cosimo Ill and Marie-Louised'Orleans in 1661. From Langedilk, Portraitsof the
Medici, Vol. 1,p. 640.
1550, court culture tended to close itself off (both culturallyand geographically)
from surroundingsociety to focus on and refer exclusively to itself, to the prince,
or to the culture of other courts. It is to this process that we can relate the
development of the closed theatricalcourt spaces that then replacedpublic spectacles. Similarly, if we look at court literatureand poetry, we soon notice that
their subject matterwas a more or less subtle mix of the rulingfamily's mythologies with contemporaryevents (ceremonies, militaryexploits, public works and
monuments)and the lives and works of living courtiers.The works of the writers
Galileo hoped would celebrate the Medicean stars (GabrielloChiabrera,Michelangelo Buonarrotithe Younger, Andrea Salvadori)and those of his friend Salvadore Coppolaare full of referencesto actualcourt life. A similarpatterncan be
found in court paintings.69
The effect was a culturalclosure that sometimesaccompaniedthe geographical
isolation of the court from the rest of society. Versailles is probably the most
visible example of this process, but the various Medici's ville in the countryside
near Florence shared Versailles's political function. They were princely "Gardens of Eden." Together with this cultural-geographicalisolation of the court
from the city and the crowds that populatedit, we find the formationof a new
social group, court society, out of the former patriciateof commercial origins.
This closure gave the would-becourtiersa sense of differentiationfrom the urban
crowds and'helped shape their new social identity. Contemporarytreatises on
the court refer to its culture with a specific term: civilta. As Matteo Peregriniput
it in 1624, "The Prince is the heart and the court the limbs of civilized living (vita
civile)," and courtly life-style is civility itself.70
europeo(Rome:Bulzoni, 1980);and FrankWhigham,Jr., Ambitionand Privilege:TheSocial Tropes
of ElizabethanCourtesyTheory(Berkeley:Univ. CaliforniaPress, 1984).
9 See, e.g., Allegriand Cecchi, Palazzo Vecchioe i Medici (cit. n. 11), pp. 145-147.See also note
17.
70 Matteo Peregrini,Che al savio e convenevole il corteggiare(Bologna, 1624), pp. 82, 171. The
sociogenesisof the notion of civiliteas foundin Frenchcourtliteratureis analyzedthroughoutElias's
256
MARIOBIAGIOLI
But the formationof court society and its increasingisolation from the lower
classes did not affect the status only of the upper classes that it included or
controlled. The development of court society requiredmore than the formation
of a court aristocracy, that is, of a collusive audience for the representationsof
the prince's power. Competentproducersof those representationswere needed
as well. Although artists have always celebratedthe image of the powerful, we
find that with the emergence of the baroquecourt and the centralizedstate, the
artistic representationsof the prince's power began to be controlled by specialized institutions:the officialacademiesof fine arts. As a result of their incorporation in this sort of "artistic bureaucracy," academic artists obtained a much
higher social status than the nonacademic craftsmen who practiced the visual
arts.7'
It is here that the developmentof court society and culture intersects with the
process of the social legitimationof science. While princes like the Medici were
trying to develop absolutist states and needed legitimizing representations of
their power, university mathematicianslike Galileo were facing a status gap between themselves and the philosophers. As mentionedearlier, this gap delegitimized the use of mathematicsas a tool for the study of the physical dimensions
of natural phenomena. Therefore, in the same way that artisans had become
academic artists by representingthe prince's mythologies of power in painting,
sculpture, and architecture,Galileo turned himself from a mathematicianinto a
philosopherby representingthe satellites of Jupiteras Medici dynastic emblems.
Althoughthe court was not a scientific academy, it was an institutionthat could
offer some level of social legitimation,and that, in turn, could help establish the
Given this scenario of discicredibility of mathematicians-turned-philosophers.
plinary hierarchies, existing social institutions, and patterns of sociocultural
change, the court representedGalileo's most promisingoption for socioprofessional legitimation-although a problematicone.
There is a last specific aspect of court patronagethat played an importantrole
in Galileo's strategies of social legitimation.While negotiatingwith Vinta about
his position at court, Galileo stressed his desire to serve only one patron rather
than the many he had in Padua and Venice. He also insisted that a republicwas
not the kind of state that could give him the kind of status he was looking for.72
Then, in the dedicationof the Sidereus nuncius, he effaced the economic dimensions of the patronagerelationshiphe was seeking and presentedit as "astrologically predetermined."
As I have shown elsewhere, Galileo's relationshipwith Cosimo II reflected a
type of patronage that occurred between a great patron and a high-visibility
client-a type of patronageencounteredin importantcourts. Michelangelo'srelation with Julius II and Corneille's and Racine's with Louis XIV also fell in this
Court Society (cit. n. 17). On the court as Eden see Apostolides, Le roi machine (cit. n. 68), esp.
"Les plaisirsde l'ile enchantee,"pp. 93-113.
71 Vasari, a foundingmemberof the Accademiadel Disegno, expressed the gap between his own
social status and that of Perinodel Vaga, a nonacademicpainter,by describingthe latter as "one of
those who keep an open shop and stand there in public, workingat all sorts of mechanicaltasks";
quotedin Peter Burke, TheItalianRenaissance(Princeton,N.J.: PrincetonUniv. Press, 1987),p. 81.
For a generaltreatmentof the topic see NikolausPevsner,Academiesof Art (Cambridge:Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1940).For the Accademiadel Disegno see note 15.
72 Galileo to Vinta, 7 May 1610, in Opere,Vol. X, no. 307, p. 351. See also Galileo to "S. Vesp.,"
Feb. 1609,no. 209; pp. 232-233;and Galileoto Cristina,8 Dec. 1606,no. 146;ibid., pp. 232-233, 165.
GALILEOTHE EMBLEMMAKER
257
Galileo's strategies for patronagewere not unlike those of Michelangelo, Racine, and Corneille. He did not present his discoveries as somethinguseful to be
73On Racine see RaymondPicard,La carrierede Racine (Paris:Gallimard,1961);and AlainViala,
Naissance de l'ecrivain(Paris:Minuit,1985).On Corneillesee ibid. On Michelangelosee the interestingly biased Giorgo Vasari, La vita di Michelangelonelle redazionidel 1550 e 1568, 5 vols. (Milan/
Naples: Ricciardi, 1962).I have analyzedthis type of patronagein "Galileo'sSystem of Patronage"
(cit. n. 24).
74 "Aussi peut-on bien parler 'd'heroismelitteraire':leur gloire d'ecrivainleur conquiertla noblesse commejadis les exploits au combatfaisaientde l'hommelibreun chevalier":Viala, Naissance
de l'ecrivain,p. 222.
75 This is the argumentof Viala's book; see esp. pp. 217-236, 270-299. For the quotationfrom
Michelangelosee Burke,Italian Renaissance (cit. n. 71), p. 80.
258
MARIO BIAGIOLI