In Florence, a tooth and two fingers of Galileo Galilei have been found inside a case from an auction. Because the church did not agree with his findings, he was only allowed to be buried in unsacred ground. So he was later exhumed and transferred to a mausoleum in Santa Croce. There he would lay to rest along with some other famous people like Michelangelo. However, when his coffin was raised during the ceremony, naturalist Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti cut off Galilei’s thumb and forefinger with his pocket knife. Later, he also got the middle finger, the fifth lumbar vertebra and a tooth. These two fingers were kept because they were the fingers that wrote great works. The two fingers and tooth will be on display at the Galileo Museum, which was originally the Museum of the History of Science in Florence.
http://news.discovery.com/history/galileo-fingers-tooth-remains.html
David Leung
Period 7
http://news.discovery.com/history/galileo-fingers-tooth-remains.html
David Leung
Period 7
3 comments:
This blog is interesting because it shows how some people went to great extremes to get some kind of memento to remind them of events or people. Obviously, Galileo greatly influenced Giovanni with his works. It is kind creepy that the fingers from a great physicist who died 367 years ago are going to be shown. It reminds of how criminals sometimes cut off thumbs and use the fingerprints from their victims since they can be valuable in the time of crime.
Its just so interesting that they discovered two fingers and tooth. Those two had to be it instead of anything else on the human body. I wonder how his tooth got pulled. I also like that the fact that they burried him beside michaelangelo for his great efforts.
Its amzing how they only recovered very small objects in the human body. How do you think the tooth was pulled out. I also like the fact that he was buried right beside of Michaelangelo. It was pretty interesting.
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