Galileo Galilei: a Poet against Academia, in English for the First Time

by Giovanni F. Bignami (Italian Space Agency (ASI) and University of Pavia, Italy)

Wednesday 21 Jun 2000, 16:30 → 16:45 Europe/Zurich

500/1-001 - Main Auditorium (CERN)

Everyone knows Galileo Galilei as an astronomer, physicist and writer of books that changed our perception of the world. Few people know that Galileo also wrote poetry in elegant XVI century Italian. While all major Galileo works were almost immediately translated into English, his poetry never was. Giovanni F. Bignami, a long-time AAS member, Rossi prize-winner in 1993, has now translated the longest of Galileo's poems 'Contro il portar la toga'. It is a satiric poem of 301 lines, written in 1590 when Galileo was the poorest paid lecturer at the Pisa University. He despised and challenged Pisa's strict academic tradition especially the rule obliging professors to wear their gown at all times, under penalty of a stiff fine. To deride such rule he wrote 'Against the Donning of the Gown'. The poem, little known even in Italy, presents a fascinating new Galileo: mocking, witty, biting, at times shocking for his directness. The English version, in iambic pentameter, keeps the terse rhyming pattern of the original Italian and is printed vis-à-vis Galileo's Italian. Also Galileo's unsolved riddle 'Enigma', in sonnet form, is translated, and a solution is proposed in graphic form. Samples of the translation (with drawings) can be found at http://www.galileounaluna.com/.

Organiser(s): James Gillies / ETT Division

Note: Tea & coffee will be served at 16.00 hrs.