I love seeing people at a moment when they are completely transported – Linda reading Shakespeare or any beautiful piece of writing, Stephan cooking, Scotty talking ancient history, Pete and Sandy Hearnden camped in the desert, Thommo onto a fish, Catrina talking about the Stradivarius collection in the Accademia, Maryanne coaching her team in a final, or Celia and Margie when they see a nun. Today it was my turn. I spent the morning in the Galileo Galilei Museum next to the Ufuzzi.

As some of you know, I have two Science heroes – Charles Darwin and Galileo Galilei. Three if you count Phil Gardiner. Darwin and Galileo seemingly had little in common, Phil Gardiner had absolutely nothing in common with those two scientific giants, except that Mr Gardiner taught me about Galileo and Darwin in Year 8 at Rosewood.  Darwin was agnostic after the death of his daughter, Galileo had a doctorate in canonical law. Darwin married into the Wedgewood family and was ridiculously wealthy,  Galileo came from a relatively poor family. Darwin was an English speaking biologist – full stop, Galileo was multilingual and a polymath. However both men had one characteristic that was absolutely shared – incredible intellectual courage. Each was part of the Establishment, and each knew that the publication of his discoveries would be devestating to the societies in which they lived, but both published anyway. It certainly cost Darwin the last 30 years of his health, it came close to costing Galileo his life.

At the entrance to the museum is part of Galileo’s finger recovered when he was reburied.  My people don’t usually go for relics, but this one is special. The first floor is wonderful – an exhibition consisting of a series of maps from the first millennium onwards, a globe that leaves out Australia, Arabic maths books from 1000AD, and a huge collection of timepieces – all on the theme of an attempt to get longitude right, and therefore get maps right. But for me it is all about the second floor- the second floor is all Galileo.

They have three of his telescopes, case after case filled with instruments he designed or built himself for his experiments, and his hand-written notes and drawings.  They have original copies of his publications, some annotated by his own pen. (He had very neat writing considering Peter Pointer from his right hand is in a box downstairs) They have notes from his very first work on pendulums, including his observation when still a student at Pisa Uni that the swinging chandolier in the lecture theatre seemed to keep in time with his heart beat even as the chandolier gradually came to rest. This also proves that this particular lecturer in Canonical Law in seventeenth century Pisa University was at least as boring as any 21st century lecturer in Canonical Law 101, just that now we don’t even have chadoliers to look at and to time.

The best part for me was to see his original  books, including the page with the famous dedication of his work to Pope Urban. Crawling to the Pope didn’t work – he was tried  by the Jesuits for heresy, sentenced to prison and barely escaped the stake and the bonfire that went with it. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest, only being allowed out once in that time to seek treatment for a hernia.  By this stage he was old and blind, but still considered a real threat to established thought.  Nonetheless some of his greatest work was done during his incarceration.

Four hundred years after his death there was an attempt to get a Galileo a posthumous pardon. Cardinal Ratzinger – later to become Il Papa, was in charge of the process but would have none of it – Galileo was wrong. I suppose you have to admire Ratzinger’s willingness to support the 17th Century status quo four centuries later and at a time in history when the church was screaming out for forward thinkers. It must be hard appearing to be a resolute idiot when everyone expects you to show signs of rational thought, but Cardinal R succeeded gloriously on that occasion. At least the 19th century church allowed him to be reinterred inside Santa Croce Cathedral. His body had previously just been dumped in a small grave outside with the paupers, thankfully a marked grave at least.

I’m finding it difficult to imagine a better day in a museum for me.  Does Galileo Galilei desrve the title ‘Father of Modern Science’? Absolutely. The museum gave such a feel for the enormity of the man’s intellect and his thirst for knowledge, coupled with the willingness to share that with his world – no matter the personal cost.  Just to see his notes and calculations, his drawings and his equipment was so very special. To see the two telescopes he used in formulating his treatise on planetary orbit was, for me at least, spellbinding. It’s hard to think of a better museum experience.

Imagine Linda talking with Shakespeare, Catrina meeting Mozart, Stephan in the kitchen at the Ritz, Scotty discussing tactics with Alexander the Great.  Picture Thommo with a marlin, Maryanne coaching for gold at the Olympics, Pete and Sandy camped in the Sahara or Margie and Celia strumming along with Sister Jeanine Deckers – The Singing Nun from Belguim.  It was almost like that for me today. The only thing I can come up with that would be even better is seeing Galileo looking through his telescope and doing drawings of Darwin’s finches and those Galapagos tortoises, with Charles Darwin and Phil Gardiner chatting in the background.  Now THAT would be something very special indeed!