"The behavior of people adhering to one pole of these antagonisms is often much like those on the other pole," he said. He said it was little surprise that the 18th century followers of Galileo would have mimicked the practice of those who persecuted him. "He was a hero and a martyr, keeping alive freedom of thought and freedom of research." "Exactly as it was practiced with saints of religion, so with saints of science," Galluzzi said. The people who cut off his fingers essentially considered him a secular saint, Galluzzi said, noting the fingers that were removed were the ones he would have used to hold a pen. The Inquisition forced him to recant and jailed him in 1634. There is an irony in Galileo's having been subjected to the same treatment, since he was persecuted by the Catholic Church for advocating the theory that the earth circles the sun, rather than the other way around. Removing body parts from the corpse was an echo of a practice common with saints, whose digits, tongues and organs were revered by Catholics as relics with sacred powers. The museum has had the third Galileo finger since 1927, so the digits will be reunited for the first time in centuries, he added. The museum plans to display the fingers and tooth in March 2010, after it re-opens following a renovation, Galluzzi said. The owner who bought the fingers wants to remain anonymous, Galluzzi said, so the museum is not giving more details about who sold them or when. "Everybody knew there were fingers and a tooth, but the people preparing the auction didn't know it was Galileo," Galluzzi said. The jar "matches in every minute detail" the description, Galluzzi said.īut by the time the urn went on sale, the label saying what was inside had been lost, so the sellers and the auctioneer did not realize its significance. It provides us with a very detailed description of the container and the contents inside," Galluzzi explained. "There is a description from 1905 by the last person to have seen these objects. There had been "no trace" of them for more than 100 years until the person who bought them in the auction came to the museum recently. Two of the fingers and the tooth ended up in a sealed glass jar that disappeared sometime after 1905. The last tooth remaining in his lower jaw was also taken, Galluzzi said. Three fingers were cut from Galileo's hand in March 1737 when his body was moved from a temporary monument to its final resting place in Florence, Italy. They were purchased recently at an auction by a person who brought them to the Museum of the History of Science in Florence, suspecting what they were, museum director Paolo Galluzzi said. (CNN) - Two fingers cut from the hand of Italian astronomer Galileo nearly 300 years ago have been rediscovered more than a century after they were last seen, an Italian museum director said Monday. Three fingers were cut from Galileo's hand in 1737 when his body was moved.Fingers were bought at auction by someone who brought them to a museum in Florence.Two fingers cut from Galileo's hand 300 years ago resurface a century after last seen.
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