Abstract
The most accepted view on Galileo portrays him as the great theoretician, the genius, the lone thinker who founded the modern science that changed the world dramatically through the scientific revolution. But Galileo was also an engineer, even a craftsman, who spent his life working with engineers, masters, and mathematicians. He was neither a genius nor a lonely thinker: His science is rooted in the practical knowledge of his time, and the paths of his speculations can be understood perfectly if the context of his work and of the problems considered urgently in need of a solution are taken into account.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
While presenting the achievements of this work in summarized form, this last chapter only cross-references, either in the text or in the footnotes, the passages in which the issues are discussed. To avoid duplications, no further reference will be made to the sources already discussed.
- 2.
After the new method of fortification was introduced, the earthwork method was not abandoned. Since it could be useful in any number of situations, it was taught to military officers up until the seventeenth century.
- 3.
Two of the most illuminating scholarly works concerning the first developments of the art of war in Italy during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries are Lamberini (1990, 2007).
- 4.
Mario Biagioli (2006) clearly showed how Galileo’s scientific economy up to 1610 corresponds to that of the engineers and practical mathematicians of the period. Although Galileo’s economy of discourse changed dramatically after the publication of the Sidereus nuncius, aspects of this previous career remained unaltered throughout his whole life, as most of his technical developments in practical optics and the way he disclosed this knowledge clearly show.
- 5.
Thanks the popularity achieved through Galileo’s discovery of the Medicean Planets, when he wrote to Florence to negotiate about a new position, Galileo justified his request by complaining that his work in Padova did not leave him enough time to work on his major scientific interests. For more details, see Galileo to A. de Medici, February 11, 1609, in EN, X:228–230. For a translation of the entire letter, see pp. 223ff.
- 6.
The collocation of Buontalenti’s copy of Mellini’s treatise is Palat. Serie Targioni 86, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze. For more details about Buontalenti’s notes, see Fara (1988, 206–207).
- 7.
“Et se bene Aristotile disse, che l’Arte fa & conduce à perfezzione alcune cose, le quali non fà, & non riduce al perfetto la Natura, della quale ella è imitatrice, come disse il medesimo filosofo nello stesso luogo del secondo libro della Fisica, anzi è figliuola l’Arte della Natura, [...]; non è però che l’Arte assolutamente possa piu della Natura, & sia piu di quella” (Mellini 1588, 10).
- 8.
The reception of Hero’s Pneumatics is discussed at length in Chapter 5, on pp. 172ff.
- 9.
When the Grand Duke Francesco I selected the location on which the garden of Pratolino were to be built during the second half of the sixteenth century, he apparently selected a site that was particulary inconvenient and arid in order to display his power over nature (Montaigne 1929, 105; Valleriani Forthcoming a).
- 10.
The analysis of Galileo’s observations of the Medicean Planets and of his attempts to calculate ephemerides for short periods has not yet been performed, although historical evidence for such research is abundant.
- 11.
De Ville’s reaction is discussed on pp. 125ff.
- 12.
In their paper entitled Hunting the White Elephant, Jürgen Renn, Peter Damerow and Simone Rieger analyzed the figure of the early modern engineer-scientist for the first time (Renn et al. 2001, 66–68). Accordingly they furnish the following definition: “a new category of intellectuals [...] who were no longer necessarily and, in any case, not completely involved in technical practice in the same way as the engineers themselves, but who rather specialized in the reflection of the new type of knowledge produced by this practice and, of course, in the attempt to make that reflection useful again for practical purposes.”
- 13.
Galileo’s and Sagredo’s experiments to improve the quality of the material for telescope lenses are discussed on pp. 48ff.
- 14.
Galileo’s Copernican letters are: Galileo to Benedetto Castelli, December 21, 1613, in EN, V:281–288, Galileo to Piero Dini, February 16, 1615, in EN, V:291–295, Galileo to Piero Dini, March 23, 1615, in EN, V:297–305, Galileo to Cristina di Lorena, 1615, in EN, V:309–348.
- 15.
For a general view on the social position and education of the humanists, see Zilsel (2000, 48–64). Further details are in Olschki (1919–1927, III:26–30).
- 16.
Along with the practice of dedication, the patronage system was born, which later revealed its epistemological function. According to Mario Biagioli, scientific credibility was, in fact, strictly connected to the patron to whom the work was addressed. In this period and even later, scientific production was, in other words, a production of the courts, regarded as printed output of discussions held around the prince (Biagioli 1993).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Valleriani, M. (2010). Was Galileo an Engineer?. In: Galileo Engineer. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 269. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8645-7_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8645-7_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-8644-0
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-8645-7
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawHistory (R0)