An art exhibition featuring 16th
century polymath Galileo Galilei - astronomer, father of the
scientific method, poet, writer, musician, and artist - goes on
display in Padua starting November 11 and runs through March 18
in the exhibition spaces of the Palazzo del Monte di Pietà.
Titled "Galileo Revolution", the show came from an idea by
curator Giovanni Villa in collaboration with Stefan Weppelmann
for the Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo Foundation.
It aims to offer the holistic story of Galileo, both as a
person and as one of Italy and Europe's historical figures
having reached a nearly mythical status.
The exhibition reveals Galileo's multi-dimensional talents,
from the scientist who revolutionised astronomical research; to
the writer praised by the likes of Foscolo, Leopardi,
Pirandello, Ungaretti and Calvino; to the virtuoso musician; to
the artist, considered among the top art critics of the 17th
century.
Galileo's entrepreneurial talents also come to light, through
tools such as the telescope, the microscope, and the compass.
Visitors will also understand his other passions, such as
viticulture and the wine of the Euganean Hills, which he
obtained through bartering with his precision instruments or
through the production and sale of pharmaceutical pills.
As curator, Villa's selection of works brings together
splendid watercolours and sketches, as well as observations that
show Galileo as an attentive observer of art, such as when he
called Arcimboldo the author of "whims that have a confused and
disorderly mixture of lines and colours".
The influence Galileo's scientific achievements had on the
culture of the time was already visible at the start of the 17th
century.
Following the publication in 1610 of his astronomical
treatise "Sidereus Nuncius", Adam Elsheimer's oil-on-copper
cabinet painting "The Flight Into Egypt" was the first depiction
of the Milky Way, and numerous depictions of the moon as seen
through Galileo's telescope appeared thereafter.
The show also gives visitors an idea of how Galileo's
discoveries influenced artists of his time and later, including
painter Donato Creti, whose early 18th-century "Astronomical
Observations" collection is housed in the Vatican Pinacoteca.
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