No More Learning

GALILEO If they'll have me I'll go-
(On a curtain appears the last page of the letter)
In assigning the sublime name of the Medicean line to these stars newly discovered by me I am fully aware that when gods and heroes were elevated to the starry skies they were thereby glorified, but that in the present case it is the stars that will be glorified by receiving the name of the Medici. With this I recommend myself as one among the number of your most faithful and obedient servants, who holds it the highest honor to have been born your subject. Withal I yearn for nothing so much as to be nearer to Your Highness, the rising sun which will illuminate this age
? 19
? 4
Galileo has exchanged the Venetian republic for the court of Florence. The discoveries he has made with the help of the telescope are met with disbelief by the court scholars.
The old says: What I've always done I'll always do. The new says: If you're useless you must go.
Galileo's house in Florence. Mrs. Sarti is getting Galileo's study ready to receive guests. Her son Andrea is seated, putting celestial charts away.
? MRS. SARTI Ever since we arrived in this marvelous Florence I've seen nothing but bowing and scraping. The whole town files past this tube and I can scrub the floor afterwards. But it won't do us a bit of good. If these discoveries amounted to anything, the reverend fathers would know it, wouldn't they? For four years I was in service with Monsignor Filippo, I never managed to dust the whole of his library. Leather- bound volumes up to the ceiling and no love poems either. And the good monsignor had two pounds of
boils on his behind from poring over all that learning. Wouldn't a man like that know what's what? The big demonstration today will be another flop and tomorrow I won't be able to look the milkman in the face. I knew what I was saying when I told him to give the gentlemen a good dinner first, a nice piece of lamb, before they start in on his tube. Oh no! (She imitates
Galileo) "I've got something better for them. "
(Knocking downstairs)
MRS. SARTI (looks in the window-mirror) Goodness, there's the grand duke already.
And Galileo still at the university! (She runs downstairs and admits Cosmo de' Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, accompanied by the lord chamberlain and two ladies- in-waiting).
COSMO I want to see the tube.
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN Perhaps Your Highness would prefer to wait until Mr.
Galilei and the other gentlemen have returned from the university.
(To Mrs. Sarti) Mr. Galilei wanted the professors of astronomy to examine the newly discovered stars which he calls the Medicean stars.
COSMO They don't believe in the tube, far from it. Where is it? MRS. SARTI Upstairs, in his workroom.
(The boy nods, points to the staircase, and upon a nod from Mrs. Sarti dashes up the
stairs)
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN Your Highness! (To Mrs. Sarti) Must we go up there? I
only came because the tutor is ill.
MRS. SARTI Nothing can happen to the young gentleman. My
boy's upstairs. COSMO (entering above) Good evening.
(The two boys ceremoniously bow to each other. Pause, Then Andrea goes back to his work)
ANDREA (much like his teacher) This place is as busy as a pigeon house.
COSMO Lots of visitors?
ANDREA Stumble about and gape and don't know beans. COSMO I see. Is that . . . ?
20
? (Points at the tube)
ANDREA Yes, that's it. But don't touch it. It's not allowed.
And what's that? (He indicates the wooden model of the Ptolemaic system)
COSMO
ANDREA
COSMO
ANDREA
COSMO (sitting down in a chair, he takes the model on his knees) My tutor has a cold. So I
was able to get away early. It's nice here.
ANDREA (is restless, ambles about irresolutely, throwing suspicious glances at the strange
boy, and at last, unable to resist the temptation any longer, takes from behind the star charts another wooden model representing the Copernican system)
But of course it's really like this.
COSMO What's like this?
ANDREA (pointing at the model on Cosmo's knees) That's the way people think it is
and that's (Pointing at his model) the way it really is. The earth turns around the sun. See?
That's the Ptolemaic system.
It shows how the sun moves, doesn't it?
Yes, so they say.
You really think so?
Of course. It's been proven.
COSMO
ANDREA
COSMO
man. Last night he was at dinner as usual.
ANDREA You don't seem to believe it, or do you? COSMO Why certainly, I do.
ANDREA (pointing at the model on Cosmo V knees) Give it back, you don't even understand that one!
COSMO
Hands off, do you hear.
(They start fighting and are soon rolling on the floor)
You don't say! --I wish I knew why they didn't let me go in to see the old
But you don't need two.
Give it back this minute. It's not a toy for little boys.
COSMO ANDREA COSMO
ANDREA You're stupid and I don't care about being polite. Give it back or you'll see.
I don't mind giving it back but you ought to be a little more polite, you know.
I'll show you how to treat a model. Give up! You've broken it. You're twisting my hand.
We'll see who's right and who isn't. Say it turns or I'll box your ears. I won't. Ouch, you redhead. I'll teach you good manners.
ANDREA COSMO ANDREA COSMO ANDREA
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN Gentlemen, a slight illness has prevented Mr. Suri, His Highness' tutor, from accompanying His Highness.
:THE PHILOSOPHER Nothing serious, I hope.
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN No, no, by no means.
GALILEO (disappointed) Isn't His Highness here?
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN His Highness is upstairs. May I ask you gentlemen to
COSMO
proceed. The court is so very anxious to hear the opinion of our illustrious university about Mr. Galilei's extraordinary instrument and those marvelous new stars.
(They go upstairs)
(The boys lie still. They have heard sounds downstairs)
Here they come. Let me up.
Redhead? Am I a redhead?
(They continue to fight in silence. Below, Galileo and several university professors enter. Behind them Federzoni)
21
? (They quickly get up)
(Salutations upstairs)
GALILEO Your Highness, I am extremely pleased that you should be present while I communicate our new discoveries to the gentlemen of your university.
(Cosmo makes formal bows to all, including Andrea)
THE PHILOSOPHER (seeing the broken Ptolemaic model on the floor)
There seems to have been some breakage here.
(Cosmo stoops quickly and hands the model politely to Andrea. At the same time Galileo slyly puts away the other model)
GALILEO (at the telescope) As Your Highness no doubt knows, we astronomers have for some time been encountering great difficulties in our calculations. We are using a very old system which seems to be in agreement with philosophy but unfortunately not with the facts. According to this old system, the Ptolemaic system, the movements of the planets are extremely complicated. Venus, for instance, is supposed to move something like this. (He sketches on a blackboard the epicyclic course of Venus according to Ptolemy) But if we predicate these complicated movements, we are unable to calculate the position of any star accurately in advance. We do not find it in the place where it should be. Furthermore there are stellar motions for which the Ptolemaic system has no explanation at all. According to my observations, certain small stars I have discovered describe motions of this kind around the planet Jupiter. If you gentlemen are agreeable, we shall begin with the inspection of the satellites of Jupiter, the Medicean stars.
ANDREA (pointing to the stool in front of the telescope) Kindly sit here.
? THE PHILOSOPHER Thank you, my child. I'm afraid it will not be so simple. Mr. Galilei, before we apply ourselves to your famous tube, we should like to request the pleasure of a disputation: Can such planets exist?
GALILEO I thought you'd just look through the telescope and see for yourselves. ANDREA Here, if you please.
THE MATHEMATICIAN Yes, yes. --You are aware, of course, that in the view of the
ancients no star can revolve around any center other than the earth and
that there can be no stars without firm support in the sky. GALILEO Y es.
THE PHILOSOPHER And, regardless of whether such stars are possible, a proposition which the mathematician (He bows to the mathematician) seems to doubt, I as a philosopher should like with all due modesty to raise this question: Are such stars necessary?
GALILEO The cosmos of the divine Aristotle with its spheres and their mystical music, with its crystal vaults and the circular courses of its heavenly bodies, with the oblique angle of the sun's course and the mysteries of its tables of satellites and the wealth of stars in the catalog of the southern hemisphere and the inspired construction of the celestial globe is an edifice of such order and beauty that we shall be well advised not to disturb its harmony.
GALILEO Your Highness, would you care to observe those impossible and unnecessary stars through the telescope?
THE MATHEMATICIAN One might be tempted to reply that if your tube shows something that cannot exist it must be a rather unreliable tube.
GALILEO What do you mean by that?
22
? THE MATHEMATICIAN It certainly would be much more to the point, Mr. Galilei, if you were to tell us your reasons for supposing that there can be free-floating stars moving about in the highest sphere of the immutable heavens.
THE PHILOSOPHER Reasons, Mr. Galilei, reasons!
GALILEO My reasons? When a look at these stars and my calculations demonstrate
the phenomenon? This debate is getting absurd, sir.
THE MATHEMATICIAN If it were not to be feared that you would get even more
excited than you are, one might suggest that what is in your tube and
what is in the sky might be two different things.
THE PHILOSOPHER It would be difficult to put it more politely.
GALILEO You accuse me of fraud?
THE PHILOSOPHER We wouldn't dream of it! In the presence of His Highness! THE MATHEMATICIAN Your instrument, whether we call it your own or your
adoptive child, has doubtless been very cleverly constructed.
THE PHILOSOPHER And we are convinced, Mr. Galilei, that neither you nor
anyone else would ever dare to grace stars with the illustrious name of the ruling house if there were the slightest doubt of their existence. (All bow deeply to the grand duke)
COSMO (turning to the ladies-in-waiting) Is there something wrong with my stars?
LORD CHAMBERLAIN Your Highness' stars are fine. The gentlemen are only wondering whether they really and truly exist. (Pause)
? ANDREA Yes, and you can see all sorts of things on the Bull. GALILEO Are you gentlemen going to look through it, or not? THE PHILOSOPHER Certainly, certainly.
THE MATHEMATICIAN Certainly.
(Pause. Suddenly Andrea turns around and walks stiffly out through the length of
the room. His mother intercepts him)
MRS. SARTI What's got into you?
ANDREA They're stupid. (Tears himself loose and runs away)
THE PHILOSOPHER A deplorable child.
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN Your Highness, gentlemen, may I remind you that the
state ball is due to start in forty-five minutes?
THE MATHEMATICIAN Why beat about the bush? Sooner or later Mr. Galilei will
have to face up to the facts. His moons of Jupiter would pierce the crystal
sphere. That's all there is to it.
ANDREA You'll be surprised, but there is no crystal sphere.
THE PHILOSOPHER Any textbook will tell you there is, my good man.
ANDREA Then we need new textbooks.
THE PHILOSOPHER Your Highness, my esteemed colleague and I are supported
by no less an authority than the divine Aristotle,
GALILEO (almost abjectly) Gentlemen, belief in the authority of Aristotle is one
thing, observable facts are another. You say that according to Aristotle there are crystal spheres up there and that certain motions are impossible because the stars would have to pierce the spheres. But what if you observed these motions? Wouldn't that suggest to you that the spheres do not exist? Gentlemen, I humbly beseech you to trust your own eyes.
THE MATHEMATICIAN My dear Galilei, though it may seem dreadfully old- fashioned to you, I'm in the habit of reading Aristotle now and then, and I can assure you that when I read Aristotle I do trust my eyes.
23
? GALILEO I'm used to seeing the gentlemen of all faculties close their eyes to all facts and act as if nothing had happened. I show them my calculations, and they smile; I make my telescope available to help them see for themselves, and they quote Aristotle.
ANDREA The man had no telescope!
THE MATHEMATICIAN Exactly!
THE PHILOSOPHER (grandly) If Aristotle, an authority acknowledged not only by
all the scientists of antiquity but by the church fathers themselves, is to be dragged through the mire, a continuation of this discussion seems superfluous, at least to me. I refuse to take part in irrelevant arguments. Basta.
GALILEO Truth is the child of time, not of authority. Our ignorance is infinite, let's whittle away just one cubic millimeter. Why should we still want to be so clever when at long last we have a chance of being a little less stupid?
I've had the good fortune to lay hands on a new instrument with which we can observe a tiny corner of the universe a little more closely, not much though. Make use of it. THE PHILOSOPHER Your Highness, ladies and gentlemen, I can only wonder what all this will lead to.
GALILEO I submit that as scientists we have no business asking what the truth may lead to.
THE PHILOSOPHER (in wild alarm) Mr. Galilei, the truth can lead to all sorts of things!
GALILEO Your Highness. In these nights telescopes are being directed at the sky all over Italy. The moons of Jupiter don't lower the price of milk. But they have never been seen before, and yet they exist. The man in the street will conclude that a good many things may exist if only he opens his eyes. And you ought to back him up. It's not the motions of some remote stars that make Italy sit up and take notice, but the news that doctrines believed to be unshakeable are beginning to totter, and we all know that of these there are far too many. Gentlemen, we oughtn't to be defending shaky doctrines!
GALILEO Your Highness! My work in the great arsenal of Venice brought me into daily contact with draftsmen, architects and instrument makers. Those people taught me many new ways of doing things. They don't read books but they trust the testimony of their five senses, most of them without fear as to where it will lead them . . .
THE PHILOSOPHER Fancy that!
GALILEO Very much like our seamen who left our shores a hundred years ago, without
the slightest idea of what other shores, if any, they might reach. It looks as if we had to go to the shipyards nowadays to find the high curiosity that was the glory of ancient Greece.
THE PHILOSOPHER After what we have heard here today, I have no doubt that Mr. Galilei will find admirers in the shipyards.
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN Your Highness, I note to my great dismay that this exceedingly instructive conversation has taken a little longer than foreseen. Your Highness must rest a while before the court ball.
(At a signal, the grand duke bows to Galileo. The court quickly prepares to leave) MRS. SARTI (stepping in the way of the grand duke and offering him a plate of pastry) A bun, Your Highness? (The older lady-in-waiting leads the grand duke away)
GALILEO (running after them) But all you gentlemen need do is look through the instrument.
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? THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN His Highness will not fail to obtain an expert opinion on your statements by consulting our greatest living astronomer, Father Christopher Clavius, astronomer-in-chief at the papal college in Rome.
25
? 5
Undaunted even by the plague, Galileo continues his investigations.
a)
Early morning. Galileo bending over his notes at the telescope. Virginia comes in with a traveling bag.
GALILEO Virginia! Is anything wrong?
VIRGINIA The convent is closed. They sent us home. There are five cases of plague in
Arcetri.
GALILEO (calls out) Sarti!
VIRGINIA And last night our market was roped off. They say two people have died in the old city, and there are three more dying in the hospital.
GALILEO As usual, they've hushed it up until the last minute. MRS. SARTI (comes in) What are you doing here?
VIRGINIA The plague.
MRS. SARTI My God! I'd better pack. (Sits down)
GALILEO No need to pack. Take Virginia and Andrea. I'll go get my notes.
(He hurries back to the table and gathers his papers in great haste. Mrs, Sarti puts a coat on Andrea as he runs in, and goes to get some food and bedding. Picks up mail and reads) His Highness has left the city for Bologna because of the raging disease. Before leaving he insisted that you should be given an opportunity to escape. The coach will be here soon.
MRS. SARTI (to Virginia and Andrea) Go right outside, you two. Here, take this. ANDREA Why? If you don't tell me why, I won't go.
MRS. SARTI
VIRGINIA
MRS. SARTI
GALILEO (wrapping the telescope in a tablecloth) Put Virginia and Andrea in the
coach. I'll join you in a minute.
VIRGINIA No, we won't leave without you. You'll never be ready if you start
packing your books.
MRS. SARTI The carriage is here.
GALILEO Be reasonable, Virginia. If no one gets in, the coachman will just drive
away. The plague is no joke.
VIRGINIA (protesting as Mrs. Sarti leads her and Andrea out) Help him with his books
or he won't come.
MRS. SARTI (calls out from the house door) Mr. Galilei! The coachman says he won't
wait.
GALILEO Mrs, Sarti, I don't think I should leave. Everything is in such a muddle
here, you know, all my notes of the last three months, I might as well throw them away if I don't go on with them for a night or two. And anyway the plague is everywhere.
It's the plague, my child. We'll wait for father.
Mr. Galilei, are you ready?
26
? MRS. SARTI Mr. Galilei! Come this minute! You're out of your mind. GALILEO You go with Virginia and Andrea. I'll come later.
MRS. SARTI In another hour they won't let anyone leave the city. You must
come! (Listens) He's driving off! I've got to stop him. (Out)
(Galileo walks hack and forth. Mrs. Sarti returns, very pale, without her bundle)
GALILEO Don't stand around like that! The coach with the children will leave without you.
MRS. SARTI They've left. They had to hold Virginia down. The children will be taken care of in Bologna. But who'd get you your meals?
GALILEO You're crazy. Staying in the city to cook! . . , (Takes up his papers) You mustn't take me for a fool, Mrs. Sarti. I can't interrupt my observations. I have powerful enemies, I've got to supply proofs for certain propositions.
MRS. SARTI You needn't apologize. But it's not reasonable. b)
Outside Galileo's house in Florence. Galileo comes out of the door and looks down the street. Two, nuns are passing by.
GALILEO (addresses them from above the window) Sisters, could you tell me where I can buy milk? This morning the milk woman didn't come, and my housekeeper is away.
(man passes)
GALILEO (addresses man) Aren't you the baker who brings us our bread? Have you seen my housekeeper? She must have gone out last night. She hasn't been here all morning.
(The man shakes his head. A window across the street is opened and a woman looks out)
GALILEO Do you know anything about my housekeeper?
THE WOMAN Your housekeeper collapsed in the street. Up there. She must
have known. That's why she left you. How can people be so inconsiderate?
(She bangs the window shut)
GALILEO (at a window addressing other people on the street) Can you tell me
what's happened to the woman?
THE WOMAN (appears at her window again) They take 'em to potter's field. The whole
street back there's infected. Why don't you close it off?
(The soldiers stretch a rope across the street)
? THE WOMAN But now nobody can get into our house! Don't put your rope there. We're all well here. Stop! Stop! Can't you hear? My son's gone to the city, he won't be able to get back. You beasts! You beasts!
(Her sobbing and screaming are beard from inside.
GALILEO There seems to be a fire back there.
THE WOMAN The firemen won't touch it if there's any suspicion of plague.
All they can think about is the plague.
GALILEO Just like them! Their whole system of government is like that. They
cut us off like a withered fig branch that's stopped bearing fruit.
THE WOMAN You mustn't say that. They're helpless, that's all.
GALILEO Are you alone in your house?
THE WOMAN Yes. My son sent me a note. Thank God he heard last night that
27
? someone had died around here, so he didn't come home. There've been
eleven cases in the neighborhood during the night.
GALILEO I can't forgive myself for not sending my housekeeper away in time. I
had urgent work to finish, but she had no reason to stay.
THE WOMAN We can't go away either. Who would take us in? You mustn't reproach yourself. I saw her. She left this morning, at about seven
o'clock. She was sick, because when she saw me step out to bring in the bread she circled around me. I suppose she didn't want your house to be sealed off. But they get wise to everything.
(A rattling sound is heard)
GALILEO What's that?
THE WOMAN They're making noise to drive away the clouds that carry the
seeds of the plague.
(Galileo roars with laughter)
THE WOMAN How can you laugh?
(A man comes down the street and finds it roped off)
GALILEO Hey, you! The street's closed and there's nothing to eat in the house.
(The man has already run away)
GALILEO You can't just let us starve here! Hey! Hey!
THE WOMAN Maybe they'll bring us something. If they don't, I can put a pitcher
of milk on your doorstep, if you're not afraid, but not until after dark. GALILEO Hey! Hey! Somebody ought to hear us.
(Suddenly Andrea stands at the rope. His face is stained with tears)
GALILEO Andrea! How did you get here?
ANDRF. A I was here this morning. I knocked, but you didn't open. People told
me . . .
GALILEO Didn't you go away?