Galileo scrutinizing the firmament with his telescope forever transforms the vision that man has of the celestial, which ceases to be an exclusive field of fantasy and imagination, opening the way to the science that we know today as astronomy . Galileo and his telescope become an inseparable whole in the imaginary of the 17th century. This image survives to our time and many contemporary comics and graphic novels that have Galileo as the protagonist, choose this image for their covers. Thus, for example, number 3 of the Great Geniuses collection, entitled «Gooffy Galileo» , shows the cute Disney character looking at the moon through the telescope, when a spider hangs down from the upper part of the window and stands between the terrestrial satellite and the lens, giving him a death scare. In his series Historical Waste , Don Julio also deals with the device of the Pisan genius, emphasizing that the telescope is not an invention of the Italian, but an improved version of the prototype created by a German scientist and lens maker named Hans Lippershey .
Jordi Bayarri explains the genesis of this invention, in an illustration that evokes the fresco Galileo teaching the Duke of Venice how to use the telescope (1858), by Giuseppe Bertini.
Success came to Galileo Galilei with the publication of his book Sidereus nuncius (1610), which is based on the astronomical observations he made on the Moon and Jupiter . The great novelty that the book brings is that the astronomer accompanies the text of a series of drawings where what he has seen thanks to the telescope is reflected. For the first time the public contemplates, albeit through the evocation of a drawing, the true aspect of the celestial bodies . Thanks to this treatise, Galileo quickly transcends the field of astronomy to become a true literary myth of universal scope.
The first to shape this character is the German Johannes Kepler . Rudolf II’s former imperial mathematician not only offers unwavering support for Galileo’s findings as an astronomer, but seems to be the original originator of the happy comparison between Galileo and Columbus .
“Adonis”
Following in his footsteps, Girolamo Magagnati, a poet in the service of the Medici, gave literary form to this concept in his book Meditazione poetica sopra i pianeti medicei . In said text, he affirms the superiority of the first over the second; since if the Genoese had sailed the seas with his caravels until discovering a new world, the Pisan would have traveled the skies with his telescope, discovering even greater wonders.
Thanks to the Sidereus nuncius , the biblical passage «et vidi caelum novum et terram novam»(«and I saw a new heaven and a new earth»), included in the book of revelation of the apostle Saint John, acquires a new meaning; and there are many later writers who, in one way or another, pay tribute to the celestial observations of the Italian.
Thus, Giambattista Marino writes in 1623 the epic poem of 20 songs Adonis , where he makes a clear homage to the idea of celestial exploration understood in a modern way that underlies the work of Galileo. In cantos 10 and 11, the mortal Adonis makes a true interplanetary journey and travels through the solar system, flying past the Moon, visiting Mercury and Venus. And it is not a symbolic or spiritual journey, but a kind of space exploration that poetically evokes the path opened by the Sidereus nuncius .
Pedro Cifuentes makes this same idea his own and transforms Galileo into a true astronaut in his web comic Galileo en la Luna .
The footprint of the Sidereus nuncius can be traced to this day. Thus, for example, Jordi Bayarri, when undertaking his comic biography on the character, titled it Galileo, the messenger of the stars (2018); Spanish translation of the original Latin title.
Another author who evokes Galileo in his writings is John Milton . Tradition has it that the Englishman visits him during his captivity. Later painting has represented this encounter on several occasions, contrasting the figure of an old and defeated Galileo, deprived of his freedom for his ideas, against a young and dynamic Milton, ready to fight for the right to express them.
“The Life of Galileo”
Of all these canvases, the most accomplished is a version by Annibale Gatti. In the background of said image a young character is shown scanning the heavens; and although the print can be interpreted in many ways, it strikes me as a resource of classical narrative painting, in which the young man who observes through the telescope would be Galileo himself when years ago he began astronomical studies that, at the same time, dessert, they will end up confronting him with the Holy Office.
Milton echoes this encounter in his Areopagitica: An Address by Mr. John Milton to the Parliament of England on the Freedom of Printing without Censorship (1644); and by betting on free expression, beyond the interests of the powerful, one of my favorite texts on the Pisan paves the way (and I think it inspires); the stage play The Life of Galileo (1939), by Bertolt Brecht . The German playwright turns Galileo into a perfect symbol for contemporary Western society, creating clever analogies between the world of the 17th century and the 20th century. Berthold Brecht was a member of the communist party since 1929 and his books were burned in the burning of May 10, 1933 carried out by the Nazis. Perhaps for this reason, at the beginning of the work Brecht presents Galileo as a character according to his mythical image. A character who, in short, is destined to become the protagonist of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century that heralds and precedes that of the Age of Enlightenment.
But the real success of the playwright is to show how the Holy Office opposes the modernity announced by Copernicus and demonstrated by Galileo . For Brecht, in Galileo’s life there is a continual conflict between science and power; between the scientist who changes the world and the established power that fears that the position of privilege will be undermined in this nascent world. This creates an obvious parallelism between the inquisitorial process against Galileo and the pressures of the Nazi regime around Brecht’s work, which will leave the playwright no other option than to go into exile. This is especially evident in some fragments of the text, such as the meeting between Galileo and Andrea, in which the former provides the latter with a copy of his forbidden texts in the hope that he will take them out of the country to freer lands where they can be published.
In 1945, Brecht, with the invaluable collaboration of the English actor Charles Laughton, wrote a second version of The Life of Galileo . In this rewriting, the moral responsibility of the scientist with the society in which he develops his work is emphasized, by introducing current events, such as the explosion of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs , into the text. Thus, if the original text reflected essentially on the treatment of science with power; in this new version the question of the courage to confront those who oppose the truths of science is underlined; but, above all, it reflects on the use and abuse of scientific knowledge by the established power . This second theatrical version premiered on Broadway in 1947 at the hands of Joseph Losey, with Laughton as the leading actor. The next day, Brecht is called to testify before the committee on un-American activities; and once again, he is forced to leave, returning to old Europe. Losey, also on the left, will follow the same path in 1952.
Final version in Berlin
The definitive version of Galileo’s life was written in Berlin in 1953 , the same year the Russian repression took place in East Germany to suffocate the workers’ protests. Brecht is pressured to write a document supporting the official repressive attitude. Without a doubt, Brecht must have felt like his Galileo. Perhaps for this reason, in this latest version the character’s contradictions are emphasized, praising his strengths, but also showing great tolerance for his weaknesses. Brecht expresses it intelligently in one of his brilliant dialogues:
Andrea: “Unfortunate is the land that has no heroes!”
Galileo Galilei: “No. Unfortunate is the land that needs heroes.
In 1974, Joseph Losey agrees to participate in a project of The American Film Theater that is committed to presenting filmed versions of well-known plays in movie theaters. From his exile in London, he decides to recover Brecht’s Galileo that he himself directed in 1947, convinced of the artistic value of said work. Despite being an avant-garde proposal, in this version of Galileo on film, Losey and producer Ely Landau manage to involve well-known actors in the project. The cast is led by Chaim Topol, very popular in the US after the success of the film Fiddler on the Roof (1971). He is supported by Georgia Brown, Edward Fox, Sir John Gielgud or Margaret Leighton; that is to say, the creamiest of the English scene of the time. The film closely follows the 1947 version of Brecht’s play; but since the German playwright had already passed away, the script is due to Losey himself and Barbara Bray.
There is an earlier version of La vida de Galileo shot by Liliana Cavani in 1968. This production, although it also focuses on the inquisitorial trial and Galileo’s abjuration, differs in many aspects from Brecht’s work. The greatest originality of the film is in the incorporation of another Italian astronomer, Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), as a counterpoint. Both were strong advocates of Copernican’s heliocentric system; or if you prefer, both were defenders of scientific truth against ecclesiastical dogma. But the path they take is the opposite. Bruno proclaims his cosmological theories, which go beyond the Copernican model, and does not deny them, although they end up costing him his life when he is burned alive in 1600 by order of the Holy Office.
«Galileo Galilei», by Paolo D’Antonio
Galileo presents himself as the much more cautious scientist, who does not want to go against the dogma of faith without scientific evidence to support it. But armed with the truth that his observations provide, he is encouraged to defend them publicly. The bitter lesson that Galileo ends up learning is that the dogmatist despises evidence, and that, unlike Bruno, he is not willing to die for the truth. Although the meeting of these two astronomical figures is only possible in fiction, Cavani’s comparison of both characters very clearly shows the passage from a world governed by theological principles to one governed by scientific principles ; but above all, he emphasizes that said change is unfortunately slow and traumatic.
To finish, I would like to name another graphic novel dedicated to the life of Galileo. This is Galileo Galilei (2015), by Paolo D’Antonio. The work concludes with an oneiric scene in which Copernicus and Ptolemy confront each other in a dialogue on astronomy. Copernicus recites the arguments for heliocentrism and casts doubt on Ptolemy, who acknowledges that Copernicus’s conclusions are interesting and give him food for thought.
This generates a very accurate reading, since Ptolemy, in a certain way, surrenders to the evidence; or if you prefer, Paolo D’Antonio emphasizes that the scientific method is open to changing even the most deeply rooted truth if there is evidence to support such change.
