i io SECTION PHYSICS. 



than 1000 eclipses can be observed in the year, a matter of great 

 importance for finding the longitude of any place. He dedicated these 

 satellites to the Tuscan princes, calling them the " Stelle Medicee." 

 In August, 1 6 io, while examining Saturn, he was struck by its tri- 

 corporeal appearance as he himself expresses it. On the 3oth of 

 September, 1 6 io, he discovered that Venus changes form, just as the 

 moon does. In truth, whoever thinks over these most noble discoveries 

 of Galileo, cannot but feel both heart and mind exalted and invaded 

 by a sacred respect and veneration for the simple instruments that 

 revealed to us so great a part of the heavens. 



We are now approaching the moment when Galileo, urged by an 

 ardent desire to return to his native city, and wishing to attend un- 

 fettered by the trammels of public duties to the publication of his 

 works, is about to abandon the University of Padua, and establish 

 himself in Florence, under the patronage of, and in the receipt of a 

 stipend from the grand duke. Poor Galileo ! Forgetting for a moment 

 the uncompromising lealty to the Papacy, which thy future masters 

 necessarily owed, since they had been re-installed in their dominions 

 by Clement VII. that head of Christianity and citizen of Florence, 

 who did not hesitate to extinguish, by means of blood and treachery, 

 the liberty of the Republic ; dreaming of solitude, and tranquillity and 

 study, thou foundest, on the contrary, agitation and persecution, and 

 even torture ! To which thou wast abandoned by thy princes, more 

 through indolence and fear than from any ill-will against thee. How 

 much more nobly would not the valiant lion of Saint Mark have pro- 

 tected thee ! and alas ! how prophetic was Sagredo in the affectionate, 

 frank letter which he sent to thee as soon as he heard of thy departure ! 

 Towards September, 1610, Galileo had already settled down in 

 Florence. 



Viviani, in the inscriptions which he placed on his own house in the 

 Via dell' Amore in Florence, states that the first microscope invented 

 and made by Galileo was presented by him in the year 1612 to the 

 King of Poland ; nay, in the Life of Galileo, which he was com- 

 missioned to write for Prince Leopoldo de' Medici, Viviani attributes 

 the invention of the microscope to Galileo. On the 26th of October, 

 1624, Prince Cesi, the founder of the Accademia de ? Lincei at Rome, 

 says in answer to Galileo, who had sent him one of his microscopes, 



