How Not to Get Overwhelmed ~ with the Help of Galileo

If you are familiar with my blog, you know I love to travel.
Last fall I visited Italy for the second time, and I long to return.
I find it fascinating for its rich and significant secular and religious history,
its glorious art and architecture, its scrumptious food and drink,
its geological wonders, and its passionate, animated, and friendly people.

I could spend a lifetime exploring Italy, and I would barely scratch the surface
of all there is to see and to learn in this complex, contradictory, and varied country.
It can be overwhelming, and when I feel overwhelmed exploring one of Italy's sites,
I focus on one object that resonates with me.

Take the marvelous Basilica of Santa Maria Novella
located near the main railway station in Florence.
The church, the cloister, and the chapter house are a treasure trove
of Gothic and early Renaissance art and architecture.

Basilica of Santa Maria Novella

Piazza Santa Maria Novella

Florence, Italy

September 16, 2018

I shrink its treasures down to one object significant to me: the Brunelleschi pulpit.
In fact, it was the Brunelleschi pulpit that made me determined
to find this gorgeous basilica in the narrow mazes of Florence.

Why a pulpit? This pulpit?
Because this is the place where one of my favorite scientific figures,
Galileo Galilei, was first denounced for heresy.

Galileo Facing the Roman Inquisition

by Cristiano Banti, 1857

This painting shows Vincenzo Maculano, the Prosecutor of the Holy Office,

reading the charges of suspicion of heresy to Galileo Galilei.

Image Source: Wikimedia

Information: Museo Galileo

When I was growing up, even into adulthood, I was very critical of Galileo
for recanting his belief in Nicholas Copernicus' theory
that Earth and all other planets revolved around the Sun,
especially since Galileo's belief was based on his scientific observations
of moons circling Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and sunspots on the Sun.

Galileo's Telescopes

Museo Galileo, Florence, Italy

Image Source: Wikimedia

Later I became more forgiving of Galileo,
as I contemplated the reality of being burned alive at a stake.
I realized that, faced with such a choice, I'd likely recant too.
Idealism has its limits.

I learned about the pulpit and the attack on Galileo
in Kim Stanley Robinson's outstanding novel Galileo's Dream.
Robinson wrote of Dominican Tommaso Caccini
denouncing the Copernican system as heresy and implicating Galileo
from the pulpit in Santa Maria Novella in December 1614.
Caccini's verbal attack on Galileo led to the scientist's eventual indictment.

When I exited the train upon arriving in Florence,
I was off to find Santa Maria Novella and its famous pulpit.

Yours Truly by the Brunelleschi Pulpit

Basilica of Santa Maria Novella

Florence, Italy

September 16, 2018

I spent hours exploring the church, the cloister, and the chapter house
of Santa Maria Novella; and if I return to Florence,
I'll return to this amazing site to see its treasures again.
I have it anchored in my mind forever with the Brunelleschi Pulpit.