Liana De Girolami Cheney

Galileo Galilei’s Commemorative Tomb in Santa Croce: Art, Light and the Stars

Abstract

After his death in 1642, Galileo Galilei’s corpse could not be buried on consecrated ground because he was condemned by the Inquisition of the Catholic Church for his support of Copernicus’ heliocentric notion and his theory on the motions of the earth. Challenging the church refusal, Ferdinand de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and devoted patron of Galileo, was able to obtain a humble burial for Galileo’s remains in Santa Croce. Many years later, in 1703, Galileo’s pupil Vincenzo Viviani, after his death, bequeathed a substantial endowment to build a monumental memorial for both Galileo and himself in Santa Croce. In 1737, the commemorative structure was designed and built by the Foggini family, the sculptor Girolamo Ticciati, and the architect Giovan Battista Nelli.

This paper will analyze the originality of Galileo’s tomb in terms of its Renaissance composition and astral symbolism, a remarkable funerary monument celebrating the accomplishments of Galileo Galilei (Pisa 1564-Arcetri 1642), the Father of Modern Science, a Tuscan artist, an astronomer, a mathematician, a physicist and a philosopher. His renown innovations and discoveries paved the way to the scientific understanding of the universe in the modern era, namely, the sector, a navigational compass, improvement of the telescope, the four moons surrounding Jupiter, the nature of the Milky Way, the rings around Saturn, the phases in the planet Venus and sunspots in the Sun.

Biography

Prof. Liana De Girolami Cheney is presently a Visiting Scholar in Art History at the Università di Aldo Moro in Bari, Italy, and Investigadora de Historia de Arte, SIELAE, Universidad de Coruña, Spain. Dr. Cheney received her BS/BA in Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Miami, Florida, her MA in History of Art and Aesthetics from the University of Miami, Florida, and her Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance and Baroque from Boston University, MA.

Dr. Cheney is a Pre-Raphaelite, Renaissance and Mannerism scholar and author, and coauthor of numerous articles and books, including: Neoplatonism and the Arts; Neoplatonic Aesthetics in Literature, Music and the Visual Arts; The Homes of Giorgio Vasari (English and Italian); Giorgio Vasari’s Teachers: Sacred and Profane Love; Giorgio Vasari’s Prefaces: Art and Theory; Giorgio Vasari’s Artistic and Emblematic Manifestations, Agnolo Bronzino: The Florentine Muse; and Edward Burne-Jones’ Mythical Paintings.