Celestial splendors. Observing the Sky from Galileo to Gravitational Waves
Firenze, Monumental Complex of Santa Maria Novella, Piazza Stazione 6
16 December 2023 – 17 March 2024
Curated by Filippo Camerota, the exhibition is organised by Museo Galileo in collaboration with EGO-European Gravitational Observatory, with the support of Fondazione CR Firenze and Unicoop Firenze.
It represents one of the main initiatives organised to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the publication of Galileo Galilei's Saggiatore, the book that, stemming from a dispute on the origin of comets between Galileo and the Jesuit Orazio Grassi, laid the foundations of the modern concept of science based on observation and experimentation. The 'celestial splendours', as we read in the Accademia dei Lincei’s dedication to Pope Urban VIII, are the comets and, by extension, the new worlds that the telescope made it possible to see for the first time in the history of mankind: the mountains of the Moon, the sunspots, the phases of Venus, Jupiter’s satellites and the infinite stars of the Milky Way. A new look of the universe destined to radically change the geocentric cosmological conception in favour of the Copernican hypothesis.
The visual exploration of space continues today through the eye of satellites and the great space telescopes, Hubble and James Webb. It will be the images captured by space telescopes that will close the picture of the great adventure that began with Galileo's telescope.
The final section of the exhibition is dedicated to three astronomical observatories built by contemporary artists - Hannsjörg Voth, Charles Ross and Lorenzo Reina - who have designed architectures to transform sky observation into an aesthetic and sensorial experience.
The exhibition is organized under the patronage of the City of Florence and the National Committee for the celebrations of the 4th centenary of the election of Pope Urban VIII.
As part of the exhibition, Museo Galileo proposes “Da Galileo alle onde gravitazionali” (From Galileo to the Gravitational Waves), a series of meetings starting on Wednesday 10 January with Paolo Galluzzi's lecture titled "Galileo. A 400 anni dal Saggiatore".
Organised in collaboration with the Fondazione CR Firenze, the conference will be held at the Fondazione Biblioteche Cassa di Risparmio Firenze at 4.30 p.m. Click here for info and reservations.
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