Book Review: A Contemporary of Galileo: Ilario Altobelli: Scienziato, Teologo, Corrispondente di Galileo Galilei

Abstract

A CONTEMPORARY OF GALILEO Ilario Altobelli: Scienziato, Teologo, Corrispondente di Galileo Galilei. Alessandro Giostra, Francesco Merletti and William Shea (empatiabooks, Camerano, Italy, 2011). Pp. 143. euro15. ISBN 978-88-906165-0-1.This is an interesting little book making a modest contribution to our knowledge of early modern science. It contains three chapters, each more or less concerned with Ilario Altobelli, a Franciscan scholar with astronomical and astrological interests who was also, as the title states, an occasional writer of letters to major figures of his day, including Galileo, Clavius, and Magini. It is unclear how many of those letters were ever answered, making it difficult to argue for Altobelli's significance for the history of his time, but exploring his thoughts on the subjects of, first, Kepler's supernova of 1604 and, second, the publication of Galileo's Sidereus nuncius (1610), offers insights into how a minor, but well-informed and opinionated, character sought to contribute to the major issues current in his world.The first chapter, by Merletti, surveys Altobelli's life, publications, and other writings. A considerable expansion on the biographical material available in the Altobelli entry of the Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, this short chapter is a useful contribution to the literature. Its oddly discursive nature (it devotes a short section to a biography of Mauro Saraceni, who might or might not have been a teacher of Altobelli) sets the tone for the other contributions, which occasionally end up wandering far from their titles.The second chapter, by Shea, is a short essay on the early history of the telescope. Although a competent account for the most part, it is almost entirely superseded by Van Helden et al. (eds), The origins of the telescope (Amsterdam, 2010). It also has effectively no connection to Altobelli aside from the fact that after the publication of Sidereus nuncius, Altobelli asked Galileo to send him a set of lenses so that he could make his own instrument. However, Galileo never sent him lenses and there is no evidence that Altobelli ever made or used a telescope. So Shea's essay lays a background certainly relevant to Galileo's reception of Altobelli's request, but not for a scene in which Altobelli himself ever makes an entrance, despite his desire to do so. The odd sense of Altobelli's conspicuous absence, almost a negative presence, so to speak, builds. Giostra's chapter constitutes the bulk of the volume. He examines Altobelli's brief reports to Galileo on the nova of 1604 in which the former details his observations and defends the priority of his very early sighting in the evening sky of 9 October. Altobelli expresses sympathy with Galileo's public lectures in Padua on the nova and his energetic demolition of Aristotelian explanations thereof. Giostra also draws on Altobelli's much later (1610) congratulatory letter to Galileo about the discoveries detailed in the Sidereus nuncius. …