Galileo's fingers are on display in a museum in Florence

Two of Galileo's fingers, exhumed by admiring scientists and historians in the 18th century, are now on display at the Museum of the History of Science in Florence, which is now named after Galileo. Also in the exhibition are presented a tooth of Galileo and a third finger that was already in the museum from before

Last November, the director of the museum, Paolo Glozzi, announced that two fingers and one tooth belonging to Galileo had been found more than a century after they were lost in 1905 (the exact year Einstein discovered the theory of relativity, how strange, but unrelated). They were returned to the Museum of the History of Science in Italy. And how was the loss restored? An art collector bought the finger and the teeth at an auction and returned the lost item to the museum in Firenze. The museum did not know whether the fingers and the tooth were indeed Galileo's or not. Maybe they belong to someone else? After testing and verification it turned out that they were indeed the father of modern astronomy and all was calm and satisfied.

Galileo who lived between 1564 and 1642 was known to be a very influential astronomer. He built the telescope and made sensational discoveries, some of which were considered heretical by the Catholic Church due to his support for Copernicus' discovery of the Earth's rotation around the Sun. Therefore, for 95 years after his death, the church authorities refused to allow Galileo to be buried in consecrated ground.

100 years after Galileo's death: the church calmed down and the fingers are stolen

However, 95 years after his death, the church authorities issued a decree according to which Galileo could be reburied in holy ground. Then in 1737 Galileo's body was removed from storage to a tomb near Michelangelo's tomb, in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence. While the body was reburied in a sacred place, scientists and historians who were admirers of Galileo wanted a memento of Galileo. And so they decided to cut three fingers and a vertebra from Galileo's body.

Galileo's fingers and tooth travel across the hundreds

One finger and one vertebra were preserved at the University of Padua, where Galileo taught for years. However, the tooth, thumb and second finger were kept in a wooden box that was passed down from generation to generation by collectors, until they were lost in 1905.

In October 2009, Alberto Bruschi, a well-known art collector from Florence, bought Galileo's tooth, thumb and finger at an auction along with religious relics and did not know that they were Galileo's organs. The organs were sold as unknown items inside the 17th century wooden box. Suddenly Mr. Brushi and his daughter noticed the statue of Galileo on the box. They opened the box and saw a book documenting how parts of the scientist's body were cut during his burial, they immediately contacted the museum.

In November 2009, the museum announced that the mere finding of the finger and teeth that were lost among the collectors at an auction, including finding detailed documents about the collectors who owned them, helped to identify that these were Galileo's organs. The organs were restored and therefore everything taken from Galileo's body was returned to responsible hands. "Based on the historical documentation, there is no doubt about the authenticity of the items," read a statement from last November. The items were put on display in the museum after restoration and are now on display.

Together with the display, the only surviving instruments from Galileo's time are displayed - the instruments themselves that Galileo designed, the lenses of the telescope he used to discover the moons of Jupiter and two other telescopes. A compass and other devices that Galileo designed himself are also shown. And they are actually the real attraction of the renovated museum.

All's well that ends well: Galileo's finger sticks out in Florence

The display of Galileo's organs in Florence seems to complete the Vatican's reconciliation with Galileo since January 2009. The Vatican has decided to recast the image of the most famous victim of the Inquisition, Galileo, as a man of faith. And it was just in time to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope and the International Year of Astronomy. Pope Benedict XVI decided to honor Galileo by saying, Galileo and other scientists helped believers understand and think with gratitude about the works of God.
Vatican officials decided to call Galileo the patron of the dialogue between faith and reason.
This is of course quite a big change. They even began planning to give Galileo a place of honor in the Vatican to mark the Year of Astronomy: to build a statue in his honor to be placed in the Vatican gardens.
A real idyll. But in the end these plans were rejected. Certain Vatican officials have spoken out about "problems" with this initiative. The Vatican did not want to detail too much what the problems were. However, it is clear that the problems stemmed from sediments from the past regarding the "mistakes" of the Church and the limit to which the Church is willing to go in order to reconcile with Galileo. That is why in the end there was no statue of Galileo in the Vatican. But Galileo's fingers are emblazoned in a museum in Florence.

The Museum of the History of Science in Florence was closed for two years for renovations and it reopened this month, when after the opening it was given a new name "Galileo Museum".