Matteo Valleriani

Max-Planck-Institute für Wissenschaftsgeschichte

Berlin. Deutschland.

After Favaro’s reconstruction, Galileo's Ricordi Autobiografi represents what we would call a multi-column register nowadays. Galileo wrote this during the Padua years, also adding short explanations to most of the entries. Relations between the Ricordi and letters enclosed in the Galileian correspondence can also be found. An analysis of these documents allows us to take a look at Galileo's household. The workshop where he and Master Marc'Antonio Mazzoleni made military compasses, and the subjects of private lessons, often given to his guests, are only two of the interesting subjects we can study. Focussing on the military compass and the private lessons, I will give a general view of Galileo's Ricordi.