Some
controversies die young, while others continue to attract the public’s
attention for centuries. More than 360 years after his death, Renaissance
scientist Galileo Galiei has once
again sparked heated debate. This time, the disagreement is over a recent
proposal to exhume his body.
A group of
Italian researchers want to examine Galileo’s remains to carry out DNA tests to
find the cause of the blindness that afflicted him later in life. Scholars also
want to reveal whether the other body buried with the Renaissance genius, is in
fact his daughter, Sister Maria Celeste.
Galileo’s
tomb is located in Florence’s
Santa Croce Basilica. The parish
priest has voiced his opposition to the proposal, saying it would be
‘disrespectful’.
Meanwhile,
officials at the Florence Science Museum have announced that the institution will bear the scientist’s name once
restoration work is completed in 2009. Requiring the museum to be closed for
the next 16 months, the 8 million euro project will improve existing exhibition
spaces. The name change coincides with the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s most
important astronomical discoveries made in the early seventeenth century. The
original instruments used by the pioneering astronomer, including two
telescopes, which belong to the museum.
