Part 2

1. Florence, 1718. 2. Padua, 1744. 3. Florence, 1842-56.

Sidereus Nuncius.

1. Venice, 1610. 2. London, 1653.

Kepler’s Works, ed. C. Frisch. Frankfurt a. M., 1858-71.

Prodromus dissertationum mathematicarum continens Mysterium Cosmographicum de admirabili proportione orbium cœlestium. Tübingen, 1596.

Astronomia nova αἰτιολογητός (Commentaria de motibus stellæ Martis). [Prague,] 1609.

THE

SIDEREAL MESSENGER

GALILEO GALILEI

THE

SIDEREAL MESSENGER

UNFOLDING GREAT AND MARVELLOUS SIGHTS, AND PROPOSING THEM TO THE ATTENTION OF EVERY ONE, BUT ESPECIALLY PHILOSOPHERS AND ASTRONOMERS,

BEING SUCH AS HAVE BEEN OBSERVED BY

GALILEO GALILEI

A GENTLEMAN OF FLORENCE, PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PADUA,

WITH THE AID OF A

TELESCOPE

lately invented by him,

Respecting the Moon’s Surface, an innumerable number of Fixed Stars, the Milky Way, and Nebulous Stars, but especially respecting Four Planets which revolve round the Planet Jupiter at different distances and in different periodic times, with amazing velocity, and which, after remaining unknown to every one up to this day, the Author recently discovered, and determined to name the

MEDICEAN STARS.

Venice 1610.

TO THE MOST SERENE

COSMO DE’ MEDICI, THE SECOND,

FOURTH GRAND-DUKE OF TUSCANY.

There is certainly something very noble and large-minded in the intention of those who have endeavoured to protect from envy the noble achievements of distinguished men, and to rescue their names, worthy of immortality, from oblivion and decay. This desire has given us the lineaments of famous men, sculptured in marble, or fashioned in bronze, as a memorial of them to future ages; to the same feeling we owe the erection of statues, both ordinary and equestrian; hence, as the poet says, has originated expenditure, mounting to the stars, upon columns and pyramids; with this desire, lastly, cities have been built, and distinguished by the names of those men, whom the gratitude of posterity thought worthy of being handed down to all ages. For the state of the human mind is such, that unless it be continually stirred by the counterparts of matters, obtruding themselves upon it from without, all recollection of the matters easily passes away from it.

Propertius, iii. 2. 17-22.

Compare Lucretius iv. 881:

Dico animo nostro primum simulacra meandi Accidere, atque animum pulsare.