Galileo's Lost Message

by D. Allen Henry

  There came a muffled sob, and the voice of Galileo, nearly unrecognizable, was heard to say, “Yes, Father. I do. I most humbly ask forgiveness of the Holy Father.”

  “And?” Maculano prodded.

  “And I confess my sins. I confess to everything, Father.”

  1997

  Antonietta and Paul stood as if transfixed in the Piazza della Minerva in downtown Roma. Eventually breaking the solitude, Antonietta asked, “So, where do we begin, Professore?”

  He surveyed the impressive sight before him, saying, “Imagine if you can the sheer terror of Galileo on that fateful day of June 22, 1633, when he entered here and, forced to fall to his knees before the Cardinals and the Black Friars, he recited his abjuration. The Campo dei Fiori, the site for burning lapsed heretics at the stake, is only a few steps from here. The magnificence of this basilica, the omnipotence of the Holy See - it must have never seemed more powerful to him in his entire life than at that moment.”

  At this Antonietta crossed herself, but said nothing. Eventually breaking their mutual introspection, she inquired, “What do you suppose we are looking for, Paulo?”

  “I’m trying to relate to two things here. First, we have the poem. Second, there is the abjuration of Galileo. Let’s start with the poem. Suppose we see the crypt of Santa Caterina first. That is clearly related to the poem.”

  “Yes, of course. She is this way, if I’m not mistaken.” Paul followed Antonietta, and they were quite taken by the solemn tomb. Unfortunately, the site brought nothing to mind for either of them.

  Having failed in yet another basilica, he suggested, “Shall we move on to the next stop, Antonietta?”

  “Of course,” she replied. “Where to now, professore?”

  “The Pantheon, of course. Might as well, it’s right around the corner from here.”

  “Yes, I’d like that,” she replied. “Why don’t we have lunch on the square before entering?”

  “Excellent idea, Contessa. After all, it is a lovely sunny day in Roma.” They picked a spot at one of the outdoor ristorantes, sharing a delicious lunch. It felt and tasted to Paul like heaven on earth.

  “So, what ideas did you get from the Santa Maria, Paulo?” Antonietta asked cheerily.

  “None whatsoever, I’m afraid,” he replied with a forlorn smile.

  “Then why so happy, Professore?”

  “How can one not be happy in such a setting, Contessa?” he asked, more as a statement than a question. “Besides, it will come to me. Each time we make one of these ‘pilgrimages’, as our sadistic poet Galileo has put it, we stumble about, confused for a time, unable to ascertain anything at all from the clues within the poem, and then - voila! – something seemingly totally unrelated comes to one of us.” At this he smiled at her and continued, “So, not to worry, my dear Contessa. There will be a sign, of that I am quite certain. After all, one need endure.”

  Briefly irritated by his air of superiority, she murmured as if to herself, “Says the world famous professor to his captive audience.”

  “Ha! Nonsense, Antonietta. Surely you must know by now that this is THE experience of a lifetime! At least, it is for me.”

  Surprised, she replied, “No, well actually, certainly it is for me as well, but I hadn’t assumed that it was that important in your case.”

  Paul reached over, squeezed her hand amiably and offered, “My dear contessa, nothing evenly remotely this exciting has ever happened to me in my entire life. My goodness, I am sitting in front of the Pantheon, the most important Roman structure on earth, eating a fabulous lunch with a gorgeous contessa while discussing a long-lost poem written by Galileo. I ask you, is that not a dream of a lifetime?”

  Antonietta smiled, pleased at his remarkable insight, not to mention the rather obvious flattery, and said, “Nice recovery. I am flattered, but I have a question - why did you say the Pantheon is the most important Roman structure? I thought that distinction was held by the Coliseum.”

  “Right, well, it’s just an opinion.”

  “No one will ever accuse you of failing to have an opinion, Professore. Please…continue.”

  “Certainly. To begin with, you have to remember that I am an engineer. As I said, the building before us is in my view the most important structure ever built on Earth.”

  “Really. Why?” she queried in apparent surprise.

  “Well, there is the obvious reason that we already discussed. Brunelleschi came here in the early fifteenth century, and he studied the dome on the Pantheon before building the dome of the Santa Maria del Fiori – the dome that sparked the Renaissance. But there is more, much much more. First, look at the columns.”

  “Yes?”

  “Those columns are the largest set of granite columns on earth. They each weigh sixty tons, and guess where they came from.”

  “No idea,” she replied, not knowing where this was going.

  “Egypt – they were quarried at the Mons Claudianus in eastern Egypt and then carted down the Nile by barge, ported across the Mediterranean by ship, and then by barge from the port of Ostia to Roma. The building was commissioned by the Director of Public works, one Marcus Agrippa.” Pointing toward the entrance, he observed, “See the letters on the portico – ‘M Agrippa’!” He halted for a moment to allow her time to scrutinize, and then he continued with, “Marcus Agrippa was Octavian’s best buddy. And you know who Octavian was, right?”

  “Yes, of course. Everybody knows that. He was Julius Caesar’s nephew, later to become Augustus, the first Emperor of Roma.”

  “Right. Finished with your lunch, Contessa?” he queried, “I think it’s time to go inside.”

  “Yes, I’m ready.”

  At this Paul tossed some cash on the table and they set off across the square. Once inside, Paul immediately looked skywards and pointed, saying, “And that, Antonietta, is without a doubt the single most amazing engineering feat in history – the dome!”

  “Yes, I do know that much,” she replied, “But why?”

  “It’s made of concrete, and it is the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever built on Earth. Somebody must have had to carry a whole lot of concrete up there, not to mention the formwork.” He paused for a moment, staring upwards at the brilliant sunlight filtering through the oculus, the large circular opening in the center.

  Suddenly, the look on his face changed, and Antonietta could immediately discern from recent experience that some amazing new revelation was about to be forthcoming.

  “What is it? What is it, Paulo?”

  “My god, it’s an epiphany, that’s what it is, Contessa! Look at that…just look at that!” and he was staring intently at the dome above them.

  “Look at what?” she replied.

  “The dome,” he stared upwards, “That’s it, the Sun! The grid-like pattern. That’s it. It’s a solar map! Firenze is the center, and the center is the Sun. It’s not the seven levels of Hell, it’s a solar map.”

  Antonietta stared skyward, taking it in. “Yes…yes, I think I get it, Professore. Galileo’s map with the circles is a map of the solar system.”

  “Exactly, Contessa - a Sun-centered solar system – the ultimate cause of Galileo’s demise at the hands of the Catholic Church.” Now obviously deep in thought, he continued staring at the dome for a few further moments. Then he turned to her and said, “This is it. We have it. Now I know what to do. We must go back to Arcetri. I have work to do. I must do some calculations.”

  “Of course,” she replied, suppressing a grin. “Do we have time to stay overnight in Roma?”

  “Certainly,” he replied pleasantly, “And tonight we celebrate the breaking of the code.”

  Still uncertain as to exactly what they had discovered, she responded affably, “Absolutely!”

  Chapter 12

  Arcetri

  To be blind is not miserable; not to be able to bear blindness, that is miserable.

  -John Milton (1608-1674)

  Arcetri - 1637

&n
bsp; Galileo settled into his favorite chair within the garden and, carefully aligning his telescope, he began the tedious process of searching skyward. He had built a cradle to hold it in place because the object that he was searching for was quite small and distant. He ranged along the plane of the ecliptic, then focused in on the tiny speck, and, as expected, it was right where it should be. He had first sighted the object in 1611, and at the time he had not had the foresight to measure its exact location in the ecliptic. Fortunately, he had come across it later that summer, and he had taken measurements several nights during the month of July, establishing that it had perhaps moved, but only slightly. At the time he had thought that it must be a star despite its apparent movement. But over the course of time he had continued to follow it, and he was now certain that it was moving, most likely in some sort of orbit. And now, after more than twenty-five years, it had moved a great distance across the sky. Of course, it had to be a planet. There was no other possible explanation. He was now certain that there were indeed seven planets circling the Sun. Unfortunately, there appeared to be no way for him to divulge this information publically, as to do so would mean certain death at the hands of the Inquisition.

  Fortunately, he had been thinking for some time on a means of divulging his recent discoveries to the world, and now that his textbook was in the hands of Diodati, he could turn all of his energies toward the problem of announcing his penultimate discoveries to the world. Sadly, these revelations would necessarily have to be posthumous, but had not Copernicus taken more or less the same approach? And had not his place in history been ensured by his magnificent text, a text published as he lay on his deathbed?

  He drew his eye back from the telescope and pondered the poem that was beginning to take shape within his mind. After a few moments he recommenced his heavenward search. He decided for some reason to search above the ecliptic, something that he rarely did. He slowly swept across a small section of the night sky, encountering darkness. Suddenly a tiny object came into view that seemed unusual to him. “What could it be?” he thought to himself. It had a strange elongated shape, not unlike a comet, but it was too far away to be certain. Furthermore, it seemed to be somewhat shadowed, unlike the comets of 1607, 1618 and 1623. He resolved to observe it on subsequent occasions, weather permitting.

  Arcetri - 1997

  Paul studied the parchment with the concentric circles on it for what seemed the thousandth time, whereas Antonietta peered in exhaustion from the window, the picture of utter dejection. They had retrieved both drawings on their way back to Arcetri from Roma, but Paul had by now begun to suspect that he was slowly losing his mind.

  And here they were, having completed the pilgrimage, following Galileo’s instructions, while not exactly in the intended order, at least as best they could. True, they had been able to decipher most of the details within the poem, but there remained some great mystery, of that Paul felt certain. The immortal Galileo would not have gone to such great lengths simply to predict the fall of The Leaning Tower and show that his homes and Aquarius aligned coincidentally. Something was still missing, something most assuredly profound…

  Suddenly lunging from his chair, he exclaimed, “Wait a minute! Where is the smaller piece of paper we found in the credenza?”

  Antonietta stared vacuously at him for a moment, but eventually catching his meaning, she rummaged around for a moment and said excitedly, “Got it! I had forgotten about it, but it was right here on the desk the entire time, stuffed between some pages in this stack of paper. Lucky for us the thieves didn’t know what it was when they ransacked the villa last week.”

  Paul took it from her outstretched hand and placed it on the desktop next to the other pieces of paper. “Just as I remembered,” he mumbled to himself.

  Also focused on the pieces before them, Antonietta inquired, “So, why did you want the smaller piece, Paulo?”

  “Look, Antonietta,” and he placed it over the one with the concentric circles drawn on it. “I never noticed this before, but there is a pin hole in this little piece of paper. There also happens to be a pin hole in the larger one. Now, watch what happens when I line up the pin holes one on top of the other.” He placed the smaller piece over the larger piece of paper, and proudly stood back to ponder it.

  Antonietta stared at it and, glancing blankly toward him, she eventually threw her hair back in that imperious way of hers and exclaimed tersely, “I don’t get it…”

  “Do you have a straight pin? Get me a straight pin, please, and I will show you.”

  She rummaged around once again, this time locating a pin inside the desk drawer, which she summarily handed over to Paul. He deftly inserted it through the smaller piece of paper, and then, threading it through the pinhole in the larger piece, he subsequently pinned both pieces to the desktop. He thenceforth stood back and announced in awe, “Our Galileo was a genius!”

  Though she was still confused, she nonetheless held her composure, trying to make sense of it. Suddenly, she brightened and burst forth with, “Oh my goodness, it’s a circle-drawing thing, una bussola. What do you call it in English?”

  “A compass! The old man obviously had no implements for drawing. He was blind, after all. Imagine him, slaving in the dark, perhaps even in the middle of the night, tracing out these concentric circles for the ages. It’s amazing, Antonietta!”

  “But how do you know he drew it when he was blind, Paulo?” she asked.

  “Look at the other drawing, the one of the Leaning Tower. By comparison, it is very neat and precise. And it is clearly a much more complicated drawing than the circular one. From that we can conclude that he drew the tower drawing before he went blind, and he obviously drew the one with the circles after he went blind. The extraneous blots and marks would seem to confirm that.”

  Seeing his point, she gazed at the circular drawing with newfound admiration. “Look,” she said, pointing downward, “The ink-stained holes in the smaller piece line up with the circles. He must have carefully punched holes for each of the radii that he wanted to construct, and then used the paper, sort of like a string, to draw the circles.”

  “Exactly,” Paul replied with evident satisfaction.

  “Okay, that explains how he drew it,” she observed, “But I still have no idea why he drew it, Paulo.”

  “My dear contessa, it’s the solar system! Remember the Pantheon yesterday?”

  She stared at him, and then, glancing back toward the drawing, she blurted in confusion, “What the…but why? What?” She moved closer and, carefully examining the drawing, she blurted, “But wait, there are only seven circles! That doesn’t make any sense." She thought for a moment, and then she added, "Wait, there shouldn’t be nine. There should be SIX! There should only be six circles, Paulo. Nobody knew about Uranus, Neptune and Pluto in Galileo’s time. What the…what are you talking about?”

  At this observation Paul, now regarding her with bona fide admiration, posited, “My dear contessa, you are quite correct - no one on Earth knew about the seventh planet at that time save one person – our messenger, Professore Galileo, the Starry Messenger.”

  “I don’t understand,” she replied blankly.

  “There is no reason that you would know this, as few people do today, but our Galileo actually discovered Neptune. He observed it in 1611. It is a matter of record. Unfortunately, as far as anyone knows, he was never able to confirm his discovery, at least, not until now. It was more than two hundred years later that Urbain le Verrier and John Couch Adams received the credit for separately discovering Neptune. But if my hunch is correct, here we have proof that Galileo actually did discover Neptune. I will have to do some calculations, but I believe that this map of the solar system proves it.”

  “So that’s what all of this has been about – the discovery of Neptune?” she murmured in obvious disappointment.

  “Not at all, Antonietta,” he responded with a wry smile. “There is much more here than that.”

  “Like wh
at, Paulo?”

  “Well, take a careful look at the marks on the circles next to the letters on the map. As we know, the marks are carefully drawn so as to cross each circle at a specific angular location. How a blind man managed to draw those marks exactly where he did, I'm afraid I do not know, but their locations are clearly important. Based on what we have learned thus far, everything, absolutely everything our Galileo included both in the poem and the drawings is of the utmost significance.”

  Still visibly perplexed, she inquired, “Hmmm…any ideas?”

  “Actually, yes, but I need some time to examine it further. Suppose we have dinner, and then I shall consider it in further detail.”

  1638

  Galileo was propped up in bed, playing his lute in harmony with a bird's melodious song emanating from the garden. There came a soft knock at the door, at which Galileo commanded in a strong clear voice, "Enter!"

  At his calling Vincenzo Viviani strode in and began padding his way closer to Galileo's bed when the Great Man announced, "Ah, Vincenzo, good morning!"

  Observing the blind man before him, Vincenzo replied, "There is no fooling you, Professore!"

  "Simple, Vincenzo - I recognize your footsteps. It seems a fine day today, I believe that I can feel the sun shining. Am I right?"

  "Yes, sir, a glorious day. But I fear it will be hot this afternoon," Vincenzo replied.