1And thus “we must consider it quite a rare event and receive with all the
more satisfaction this Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia, whose author
shows himself not unequal both in scholarship and narrative art to the high
and difficult task he sets himself.” After masterfully condensing and com
menting on the vast contents of the part already published, Schiaparelli,
expert of ancient and modern science that he was, comments on certain of
Caverni's opinions and “demonstrations”: “He feels a strong attraction to
some of his personages and just as pronounced an antipathy for others His
enthusiasm for Plato is truly excessive ... without considering that Platonic
speculation is the exact antithesis of the experimental method.... On the
contrary, according to Caverni, Aristotle is the evil star,” while “it is commonly
held that that great thinker was instead one of the greatest observers of
antiquity and not even altogether unfamiliar with the art of experimentation.
... Obviously Caverni has confused Aristotle with the peripatetics of low
extraction who were contemporaries of Galileo.” (We can readily agree with
Schiaparelli that Caverni, who never did things halfway, exaggerated some
what in refusing to recognize any Aristotelian components in the currents of
thought that determined the scientific method. As for Plato, however, para
doxical as it may seem, we must agree with Caverni who sees him as the true,
great inspirer of the decisive turn of knowledge from Copernicus to Galileo.
Plato, in fact, scorned the casual and unconditioned experience of our senses, not
experimentation which in its artificiality is a completely different thing and is
intimately bound to abstractions of the Platonic type!) At this point close to
the end of his long review, the great astronomer of Brera, after saying “I have
not found another work comparable to this in our scientific literature, unless it
be the Storia delle Matematiche in Italia by Gugliemo Libri,” comes to the
burning question, that of the so-called anti-Galilean Caverni: “He is a great
admirer of the science of Galileo, but this does not prevent him from presenting
the nature of it in a paradoxical light. According to Caverni, Galileo was a
common egoist, a scientific pirate, constantly spying for the opportunity to rob
his predecessors, his contemporaries, his friends, his disciples, of the merit of
their inventions and discoveries, to attribute everything to himself ... to be
the only King in the realm of the new science. And with this accusation,
Caverni calls for a new trial of Galileo, quite different from the ones he under
went during his lifetime and one which no one would have ever thought of....
He takes it upon himself to strip as much as possible the laurels which circle the
brows of the great old man of Arcetri and this constant concern sometimes leads
to curious errors.... Fortunately these errors in judgment, which one en
counters here and there in the Discorso preliminare, occur more rarely in the
specific part of the work.” (Actually, only the first volume had by then
appeared.) “And let all this be said not for the mania of finding fault, of looking
for spots on the sun, but to show that the praises of Caverni's work given here
are the result of an impartial and pondered study of it.” And reviewing the
more satisfaction this Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia, whose author
shows himself not unequal both in scholarship and narrative art to the high
and difficult task he sets himself.” After masterfully condensing and com
menting on the vast contents of the part already published, Schiaparelli,
expert of ancient and modern science that he was, comments on certain of
Caverni's opinions and “demonstrations”: “He feels a strong attraction to
some of his personages and just as pronounced an antipathy for others His
enthusiasm for Plato is truly excessive ... without considering that Platonic
speculation is the exact antithesis of the experimental method.... On the
contrary, according to Caverni, Aristotle is the evil star,” while “it is commonly
held that that great thinker was instead one of the greatest observers of
antiquity and not even altogether unfamiliar with the art of experimentation.
... Obviously Caverni has confused Aristotle with the peripatetics of low
extraction who were contemporaries of Galileo.” (We can readily agree with
Schiaparelli that Caverni, who never did things halfway, exaggerated some
what in refusing to recognize any Aristotelian components in the currents of
thought that determined the scientific method. As for Plato, however, para
doxical as it may seem, we must agree with Caverni who sees him as the true,
great inspirer of the decisive turn of knowledge from Copernicus to Galileo.
Plato, in fact, scorned the casual and unconditioned experience of our senses, not
experimentation which in its artificiality is a completely different thing and is
intimately bound to abstractions of the Platonic type!) At this point close to
the end of his long review, the great astronomer of Brera, after saying “I have
not found another work comparable to this in our scientific literature, unless it
be the Storia delle Matematiche in Italia by Gugliemo Libri,” comes to the
burning question, that of the so-called anti-Galilean Caverni: “He is a great
admirer of the science of Galileo, but this does not prevent him from presenting
the nature of it in a paradoxical light. According to Caverni, Galileo was a
common egoist, a scientific pirate, constantly spying for the opportunity to rob
his predecessors, his contemporaries, his friends, his disciples, of the merit of
their inventions and discoveries, to attribute everything to himself ... to be
the only King in the realm of the new science. And with this accusation,
Caverni calls for a new trial of Galileo, quite different from the ones he under
went during his lifetime and one which no one would have ever thought of....
He takes it upon himself to strip as much as possible the laurels which circle the
brows of the great old man of Arcetri and this constant concern sometimes leads
to curious errors.... Fortunately these errors in judgment, which one en
counters here and there in the Discorso preliminare, occur more rarely in the
specific part of the work.” (Actually, only the first volume had by then
appeared.) “And let all this be said not for the mania of finding fault, of looking
for spots on the sun, but to show that the praises of Caverni's work given here
are the result of an impartial and pondered study of it.” And reviewing the