1which had for its motto a tercet of Dante, the one (Paradise, II, 94-96) in the
learned canto on the lunar spots where Beatrice exalts Experimentation
“which is the spring for the rivers of your arts.” In the first part of the
Relazione, which displays the unmistakable style and spirit of Favaro, there
is sincere praise and a warm appreciation of Caverni's monumental work.
However, the relatore wants to make it clear (p. 12) that it “did not seem in
our eyes altogether free of error.” And thus begins that series of criticisms that
will with time gather impetus, increasing and thundering like an avalanche.
“As concerns the sources, it is said to be somewhat wanting in knowledge of
the foreign ones,” but this is the least of it; there is worse. The work is found
to reflect “a tendency to be too easily infatuated with the novelty of the con
clusions,” and there is the suggestion that “perhaps alarmed by the unjust
opinion of those who wished to exalt Galileo to the prejudice of all his con
temporaries, he seems almost always on guard against conclusions unduly
favorable to the supreme philosopher.” And after some examples, for a few of
which such reservations can be accepted, the committee concludes ingenuously,
“And this we point out fully certain the author, asked to better ponder these
matters, shall want to change his mind.” Evidently they had not reckoned with
the character of Prior Caverni (although it shows in every page of his Storia):
he was, by general consensus, most pious, patient, and diligent in his ministry,
but bizarre and touchy as a man, extremely proud and intolerant of any
restriction of his liberty as a scholar.
learned canto on the lunar spots where Beatrice exalts Experimentation
“which is the spring for the rivers of your arts.” In the first part of the
Relazione, which displays the unmistakable style and spirit of Favaro, there
is sincere praise and a warm appreciation of Caverni's monumental work.
However, the relatore wants to make it clear (p. 12) that it “did not seem in
our eyes altogether free of error.” And thus begins that series of criticisms that
will with time gather impetus, increasing and thundering like an avalanche.
“As concerns the sources, it is said to be somewhat wanting in knowledge of
the foreign ones,” but this is the least of it; there is worse. The work is found
to reflect “a tendency to be too easily infatuated with the novelty of the con
clusions,” and there is the suggestion that “perhaps alarmed by the unjust
opinion of those who wished to exalt Galileo to the prejudice of all his con
temporaries, he seems almost always on guard against conclusions unduly
favorable to the supreme philosopher.” And after some examples, for a few of
which such reservations can be accepted, the committee concludes ingenuously,
“And this we point out fully certain the author, asked to better ponder these
matters, shall want to change his mind.” Evidently they had not reckoned with
the character of Prior Caverni (although it shows in every page of his Storia):
he was, by general consensus, most pious, patient, and diligent in his ministry,
but bizarre and touchy as a man, extremely proud and intolerant of any
restriction of his liberty as a scholar.
In the brief memorial which he delivered on February 25, 1900 at the Reale
Istituto Veneto, shortly after Caverni's death, Favaro says bitterly, “Such
criticism, opportunely exemplified and applied, was not graciously received by
the author. Indeed, at the time of publication he increased the dose in the
passages that had been pointed out to him....” And he is careful to note that
“the five volumes [the sixth, uncompleted, was to appear posthumously that
year] of the Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia published by Caverni have
very little in general and nothing in many places to do [sic] with the work
submitted to the Institute and by it judged worthy of the prize.” Favaro returned
to this subject in 1907 in his essay Antichi e moderni detrattori di Galileo
(ancient and modern detractors of Galileo) published in the February 16th
issue of La Rassegna Nazionale that year and written in answer to “a tendency
to renew Arago's accusations in different form, but with even greater acrimony,
with the addition of new and numerous points (!)” Although in the conclusion,
alluding to Caverni, he recalls that “We had promised ourselves not to lift the
veil from this shabby display since it seemed to us only charitable to ignore the
outbursts of a most great mind who let himself be led astray by personal motives
[his exclusion from the committee for the National Edition of the Works of
Galileo] to the point of striking one of our most pure and genuine glories...,”
he had already aired his long repressed grievances. The beginning of the seventh
paragraph, which ends this essay, reads: “Except that it would be hardly tactful
Istituto Veneto, shortly after Caverni's death, Favaro says bitterly, “Such
criticism, opportunely exemplified and applied, was not graciously received by
the author. Indeed, at the time of publication he increased the dose in the
passages that had been pointed out to him....” And he is careful to note that
“the five volumes [the sixth, uncompleted, was to appear posthumously that
year] of the Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia published by Caverni have
very little in general and nothing in many places to do [sic] with the work
submitted to the Institute and by it judged worthy of the prize.” Favaro returned
to this subject in 1907 in his essay Antichi e moderni detrattori di Galileo
(ancient and modern detractors of Galileo) published in the February 16th
issue of La Rassegna Nazionale that year and written in answer to “a tendency
to renew Arago's accusations in different form, but with even greater acrimony,
with the addition of new and numerous points (!)” Although in the conclusion,
alluding to Caverni, he recalls that “We had promised ourselves not to lift the
veil from this shabby display since it seemed to us only charitable to ignore the
outbursts of a most great mind who let himself be led astray by personal motives
[his exclusion from the committee for the National Edition of the Works of
Galileo] to the point of striking one of our most pure and genuine glories...,”
he had already aired his long repressed grievances. The beginning of the seventh
paragraph, which ends this essay, reads: “Except that it would be hardly tactful