1scarcely brilliant from an epistemological point of view, blamed Raffaello
Caverni as the sole individual responsible for certain reservations and limita
tions formulated at the beginning of the century, especially abroad, concerning
the validity and originality of Galileo's work. They evidently did not realize
that one of the major causes of this truly anti-Galilean reaction lay, instead,
principally in their panegyrics and hagiographical essays. The validity of
Caverni's writings today lies exactly in his having sensed that while in the past
crediting Galileo indiscriminately with everything worthwhile accomplished in
Italy from the end of the sixteenth century to the second half of the seventeenth
may have increased esteem for and diffusion of his works and thought, with
modern historians it could seriously compromise, as indeed has happened, his
authentic merits, in spite of their greatness. It has been said and repeated by
his critics that Caverni has drastically stripped the laurels wreathing the fore
head of the great Tuscan scientist. They have not understood that he has only
tried, instead, without false piety, to free the votive monument, erected to the
man with the best of intentions, of all its tinsel and gingerbread, that it might
better show its gold and gems.
Caverni as the sole individual responsible for certain reservations and limita
tions formulated at the beginning of the century, especially abroad, concerning
the validity and originality of Galileo's work. They evidently did not realize
that one of the major causes of this truly anti-Galilean reaction lay, instead,
principally in their panegyrics and hagiographical essays. The validity of
Caverni's writings today lies exactly in his having sensed that while in the past
crediting Galileo indiscriminately with everything worthwhile accomplished in
Italy from the end of the sixteenth century to the second half of the seventeenth
may have increased esteem for and diffusion of his works and thought, with
modern historians it could seriously compromise, as indeed has happened, his
authentic merits, in spite of their greatness. It has been said and repeated by
his critics that Caverni has drastically stripped the laurels wreathing the fore
head of the great Tuscan scientist. They have not understood that he has only
tried, instead, without false piety, to free the votive monument, erected to the
man with the best of intentions, of all its tinsel and gingerbread, that it might
better show its gold and gems.
It must surely be opportune, therefore, to exhume this work. We might
question, instead, the photographic reproduction of the original edition, with
its numerous typographical errors and incomplete indexes, without notes for
clarification or cross-reference, without the verification and completion of the
bibliographical references and, above all, without the necessary indication of the
inevitable mistakes the author made in his exegesis of the sources, in which
task he was a real pioneer. In addition, perhaps it would have been possible to
bring to light that part of the manuscript still, unfortunately, unprinted.
However, a new edition that would satisfy such a vast and ambitious program
implies no small amount of labor, which besides requiring a considerable amount
of time would be hampered by the lack of a congruous number of copies of the
text. The six volumes of this work have become a rarity: few libraries possess
any of them; very few have all of them—not even the Nazionale of Florencel
Let us consider this present undertaking then as the first step toward a new,
more dispassionate study of the work and toward a broader diffusion of it, so
that we may have, in the near future, that new, corrected edition which per
haps Caverni himself, who died at the peak of maturity, had hoped to prepare.
And we need not exclude in that event a more complete rendering of the sixth
volume left truncated at the end of an even numbered page, right in the middle
of a sentence.
question, instead, the photographic reproduction of the original edition, with
its numerous typographical errors and incomplete indexes, without notes for
clarification or cross-reference, without the verification and completion of the
bibliographical references and, above all, without the necessary indication of the
inevitable mistakes the author made in his exegesis of the sources, in which
task he was a real pioneer. In addition, perhaps it would have been possible to
bring to light that part of the manuscript still, unfortunately, unprinted.
However, a new edition that would satisfy such a vast and ambitious program
implies no small amount of labor, which besides requiring a considerable amount
of time would be hampered by the lack of a congruous number of copies of the
text. The six volumes of this work have become a rarity: few libraries possess
any of them; very few have all of them—not even the Nazionale of Florencel
Let us consider this present undertaking then as the first step toward a new,
more dispassionate study of the work and toward a broader diffusion of it, so
that we may have, in the near future, that new, corrected edition which per
haps Caverni himself, who died at the peak of maturity, had hoped to prepare.
And we need not exclude in that event a more complete rendering of the sixth
volume left truncated at the end of an even numbered page, right in the middle
of a sentence.
2. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE