oiicixs oi rui riiiscoii

io\ai xiruiiiaxos acaoix\ oi airs axo sciixcis, :o1o :o

How did Galileo develop his telescope?
A new letter by Paolo Sarpi
Mario Biagioli
An Italian-born Huguenot, Francesco Castrino was one of the several Protestants
with whom Fra Paolo Sarpi maintained regular correspondence the kind of
relationship that fueled the Churchs suspicions that the Venetian Republic
had chosen a heretic as their chief theologian. Tey exchanged letters between
Venice and Paris from October 1oo8 to March 1o11 until Sarpi was forced to
break o the correspondence after realizing that, for some reason, his letters
to Castrino tended to land on the desk of the Papal Nuncius of that city.
1
Te
two started to trade news about the telescope in early December 1oo8, when
Sarpi acknowledged receipt of Castrinos summary of e Embassy of the King
of Siam Sent to His Excellency Maurice of Nassau, containing, in an appendix,
the news about the invention of the telescope by a Dutch spectacle maker.
2

He added, however, that he had already received that same report from others,
around the beginning of November.
3
(It was this report that reached Galileo,
most likely through Sarpi himself ).
4

A letter from Sarpi to Castrino dated :1 July 1oo, presents, however, a
more interesting piece of information:
Tere is nothing new here in Italy, except that a spyglass has arrived that make faraway
things visible. I admire it very much because of the beauty of the invention and the
1
On Francesco Castrino and the Papal interception of his correspondence with Sarpi, see Busnelli,
Un carteggio inedito (1,:8).
2
Ambassades du Roy de Siam (1oo8), ,-11.
3
Sarpi to Castrino, , December 1oo,: Recevei dalla Haga, un mese e, il riporto che Vosra Signoria
mi manda, sopra lambasciata al conte Maurizio del re Indo di Siama, e sopra li nuovi occhiali fab-
bricati da quell valentuomo [] (One month ago, I received from Te Hague the report that you
sent me about the embassay of the King of Siam to Count Maurice, and about the new glasses made
by that craftsman), in: Sarpi, Lettere ai Protestanti, : (1,1), 1.
4
[] News came that a Hollander had presented to Count Maurice a glass by means of which.
Galilei, e Assayer (Rome, 1o:), cited in: Van Helden, Invention (1,;;), :.
xaiio niacioii :o
skill of the manufacture, but dont value it at all for its military uses, either on land
or at sea.
5
First published in 18, this letter was surprisingly excluded from Galileos
Opere and, perhaps because of that, has remained invisible to the current gen-
eration of Galileo scholars.
6
It establishes the arrival of a telescope in Venice
about two weeks earlier than commonly reported in the literature not at the
very beginning of August but, as I will show, somewhere between the 8
th
and
the :o
th
of July.
7
Two or three weeks may not seem like much, but in fact they
force us to seriously rethink crucial elements of the chronology and originality
of Galileos development of the telescope, and to reconsider the accuracy of
the narratives about these events he oered in the Sidereus nuncius, e Assayer,
and the letter of :, August 1oo, to his brother-in-law, Benedetto Landucci.
8

It also re-opens old debates about Sarpis role in the development of Galileos
instrument.
In particular, Sarpis letter to Castrino indicates that, by the time Galileo
put his telescope-making eorts in high gear, he may have known a lot more
about other peoples telescopes than he cared to admits. He always maintained
that he had only heard that the telescope existed, but it now seems most likely
5
Sarpi to Castrino, :1 July 1oo,: In Italia non abbiamo cosa nuova: solo e comparso quellocchiale
che fa vedere le cose lontane; il quale io ammiro molto per la bellezza dellinvenzione e per la dignita
dellarte, ma per uso della Guerra ne in terra ne in mare, io non lo stimo niente, in: Sarpi, Lettere
ai Protestanti, : (1,1), .
6
Te virtual invisibility of the letter remains a bit of a puzzle, given that it has been published
numerous times in 18, 18;, 18o, and 1,1 (Sarpi, Scelte lettere inedite (18), ;:; Sarpi,
Scelte lettere inedite (18;), 18:; Sarpi, Lettere, 1 (18o), :;,; Sarpi, Lettere ai Protestanti, : (1,1),
). In recent times it has been noticed only, to the best of my knowledge, by one Sarpi scholar
Libero Sosio who, however, did not recognize its relevance to the chronology of the invention of
the telescope. (Sosio, Fra Paolo Sarpi e la cosmologia (1,,o), CLXV). More puzzling is Antonio
Favaros decision not to include it in the Opere, despite having known and cited this letter twice early
in his career, prior to embarking on the Opere project: Favaro, Fra Paolo Sarpi sico e matematico
secondo I nuovi studi (188), ,o,; Favaro, Il telescopio (188, reprinted 1,oo), :;;. In a later
article, he even seemed to forget that that letter existed: non abbiamo documenti i quali provino
che lo strumento abbia fatta la sua comparsa in Padova avanti la ne del Luglio (We do not have
documents that would prove that the instrument had made its appearance in Padua before the end
of July; see: Favaro, La invenzione del telescopio (1,o;), reprinted in Favaro, Galileo Galilei a
Padova (1,o8), 1;).
7
Lorenzo Pignoria to Paolo Gualdo, 1 August, 1oo,: Uno degli occhiali in canna, di che ella mi
scrisse gia`, e` comparso qui in mano dun Oltramontano (One of the glasses in a tube, about
which you wrote me has appeared in the hands of a foreigner), in: Galilei, Opere, 1o (1,oo), :o.
8
Favaro, Galilei e la presentazione del cannocchiale alla Repubblica Veneta (18,1); Rosen, Te
Authenticity of Galileos Letter to Landucci (1,1).
uow oio caiiiio oiviioi uis riiiscoii: :o
that Galileo had access to a detailed description of the construction and per-
formance of an actual telescope brought to Venice by a northern European ar-
tisan or merchant. He might even have inspected the instrument itself.
9
Sarpis
letter to Castrino together with other evidence about Galileos movements
in that period places him in Venice on the same days when a foreigner was
oering his own telescope to the Venetian Senate and the instrument was be-
ing tested and inspected by his close friend Paolo Sarpi. Tis was, I argue, the
instrument Sarpi referred to in his letter of :1 July to Castrino.
Filippo de Vivo has shown that Sarpi timed his letter-writing to the sched-
uled departures of the couriers rather than to the pace of the news typically
every week or fortnight.
10
Several of his letters to Northern European cor-
respondents bore, in fact, the same dates. On :1 July 1oo,, for instance, he
wrote to both Castrino and Christoph von Dohna, and on ; July (the date of
the previous letter to Castrino) he also posted letters to Jerome Groslot de lIsle
and Von Doha. Te telescope mentioned in Sarpis letter, therefore, could have
arrived anytime between ; and :1 Juli. Tis is supported by the content and
tone of the letter, which give no indication that Sarpi was rushing to report
breaking news about the telescope. With the exception of the few lines quoted
above, the letter deals mostly with political matters.
Since hearing about the telescope in late 1oo8, Sarpis remarks about the
instrument oscillated between cautious and skeptical. Tey were uniformly
vague. To Castrino he wrote that: [the report about the telescope] has given
me much to think about. However, because the philosophers teach us that one
should not speculate about the cause prior to seeing its eects with ones eyes, I
have resigned myself to waiting for this very noble thing to spread throughout
9
Tis is a hypothesis that, surprisingly enough, has been seriously entertained only in the last few
years: Strano, Galileos Telescope (:oo,), 1,. Favaro, who was initially more open-minded than
most, acknowledged the possibility, but brushed it o as irrelevant: poco importa il discutere se in
Padova od in Venezia, sulla semplice voce, cioe` sine exemplo, oppure dopo aver anche veduto uno
di quei volgari tubi, la vista del quale ben poco poteva aggiungere alla sommaria descrizione che
ne avesse udita o letta [] (It matters little to discuss whether in Padua or Venice, on the mere
rumour, that is, without an example, or after having also seen one of these common tubes that
could add little to the summary description which he had heard or read; Favaro, La invenzione del
telescopio (1,o8), 1;o).
10
De Vivo, Paolo Sarpi and the Uses of Information in Seventeenth-Century Venice (:oo), ,.
xaiio niacioii :oo
Europe.
11
He expanded on that in a January 1oo, letter to Groslot de lIsle:
Te reports about the new spyglasses [] are credible enough to make me look and
philosophize no further, having Socrates prohibited to speculate over phenomena that
we have not seen ourselves. When I was young, I thought about a similar device, and
it occurred to me that a glass made in the shape of a parabula could produce such a
[magnifying] eect. I had demonstrative arguments, but because they are abstract [by
nature] and do not take into account material constraints, I hesitated. For that reason,
I did not pursue that work, which would have been labourious. Consequently, I nei-
ther conrmed nor refuted my hypothesis through experience
12
Sarpis position had not change much by the end of April, when he wrote to
Jacques Badovere:
[] About the Dutch spectacles, I have given your Lordship my thoughts, but I could
be wrong. If you gather more about them, Id like to hear what is thought there. I have
almost stopped to think about physical and mathematical topics. Either because of
age or habit, my brain has become a bit thick for those reections.
13

Te same polite skepticism is found in a letter to Groslot de lIsle, dated 1: May,
thus making Sarpis statement of :1 July about the beauty of the invention
11
Paolo Sarpi to Giuseppe Castrino, , December 1oo,: [] mha dato assai da pensare; ma perche
questi loso comandano che non si specula la causa prima di vedere con propri sensi leetto, mi
son rimesso ad aspettare che una cosa cosi` nobile si diondi per lEuropa, (It has given me much
to think about, but because these philosophers command not to speculate on the rst cause of vi-
sion by itself without the eect, I have submitted and wait for such a noble thing to spread through
Europe), in: Sarpi, Lettere ai Protestanti, : (1,1), 1.
12
Paolo Sarpi to Jerome Groslot de lIsle, o January 1oo,: Lavviso delli nuovi occhiali [] lo credo
per quanto basta a non cercar piu oltre, per non losofarci sopra, proibendo Socrate il losofare so-
pra esperienza non veduta da se proprio. Quando io era giovane, pensai ad una tal cosa, e mi passo
per la mente che un occhiale fatto di gura di parabola potesse far tal eetto; aveva ragioni demon-
strative, ma perche` queste sono astratte e non mettono in conto la repugnaza della materia, sentiva
qualche opposizione. Per questo non [mi] son molto inclinato allopera, e questa sarebbe stata fa-
ticosa: onde ne conrmai ne reprobai il pensiero mio con lesperienza, (I believe the news about
the new glasses as far as it goes for it suces not to search further and not to philosophize about
it. Socrates prohibits philosophizing about experiences not personally seen. When I was young, I
thought about such a thing, and it occurred to me that a glass made in the shape of a parabola could
produce such an eect; there were demonstrated reasons. But because these are abstract and do not
take into account the stubbornness of the material, some opposition was heard. Because of this, I am
not much inclined toward the task and it would have been tiring; and thus I neither conrmed nor
disproved my my idea by experience), in Sarpi, Lettere ai Protestanti, 1 (1,1), ,.
13
Paolo Sarpi to Giacomo Badoer, o March 1oo,, in: Paolo Sarpi, Opere (1,o,) [my translation].
uow oio caiiiio oiviioi uis riiiscoii: :o;
stand out as a distinct shift in his views on the telescope.
14
(It may also indicate
his surprise at seeing the instruments two-lens optical scheme, which Sarpi
seemed to have previously imagined to involve a concave mirror).
15
Even his
negative evaluation of the telescopes potential as a military instrument marks
a shift in Sarpis views about the instrument. In previous letters he repeatedly
abstained from passing judgment on the telescope until he saw one himself,
but on :1 July he explicitly commented on its performance. Tis double shift
indicates that Sarpi tested a telescope prior to writing to Castrino. His dispar-
aging remark about the military uselessness of the telescope derive, I believe,
from his having noticed the modest enlarging power of the instrument (likely
to be in the -power range) as well as the narrow eld of view typical of all
Dutch-type telescopes, which would have made it almost impossible to use
on pitching and rolling ships and inconvenient to use on land. (Te Dutch
authorities request to Hans Lipperhey the rst to le a patent application
on for the telescope on October 1oo, to develop a binocular version of the
instrument may have been an attempt to address that same problem).
16

Sarpis reference to the instruments military performance matches the fact
that, starting with Lipperhey, early telescopes were consistently presented as
tools for military reconnaissance an application that Galileo was going to
stress in great detail in the presentation of his own instrument to the Venetian
Senate on : August 1oo,.
17
Te foreigner who came through Venice in July
1oo, seeking a reward from the Senate in exchange for the secret of his tele-
scope obviously advertized it for that same use. Because we know that the
Venetians commissioned Sarpi with the testing the foreigners instrument (and
that he eventually rejected the foreigners petition), his saying to Castrino that
I but dont value it at all for its military uses, either on land or at sea: may
reect the negative assessment of the telescope he was about to deliver to the
Senate.
18

14
Paolo Sarpi to Jerome Groslot de lIsle, o January 1oo,, in: Sarpi, Lettere ai Protestanti, 1 (1,1),
;,.
15
Reeves, Galileo^Is Glassworks (:oo8), 11-18.
16
Minutes of the States General, 1 December 1oo8, printed in: Van Helden, Invention (1,;;), :.
17
Van Helden, Invention (1,;;), o; Galilei, Opere, 1o (1,oo), :o-:1.
18
Giovanni Bartoli to Belisario Vinta, :, August 1oo,, in: Galilei, Opere, 1o (1,oo), :.
xaiio niacioii :o8
Vague narratives
In Sidereus Nuncius, Galileo wrote that:
About 1o months ago a rumor came to our ears that a spyglass had been made by a
certain Dutchman by means of which visible objects, although far removed from the
eye of the observer, were distinctly perceived as though nearby. About this truly won-
derful eect some accounts were spread abroad, to which some gave credence while
others denied them. Te rumor was conrmed to me a few days later by a letter from
Paris from the noble Frenchman Jacques Badovere. Tis nally caused me to apply
myself totally to investigating the principles and guring out the means by which I
might arrive at the invention of a similar instrument, which I achieved shortly after-
wards [at once in the ms.] on the basis of the science of refraction.
19
(Sarpis name is not mentioned in the Nuncius, but Galileo probably heard
of both the telescopes invention and of Badoveres letter from his Venetian
friend).
20
More than two decades later, responding to Orazio Grassis challenge
to his inventorship of the telescope, Galileo took a few pages of e Assayer
to esh out the bare-bone narrative rst proposed in the Nuncius. He added
some chronological specicity to his previous story, while also re-stating a key
point, that is, that all the technical information contained in the early reports
he heard about the telescope amounted to nothing more than the instrument
made faraway things look nearby.
21
Te implication being that he set his mind
on developing his instrument without the help of any specic clue about the
manufacture of the telescope apparently, not even that it had two lenses.
22

Galileo actually went so far as to propose that the rumors he had heard did
not help him at all to solve the puzzle of the telescope:
19
Galilei, Sidereus Nuncius or Sidereal Messenger (English translation, 1,8,), o-;.
20
In the Nuncius, Galileo does not say that Badoveres letter was to him (which leaves open the
possibility that Galileo read a letter sent to Sarpi). In any case, Sarpi had heard of the telescope in
early November 1oo8, and would have been most likely to share the news with Galileo very soon
after receiving it. Eileen Reeves presents a more complicated story, arguing that Badovere sent the
same report to both Sarpi and Galileo, through the same courier. She argues there were two letters
from Badovere in response to the queries from Venice. Te rst one, she argues, was disappointingly
vague, but the second was more detailed (Reeves, Galileos Glassworks (:oo8), 1-18). None of
these possible letters, however, survive.
21
Ne piu fu aggiunto (Tat was all), in: Galileo, I1 saggiatore [Te assayer] (1o:), cited in: Van
Helden, Invention (1,;;), 1.
22
Even the discussion on the telescope with unnamed friends in Venice, which Galileo rst reported
in e Assayer was not described as providing any additional information (Galileo, I1 saggiatore [Te
assayer] (1o:), cited in: Van Helden, Invention (1,;;), 1-:).
uow oio caiiiio oiviioi uis riiiscoii: :o,
I say that the aid aorded me by the news awoke in me the will to apply my mind to
it; but beyond that I do not believe that such news could facilitate the invention. I
say, moreover, that to discover the solution of a known and designated problem is a
labor of much greater ingenuity that to solve a problem which has not been thought
of and dened, for luck may play a large role in the latter while the former is entirely
the work of reasoning.
23
Unlike the lucky Dutch spectacle-maker who, Galileo argued, stumbled by
chance upon an instrument he was not looking for, the rumors of the existence
of the telescope had confronted Galileo with a puzzle a puzzle that could not
be solved by chance but only through reasoning or, as he put it in the Nuncius,
through the science of refraction.
24
And yet the description of how he discov-
ered the secreto of the telescope by means of reasoning was, by Galileos own
admission, surprisingly simple:
My reasoning was this. Te device needs either a single glass or more than one. It can-
not consist of one alone, because the shape of that one would have to be a convex (that
is, thicker in the middle than at the edges), or concave (that is, thinner in the middle),
or contained between parallel surfaces. But the last named does not alter visible ob-
jects in any way, either by enlarging or reducing them; the concave diminishes them;
and the convex, while it does indeed increase them, shows them very indistinctly and
confusedly. Terefore, a single glass is not sucient to produce the eect. Passing next
to two, and knowing as before that a glass with parallel faces alters nothing, I con-
cluded that the eect would still not be achieved by combining such a one with either
of the other two. Hence I was restricted to trying to discover what would be done by
a combination of the convex and the concave, and you see how this gave me what I
sought. Such were the steps of my discovery, in which I was not at all assisted by the
conception that the conclusion was true.
25

Galileos claim that knowing of the existence of the telescope made the discov-
ery of its secret a more dicult task than the original invention looks like a bit
of a stretch. Also peculiar is the gap between his high-sounding claims about
his use of reason and the science of refraction and his description of his
actual path to discovery which looks like a series of reasonably simple guesses
23
Galileo, I1 saggiatore [Te assayer] (1o:), cited in: Van Helden, Invention (1,;;), :-.
24
[] which I achieved shortly afterward on the basis of the science of refraction; Galileo, Sidereus
Nuncius or Sidereal Messenger (1,8,), ;.
25
Galileo, I1 saggiatore [Te assayer] (1o:), cited in: Van Helden, Invention (1,;;), .
xaiio niacioii :1o
guesses that, contrary to Galileos assumption, could have been within the
reach of a simple maker of ordinary spectacles.
26
Taken together, these features
of Galileos narrative suggest an attempt to maximize the distance between his
instrument and those developed in Northern Europe: He had learned nothing
from them and, in any case, his had been developed following a method that
was utterly alien to theirs. Galileos emphatic amplication of the dierences
may be a sign that the dierences were, in fact, too small for comfort.
His chronologies are not straightforward either. Tose in the Nuncius and
e Assayer oer no explicit dates, only time intervals between events. Some of
those intervals are identied with specic markers (the following day), but
more often with vague expressions (for over a month). Tose interested in
the actual timeline of Galileos work are left to reconstruct the chronological
structure within his narrative (the distance between the various events) and to
then nd an event that can be attached to a specic date outside of the nar-
rative to function as the chronological anchor for the whole story. Galileos
multi-dimensional vagueness about dates, people, and information was, I be-
lieve, not accidental but tactical. He did not necessarily report things that had
not happened, but omitted important events and people while also loosening
up the chronological relations between the events so as to render his narrative
of inventorship more defensible by making it less falsiable.
Historians have painstakingly tried to piece together the actual chronol-
ogy of Galileos development of the telescope. Although they have not openly
voiced the possibility that these chronologies may be intrinsically incompat-
ible, their eorts have at least shown that serious discrepancies exist, and that
reconciling them requires taking several of Galileos chronological references
26
Con tutto il debito rispetto per ogni cosa che risguarda Galileo, ci e` forza riconoscere che quan-
do Galileo aermava speculazioni di prospettiva averlo condotto alla costruzione del cannocchiale,
egli non sapeva che cosa dicesse: anzi questa sola aermazione [] basterebbe a sostenere chegli non
vi adopero` maggior studio di quello che abbia fatto quell primo occhialaio di Middelburgo. []
Galileo non era maggiormente sincero quando aermava che specolazioni istituite sulla rifrazione lo
avevano condotto al cannocchiale. Galileo infatti non ebbe mai una chiara idea della rifrazione.
(With all the respect due all matters that regard Galileo, one must recognize that when Galileo af-
rmed that speculations about perspective led him to the construction of the telescope, he did not
know what he was saying; on the contrary, that single armation would be enough to maintain
that he did not undertake greater study than the rst spectacle maker in Middelburg. Galileo was no
more sincere when he armed that speculations on refraction had led him to the telescope. In fact,
Galileo never had a clear idea of refraction.) Cf. Favaro, Il Telescopio (188/1,oo), :;-:;.
uow oio caiiiio oiviioi uis riiiscoii: :11
somewhat metaphorically.
27
Comparably friendly readings are necessary to
resolve discrepancies between manuscript and print versions. For instance,
Edward Rosen tells us that replacing eight months with ten months between
the manuscript of the Nuncius and its printed version should not be read as
evidence of Galileos creative interventions on the timeline but rather as the
benign trace of his attempt to recalibrate his narrative to account for the fact
that it took two months between the writing of the manuscript and the print-
ing of the book.
28
But aside, from these specic philological issues, why hasnt Galileos re-
markable chronological vagueness and elasticity been noticed and treated as
something to be explained, rather than explained away? Why havent we asked
why Galileo never provided any specic chronological statement about his
telescope-making activities (despite the fact he included plenty of other dates
in the Nuncius)?
29
As it often happens in philological judgments, the meaning
of certain elements of the text depends on the assumptions one makes about
the author and his/her intentions. In Galileos case, the tendency has been to
assume that his chronologies were fundamentally correct, and that one should
adjust the meaning of expressions like shortly after, a few days later, or af-
terwards, so as to match his timelines with the documentary evidence we have
about them. Tis might be a reasonable course of action if one were dealing
with chronologies of no particular signicance. In this case, however, Galileos
chronologies were a means to establish himself as the inventor of the telescope,
not mere descriptions of how and when he invented the telescope.
30
In other
27
For instance Rosen does not believe that Galileo heard about the telescope on the day he reported
in e Assayer (1; July) because that chronology does not match what Galileo says in the Nuncius.
(Rosen, When Did Galileo Make His First Telescope? (1,1), o). At the same time, Rosen recon-
structed the chronology of the Nuncius to minimize the discrepancy with e Assayer, as when he
concludes that Galileo heard of telescope in June 1oo, (ibid., ;) when the end of May seems to be
a more reliable date. Rosen also remarked on the conspicuous dierences between e Assayer and
Nuncius (ibid., ;). In Il Telescopio , Favaro states that [] dee riconoscersi che le tre narrazioni
non sono interamente conformi; oltrediche esse contengono assolute inesattezze [] (it must be
recognized that the three narrations are not entirely consistent; in other words these contain absolute
inaccuracies). Favaro, Il Telescopio (188/1,oo), :;:.
28
Rosen, When Did Galileo Make His First Telescope? (1,1), . Analogously, the change be-
tween at once (in the manuscript of the Nuncius) to shortly afterwards (in the printed version)
should be treated as a mere stylistic change in the pursuit of elegance: Such instantaneity [of at
once] may have sounded out of step, on second hearing, with the preceding slow notes (Ibidem,
8).
29
Galileo listed, for instance, the dates of all his observations of the satellites of Jupiter.
30
For a smart discussion of the relationship between the establishment of discoveries, discovery
narratives, and authorship, see: Schaer, Scientic Discoveries and the End of Natural Philosophy
(1,8o).
xaiio niacioii :1:
words, there has been a tendency to assume that Galileo was indeed the author
he was representing himself to be, and to then use this assumption as a guiding
philological principle to sort through the chronological discrepancies in his
narrative. Taking this road, however, has produced literature that conrms the
very claim to inventorship that Galileo was trying to establish.
31

We know that Galileo was not the rst inventor of the telescope, and
that telescopes were showing up with increasing frequency in both Northern
Europe and Italy as he was developing his own. Tese telescopes were not sim-
ply being transported from the Netherlands to other parts of Europe, but were
copied and reproduced in situ with substantial ease. (Te facility with which
telescopes could be copied and the quick diusion of telescope-making skills
were among the reasons for the Dutch States Generals decision to turn down
Hans Lipperheys patent application).
32
Tat Galileo managed to have his
name closely associated with the invention of the telescope was a truly remark-
able achievement. And because the way he presented his telescope-making
program in the Nuncius and then in e Assayer played a crucial role in gaining
that recognition, we need to take such narratives as instruments whose func-
tion and functioning we need to investigate. (We also need to be careful about
the meaning of telescope and to invent).
Te rst thing we need to notice is that the Venetian Senate had already
recognized Galileo as the inventor of the telescope several months prior to his
publication of the Nuncius. He oered the instrument to the Senate on :
August 1oo, and was rewarded with tenure and a doubling of his salary as pro-
fessor of mathematics at the University of Padua. Keep in mind that Galileos
self-representation as the inventor of the telescope does not contradict his
simultaneous acknowledgment that the Hollander invented it rst.
33
In a
period in which inventor was construed as the person who put a new technol-
ogy to work in a certain place (either by developing it in situ or bringing it in
from elsewhere) and invention was dened by its performance and uses rather
than by the idea embodied in it, Galileo was indeed the rightful inventor of
31
Rosen concluded his When Did Galileo Make His First Telescope? (1,1) by saying that: In
his three separate accounts [of his invention], Galileo gives us a period of about two months to be lled
with the following intervals: a few days, at once, six days, more than a months, four days (page o).
I can hardly imagine a better example of a historian assuming the illustration of the author as the
ordering principle of philological work: Galileo gives us a period and some intervals of his choosing
and it is our job to put together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle he has designed. But what about
considering the possibility that the pieces may not be made to t the puzzle, or that there may be
no coherent puzzle?
32
Minutes of the States General, 1 December 1oo8, cited in: Van Helden, Invention (1,;;), :.
33
Biagioli, Instruments of Credit (:ooo), ;;-1.
uow oio caiiiio oiviioi uis riiiscoii: :1
the telescope in Venice.
34
(Tis performance-based notion of invention explains
why the foreigner who brought a working telescope to Venice before Galileos
was not recognized as the inventor of the telescope: his instrument was not
deemed to perform well enough at least not for the asking price). Te focus
on performance rather than absolute novelty also explains why the path that
Galileo followed to develop his instrument had no bearing on his claim to in-
ventorship. From the Venetian Senates point of view, Galileo was the inventor
of the 8- ,-power device he showed them, no matter whether he discovered it,
copied it from some foreign exemplar, or a bit of both. He was not the inven-
tor of the telescope, but of that telescope.
35
Te evidence in Sarpis letter to
Castrino does not, therefore, challenge the legitimacy of Galileos claim to his
inventorship that is, Venetian inventorship of the telescope. What it does
challenge are the claims Galileo put forward in his printed books about how
little he relied on information about other instruments as he set out to develop
his own telescope.
What he wrote in the Nuncius and e Assayer about the history of his
telescope-making program was not aimed at the Venetian Senate but a very
dierent credit regime one of philosophical authorshiprather than techno-
logical inventorship. (Te letter accompanying his gift of the telescope to the
Republic did not, in fact, oer any chronology of its development only a
detailed description of its military uses). His printed narratives, instead, were
meant for people who were much less interested in the military use of the
telescope than in the discoveries he had made with it. Trough these printed
narratives, Galileo was trying to establish his inventorship of the telescope so
as to enhance the authorship of his discoveries, but he was also trying to make
the connection between authorship of the discoveries and inventorship of the
telescope run in the other direction. By establishing that he was the rst to dis-
cover what he discovered, he was eectively marking his telescope as dierent
from the telescopes of others (implying that the owners of the other telescopes
circulating throughout Europe had not been able to make those discoveries).
In turn, that helped establish him (in an a posteriori fashion) as the rst inven-
tor of a new kind of telescope the discoveries-making telescope.
34
Biagioli, From Print to Patent (:ooo), 1;-1:. More precisely, Galileo was not the inventor
of the family of instruments we now call refracting telescopes (or of the specic Dutch design), but
of the specic instrument whose performance was much appreciated by the Venetian senators who
tested and rewarded it in August 1oo,.
35
More precisely, I do not think that the denition of telescope had any legal meaning in so far as
patents and rewards were concerned. What was being evaluated and possibly rewarded were things,
not ideas embodied in things.
xaiio niacioii :1
Te dedication of the Nuncius shows that, at the time he was writing the
book, the Medici were Galileos privileged audience the potential patrons he
was trying to connect with. And the workings of the patronage system made
it virtually necessary for Galileo to cast his work (both the telescope and his
discoveries) as something that he did all by himself, perhaps with some divine
inspiration, so that he (and he alone) could oer it to his patron, thus estab-
lishing the kind of personal relation typical of high-end patronage. Tis means
that, while the Venetians could not care less about how Galileo got his tele-
scope what mattered was that it worked and worked well it would have
been dicult for Galileo to appear to publicly court the Medici with a gift he
had already given to others (as he had), developed in collaboration with others
(which he may have), or through the information provided by others (which
he most likely did).
36

It is therefore not surprising that the Nuncius remained silent about
Galileos presentation of the telescope to the Venetian Senate and of the re-
wards he received for it, despite the fact that such a public recognition could
have provided evidence of the reliability and quality of the instrument.
37
Nor
did Galileo mention anyone who helped him develop the telescope, leading
Libero Sosio to speculate (credibly, I think) that Sarpi name went unmen-
tioned in the Nuncius because of patronage realpolitik.
38
Furthermore, an ac-
knowledgment of Sarpis role would have opened a window on a whole series
of borrowings not only from him but also from the foreigners instrument
and the other people the foreigner may have borrowed from. Crediting Sarpi
36
Te Medici, of course, knew perfectly well about the widespread presence of the telescope in
Europe and that, therefore, Galileo was part of a process of innovation rather than its originator.
Still, the story of Galileos invention of the telescope had to be told that is, publicly told in a cer-
tain way so as to make it appear that the Medici were rewarding Galileo for his unique originality.
37
Galileo did eventually invoke the recognition by the Venetian Senate as evidence for his inven-
torship, but that was in the 1o: e Assayer in response to Grassi (Van Helden, Invention (1,;;),
:).
38
Sosio, Fra Paolo Sarpi e la Cosmologia (1,,o) clxviii. Te erasure of Sarpi from e Assayer, how-
ever, may not have been the result of the same considerations that excluded him from the Nuncius.
By 1o:, Galileo was in the viewnder of the Inquisition, and it might have been politically wise
for him not to mention the name of a notoriously unorthodox theologian like Sarpi at that point
in time.
uow oio caiiiio oiviioi uis riiiscoii: :1
could have popped a rather large bubble.
39

It was in fact important for Galileo to cast his telescope as dierent as pos-
sible from the many others mushrooming throughout Europe. Without that
kind of product dierentiation, his gift could have appeared quite generic. I
cannot assess the role (if any) that the science of refraction may have played
in Galileos development of the telescope, but it is very clear that such a pre-
sentation was eective in casting an aura of distinction around himself and
his instrument a distinction he surely needed to play the patronage game.
Eectively, Galileo tried to claim that there were two species of telescopes
one discovered by accident by the Dutch spectacle maker and one discovered
through reason by Galileo himself. Galileos emphasis on the modality of his
discovery of the telescopes secret seeks to achieve something more than sim-
ply conferring on Galileo the aura of the natural philosopher (in contrast to
Lipperheys merely artisanal status). What Galileo was trying to do, I think,
was to say that his telescope was dierent from all others because it was con-
ceived and produced by dierent means. It was dierent because it was genea-
39
Also to patronage logic we may trace Galileos decision to mention in print only the rst telescope
presented to Count Maurits in the Netherlands, while skipping the dozens that had been sold and
shown around Europe by the summer of 1oo, a population that would have impaired Galileos
claim to uniqueness. It also seems that, in an attempt to make the origin of the telescope a bit less
humble and a little more Medici-compatible, Galileo referred to the original discoverer as a certain
Dutchman, but refrained from saying that he was an ignorant artisan (which he eectively said
years later in e Assayer: Te Hollander who was rst to invent the telescope was a simple maker
of ordinary spectacles []. Cf. Van Helden, Invention (1,;;), ). Disparaging the original maker
would have cheapened Galileos own gift in 1o1o, but could be brought up two decades later, when
his patronage relationship with the Medici was a long established fact. In sum, Galileo had plenty of
good patronage reasons for writing a vague narrative about his development of the telescope.
xaiio niacioii :1o
logically dierent.
40
And Galileo could try to claim the authorship of that spe-
cic genealogy (and of the product that resulted from it). While I am skeptical
about Galileos claims of the role of the science of refraction , perspective ,
and reason in his achievement, it is easy to see how crucial those claims were
to constitute him as an author.
Galileos chronologies
Having reviewed Galileos possible reasons for writing vague narratives about
his development of the telescope (including vague gestures toward the role of
the science of refraction in that process), we need to look at the narratives
themselves and see how they are challenged by Sarpis letter to Castrino, dated
:1 July.
Te Nuncius story is not only vague, but also very dicult to reconcile
with the one in e Assayer. Taking mid-March 1o1o (the date on which the
Nuncius came o the press in Venice) as the chronological benchmark for his
statement that, about 1o months ago a rumor came to our ears that a spy-
glass had been made by a certain Dutchman that would place the rumor
around 1 May 1oo,. (Tis sounds remarkably late, given that his friend Sarpi
received the same rumor in early November 1oo8 and that the two were in
40
If you think this is strange, try Favaro La invenzione del telescopio (1,o;/1,o8), 1;o: Quello
che a noi parve di poter chiamare il periodo eroico della storia della invenzione del telescopio in-
comincia il giorno in cui Galileo, poco importa il discutere se in Padova od in Venezia, sulla semplice
voce, cioe` sine exemplo, oppure dopo aver anche veduto uno di quei volgari tubi, la vista del quale
ben poco poteva aggiungere alla sommaria descrizione che ne avesse udita o letta, costrui` da se` lo
strumento e lo presento` alla Signoria. (Tat which it seems we can call the heroic period of the
history of the invention of the telescope began on the day it makes little dierence whether in
Padua or Venice on the simple rumour, that is without an example, or after having also seen one of
these common tubes that could add little to the summary description which he had heard or read,
construcded all by himself the instrument and presented it to the Senate). In this article, Favaro
constructs a tripartite genealogy of the telescope: Fabled, Embrionic, and Heroic the latter
phase starting with Galileo. Tat allows Favaro to admit that several, even many, people invented
and re-invented the telescope prior to Galileo, but that Galileo was the rst inventor of the last phase
the one that really counts, the period in which la conquista puo` dirsi compiuta e prelude a quell
seguito di meraviglie con le quali gli astronomi, armati di strumenti e di mezzi [] ci hanno resi
oggi familiari (the conquest can be said to be completed and a prelude to the suibsequent miracles
with which astronomers, armed with instruments and dimezzi have produced the familiar world
of today). In sum, he uses Galileos astronomical discoveries (retrospectively) to conrm that his
telescope was dierent (because others did not make those discoveries with other telescopes), and
that Galileo, being the inventor of the telescope with which he made those discoveries, invented a
dierent telescope of which he was the rst inventor. It is Galileo as the author of his discoveries,
who constructs Galileo as the inventor of the telescope.
uow oio caiiiio oiviioi uis riiiscoii: :1;
frequent contact).
41
Instead, Galileos subsequent statement that Te rumor
was conrmed to me a few days later by a letter from Paris from the noble
Frenchman Jacques Badovere matches reasonably well with other things we
know, namely that Sarpi had written Badovere on o March 1oo, asking about
the telescope, and that a complete correspondence cycle between Venice and
Paris took about two months.
42
Tis would have placed Badoveres response in
Venice toward the end of May a few days after 1 May.
It is at this point that, as Galileo put it, Badoveres letter nally caused
me to apply myself totally to investigating the principles and guring out the
means by which I might arrive at the invention of the instrument, which I
achieved shortly afterward on the basis of the science of refraction.
43
If we take
shortly after to mean less than a week, then Galileo had illustrationd out how
to build the telescope sometime around June. If, instead, we replace shortly
after with right away (as it originally was in the manuscript of the Nuncius),
then we get something like o May. It is a real puzzle, then, why Galileo would
have kept the telescope to himself from early June until presenting it to the
Venetian Senate on the :
th
of August. (Even if we add up a couple of weeks
in case the post was extra slow between Venice and Paris that summer, there
would still be nine weeks between invention and presentation a small eter-
nity to somebody who, like Galileo, was keenly concerned with priority).
In addition to these questions, we need to consider the substantial incon-
gruities between the chronologies of the Nuncius and e Assayer. For instance,
the statement in the Nuncius that hearing of Badoveres response, nally caused
me to apply myself totally to investigating the principle is re-elaborated in
e Assayer as:
I wrote [in the Nuncius] that in Venice [] news came that a Hollander had presented
to Count Maurits [of Nassau] a glass by means of which distant things might be seen
41
Favaro: E` strano, stranissimo, anzitutto, che la notizia dellinvenzione olandese, pervenuta a
Venezia nel novembre 1oo8, come gia` abbiamo notato, non sia giunta agli orecchi di Galileo che nel
giugno dellanno successivo, e che il Sarpi, che ne era al fatto, non ne abbia tenuto parola allamico
suo o non gliene abbia scritto[] (It is strange, very strange, very strange,above all that the news
of the Dutch invention, which had arrived in Venice in November 1oo8, as we have already noted,
did not reach the ears of Galileo until June of the following year, and that Sarpi, who was up on the
facts, did not tell his friend or did not write to him.], Favaro, Il Telescopio (188/1,oo), :;;. Add
Reeves, Galileos Glassworks, 1 on Galileos possible contact with Badovere much earlier, in late
1oo8. Also add that Vincenzio Vivianis Life of Galileo places that rumour a little earlier around
April or May 1oo,.
42
Paolo Sarpi to Giacomo Badoer, o March 1oo,, in Sarpi, Opere (1,o,), :8:.
43
Galileo, Sidereus Nuncius or Sidereal Messenger (1,8,), ;.
xaiio niacioii :18
as perfectly as if they were quite close. [] Upon hearing these news, I returned to
Padua [] and set myself to thinking about the problem. Te rst night after my
return, I solved it, and the following day I constructed the instrument and sent word
of this to the same friends in Venice with whom I had been discussing the subject the
previous day.
44
In the Nuncius Galileo clearly separates hearing the news of the Dutch tele-
scope, receiving Badoveres conrmation a few days later , and developing
his telescope shortly after seeing Badoveres letter. In e Assayer, however,
the whole action is packed in one day: Galileo heard of the presentation of
the telescope to Count Maurits in Te Hague while discussing with friends in
Venice about the telescope (which, one has to assume, included the contents
of Badoveres letter), returned to Padua immediately and discovered the secret
of the telescope that same night. I am not necessarily questioning this dra-
matically compressed chronology presented in e Assayer, but simply want to
point out that if one reconstructs the whole chronology laid out in that book
(as Edward Rosen, Stillman Drake, and Antonio Favaro have done) then the
day of the Galileos invention of the telescope would have to be placed around
August (Drake) or 18 July (Rosen) or 1 July (Favaro) and not at the very be-
ginning of June as implied by the Nuncius.
45
Perhaps the chronological vague-
ness of the Nuncius narrative may have been intended to suggest that Galileo
had developed his telescope earlier than he actually did, thus casting him as a
relative forerunner rather than a follower, but there is really no way to know.
Te chronology of the Nuncius loses further credibility when we consider
a meeting that Galileo had with Piero Duodo regarding the improvement of
his contract at the University of Padua toward the end of June.
46
Had Galileo
developed the telescope by then (as any reading of the Nuncius would imply
he should have), he would have brought that up with Duodo as leverage. Of
course the Nuncius chronology would become much more tenable and closer
to that of e Assayer if one tweaked the about 1o months ago mentioned in
the printed version with something closer to the about 8 months ago found in
the manuscript, but that would only show how unreliable the printed version
44
Galileo, e Assayer, in Van Helden, Invention (1,;;), :.
45
Rosen, When Did Galileo Make His First Telescope? (1,1), o; Drake, Galileos First
Telescopes at Padua and Venice (1,,), :1. Te letter to Landucci (:, September 1oo,) says
about two months ago. Galileo Opere, vol 1o (1,oo), p. :.
46
Duodo refers to that conversation in a :, June letter to Galileo from Venice: Galilei, Opere, 1o
(1,oo), :;. Te letter is discussed in Drake, Galileos First Telescopes at Padua and Venice (1,,),
:o.
uow oio caiiiio oiviioi uis riiiscoii: :1,
of the chronology really is.
I agree with Drake that it makes sense to concentrate on the chronology
in e Assayer because it contains more specic references the same night ,
the following day , six days later , etc. Probably Galileo decided to add more
details in 1o: because by then the patronage relation with the Medici was
already cemented and he no longer needed to stick to his initial minimalist
story not to mention that he needed to invoke some additional evidence to
counter what he saw as Grassis questioning of his claim to inventorship. He
still avoided specic dates but, luckily, he referred to an event whose date we
can pinpoint: Finally [] I presented it to the ruler in a full meeting of the
Council. How greatly it was esteemed by him [] is testied by the ducal
letters still in my possession. Tis was Galileos presentation of the telescope
to the Venetian Senate on : August 1oo,, and the ducal letters were writ-
ten and signed on the :
th
of August.
47
Anchoring ourselves on these two safe
chronological posts, we can then attach specic days to the events listed in e
Assayer.
Starting with end of the story (in :-: August), and moving backwards
while considering the dates on Galileo was reliably in Padua (based on letters
he wrote or entries he made in his accounting ledger), Drake has reconstructed
the following timeline, which include a few interpretive interpolations involv-
ing events he could not safely pin on specic dates:
ca. 1, JulyGalileo leaves Padua to visit friends at Venice.
:o July . He hears rumors of the Holland instrument for the rst time and lis-
tens to discussions pro and con.
ca. :o July He visits Sarpi to ask his opinion and is shown corroborating letters,
perhaps including one from Badovere.
ca. 1 August He hears that a foreigner has arrived at Padua with one of the instru-
ments and is exhibiting it here.
: or August He returns to Padua, but learns that the stranger has already departed
for Venice to sell the secret. He attempts to deduce the construction
of the instrument, using information from letters and descriptions by
those who have seen it.
August He veries by trial that suitably separated convex and concave lens-
es will enlarge distant objects. He sends word to Venice (probably to
Sarpi) that he has the secret.
-:o August He succeeds in constructing an instrument of about ten diameters
47
Galilei, Opere, 1, (1,o8), 11-11;; ibidem, 1o (1,oo), :o-:1.
xaiio niacioii ::o
magnication, and sets out again for Venice. [Tis is the period that
Galileo referred to as more than a month , but that Drake argues that
it must have been less than two weeks.]
48
:1 August He exhibits this instrument to ocial from the Tower of St Mark.
:-: August He exhibits the telescope to the Signoria and the Senate.
Notice the strong match between Drakes placement of Galileo in Venice and
hearing rumors about the telescope starting on :o July, with Sarpis saying to
Castrino on :1 July that: it has arrived here, that spyglass an event that,
as we have seen, could have happened anytime between 8 July and :1 July.
49

Tis means that what Galileo heard in Venice was not just a that a Hollander
had presented to Count Maurice [of Nassau] a glass by means of which distant
things might be seen as perfectly as if they were quite close. Tat was all.
50

What Galileo must have heard during the conversations he mentions was, at a
minimum, Sarpis detailed description of an actual instrument.
Sarpis letter also allows us to x a problem in Drakes reconstruction. Not
knowing about this letter, Drake hypothesized that Galileo, about a week af-
ter arriving in Venice around :o July, heard that a stranger was displaying a
telescope in Padua. Drake hinged this reconstruction on a letter by Lorenzo
Pignoria on that subject, dated 1 August.
51
Based on that, Drake assumed
that Galileo rushed back from Venice to Padua around : or August to catch
a glimpse of the telescope. But according to Drakes hypothetical narrative,
Galileo failed to see the telescope because by the time he got to Padua the for-
eigner had already moved on. Sarpis letter, however, indicates that Galileo had
no need to rush back to Padua to catch a glimpse of the telescope because the
telescope was right there in Venice when he got there on 1, or :o July.
As a result of this imagined detour, Drake eectively gave Galileo a late
start on the telescope. He placed Galileos remark that Te rst night after my
return [to Padua], I solved it at : or August, when in fact Sarpis letter shows
that those lines must have referred to events that took place around :1 July.
But while Drake attributed an incorrect late start to Galileo, he still had to put
that together with the : August date on which Galileo presented the telescope
to the Senate. As a result, he compressed the time between the development of
48
Drake, Galileos First Telescopes at Padua and Venice (1,,), :,.
49
Sarpi, Lettere ai Protestanti, : (1,1), .
50
Galileo, e Assayer, in Van Helden, Invention (1,;;), :.
51
Lorenzo Pignoria to Paolo Gualdo, 1 August 1oo,: [] Uno deglocchiali, di che ella mi scrisse
gia`, e` comparso qui in mano dun Oltramontano (One of the glasses about which you write me
has already arrived here in the hands of a foreigner), in: Galilei, Opere, 1o (1,oo), :o.
uow oio caiiiio oiviioi uis riiiscoii: ::1
the telescope and its ocial presentation, concluding that Galileos statement
that he showed the telescope around in Venice for more than a month after
building it had to be taken to mean less than two weeks. But if we revise
Drakes chronology according to the evidence provided by Sarpis letter of :1
July, we then see that Galileo claim of having had the telescope for more than a
month prior to showing it to the Senate was almost correct. Having developed
the telescope earlier, he did show it around for longer prior to the : August
presentation. I propose, therefore, the following revised chronology:
18 July:Galileo in Padua (ledger entry).
ca.1,- :o July Galileo in Venice. Hears full report from Sarpi or perhaps sees the tele-
scope itself.
ca. :1 July Galileo back in Padua: Upon hearing these news [in Venice], I re-
turned to Padua, where I then resided, and set myself to thinking about
the problem.
ca. :1 July Galileo uncovers the secret of the telescope: Te rst night after my
return [to Padua], I solved it.
ca. :: July Galileo builds prototype: the following day I constructed the instru-
ment and sent word of this to the same friends in Venice with whom I
had been discussing the subject the previous day.
ca. :; July Galileo takes his ,-power telescope to Venice: Immediately afterwards,
I applied myself to the construction of another and better one, which I
took to Venice six days later.
: August [Te telescope] was seen with great admiration by nearly all the prin-
cipal gentlemen of the that republic for more than a month on end.
Tis is not quite the more than a month mentioned by Galileo, but it
is much closer to that than the less than two weeks attributed to him
by Drake. Tis period may have been a day longer if Galileo left Padua
for Venice on July 18 right after making an entry on his ledger, and
returning a day earlier.
xaiio niacioii :::
:1 August Exhibits the telescope to some Venetian gentlemen and senators (as
described in Priulis Cronaca).
52
: AugustI presented [the telescope] to the ruler in a full meeting of the Council.
: August[] ducal letters [] reappointing and conrming me for life to my pro-
fessorship at the University of Padua.
Rosen amended
Like Drake, Edward Rosen has oered a reconstruction of Galileos chro-
nologies, coming up with a substantially earlier date for Galileos invention
sometime between July and 1, July. Te dierence between Rosen and
Drake has much to do with their sources. Drake looked at both e Assayer
and Galileos correspondence, but also at the dates of Galileos bookkeeping
entries, using them as evidence of his presence in Padua. Rosen did not look
at Galileos ledger, thus allowing for the possibility of Galileo being in Venice
and performing the tasks described in e Assayer when, in fact, he could
not have been there. Rosen also tried (and failed) to reconcile Galileos vari-
ous chronologies ending up (after some ad hoc adjustments) with a -1, July
window of invention 1, July being the latest possible date allowed by his
reconstruction.
53

52
Dalla Cronaca di Antonio Priuli: :1 Agosto. Andai io [Antonio Priuli], Geronimo Priuli
Procurator in Campanil di S. Marco con lEccellente Gallileo, et [] lEccellente Dottor Cavalli,
a vedere le meraviglie et eetti singolari del cannon di detto Gallileo, che era di banda, fodrato al
di fuori di rassa gottonada cremesina, di longhezza tre quarte incirca et larghezza di uno scudo,
con due veri, uno [] cavo, laltro no, per parte; con il quale, posto a un ochio e serando laltro,
ciascheduno di noi vide distintamente, oltre Liza Fusina e Marghera, anco Chioza, Treviso et sino
Conegliano, et il campanile et cubbe con la facciata della chiesa de Santa Giustina de Padoa: si
discernavano quelli che entravano et uscivano di chiesa di San Giacomo di Muran; si vedevano le
persone a montar e dismontar de gondola at traghetto all a Collona nel principio del Rio de Verieri,
con molti altri particolari nella laguna et nella citta` veramente amirabili. E poi da lui presentato in
Collegio li : del medesimo, moltiplicando la vista con quello , volte piu` (August :1. I [Antonio
Priuli], Geronimo Priuli, Procurator of the Tower of St Marc, went with the excellent Mr. Galileo,
[] and the excellent Dr. Cavalli to see the marvels and singular eects of the tube of the said
Galileo. It was made of tin, decorated on the outside with light red cotton satin, about three quarters
and braccia long, the diameter of a scudo, with two glasses, one [] concave and the other not,
on each side. With it, looking with one eye while keeping the other shut, each of us saw distinctly
beyond Liza Fusina and Marghera, also Chioggia and Treviso and even Conegliano and the belltow-
er and [] the faade of the Church of Saint Giustina in Padova. We could see those entering and
exiting the Church of Saint Jacob in Murano, and the people who climbed on and o the gondole
at the ferry at the column near the beginning of the Rio de Verieri, and many other truly admirable
details in the lagon and the city. [Tis instrument] was then by him presented to the Senate on the
:th of the same month. It magnies , times. (Galilei, Opere, 1, (1,o8), 8;).
53
Rosen, When Did Galileo Make His First Telescope? (1,1), o.
uow oio caiiiio oiviioi uis riiiscoii: ::
According to Drake, 1, July is the earliest date by which Galileo could have
arrived in Venice from Padua, thus starting the chain of events ending up with
his invention. Rosen assumes instead, that by 1, July at the latest Galileo was
already back in Padua with his telescope. Te scenario that best matches the
accounting schedule, e Assayers chronology, and Sarpis letter is, I think,
the one I have just presented above an amended version of Drakes chronol-
ogy. Tere are, however, two additional scenarios that could technically match
Rosens reconstruction while also taking into account the additional evidence
he left unused.
If we assume that the dates on Galileos accounting ledger match the dates
on which he made them, then Galileo was in Padua on :, :8, :, June; o, 11,
18 July; and , 1o August.
54
He wrote to Florence from Padua on July, cit-
ing an illness.
55
Tere are, however, two intervals (11-18 July and o-11 July) in
which Galileo could have gone to Venice and quickly returned to Padua after
having heard a detailed description of the foreigners instrument from Sarpi.
For the latter window to work, however, the telescope would have had to ar-
rive in Venice right after Sarpis ; July letter to Castrino. Te second window
11-18 July would be more probable in that regard. Both of them, however,
would increase the amount of time between Galileos invention and the pre-
sentation to the Senate (a six-week period in which his telescope would have
been in Venice without anyone mentioning it).
56

While technically possible, these earlier windows of invention do not look
probable. If Galileo had a telescope as early as o July, why did he not rush to
present it to the Senate before the foreigner had a chance to do so? If he already
had an 8- or ,-power telescope by early or mid-July, why would he have risked
missing on nancial rewards and the recognition of his inventorship? Tis
makes me side with Drake over Rosen. I think Drake got the wrong date but
through the right reasoning. He understood that, contrary to Galileos public
narratives, what got his telescope-making program in high gear were not the
reports of the invention of the telescope but rather the news of the actual ar-
rival of the instrument in Venice. What I have done here is to show that the
54
Galilei, Opere, 1, (1,o8): : June (18), :8 June (1, 1o), :, June (1;), o July (1,;), 11 July
(1), 18 July (1, 1oo), August (1oo), 1o August (1oo). Te page numbers in parentheses refer
to the bookkeeping entry for the dates that precede them.
55
Enea Piccolomini to Galileo Galilei: La gratissima di V.S. delli di Luglio []. Mi duole poi in
estremo della sua indisposizione [](Te most welcome letter of Your Lordship of July [...] It
pains me very much to hear of your health problems). Galilei, Opere, 1o (1,oo), :-:.
56
Te rst independent mention of Galileos telescope is Priulis Cronaca entry for :1 August
1oo,, Galilei, Opere, 1, (1,o8), 8;.
xaiio niacioii ::
news arrived earlier than previously assumed, and that Galileo got more than
just the news.
Galileo & Sarpi revisited
Te long-standing debate over Sarpis contribution to Galileos work has been
typically framed in terms of philosophical and theoretical inuences: sugges-
tions or full-edged theories that Sarpi may have communicated with Galileo
about mechanics, optics, tides, and magnetism. What Sarpis letter to Castrino
brings up, instead, is a less philosophical and more mundane contribution
something like technology transfer.
Until now, there were two main pieces of evidence linking Sarpi to the
development of Galileos telescope traces that now gain new meaning and
robustness in light of Sarpis letter to Castrino. Te rst was a letter from
Giovanni Bartoli (the secretary of the Medici representative in Venice) who,
writing to the Florentine court on :, August 1oo, claimed that:
It is reported that the foreigner who came here with the secret [of the telescope],
having heard from I do not know whom (some say from Brother Paolo, the Servite
theologian) that he was not going to get anything by pretending 1,ooo zecchini, he
departed without any making any further eort. And therefore, being Brother Paolo
and Galileo friends, and having him given an account of the secret he had seen, people
say that Galileo, through his own reasoning and with the help of another similar in-
strument (but not a very good one) from France, sought the secret and found it..
57

Bartolis letter was largely dismissed as motivated by unfriendliness toward
Galileo, which Bartoli had indicated elsewhere in his correspondence.
58
Setting
aside the issue of bias, Bartolis remarks have previously seemed irrelevant to
the genealogy of Galileos telescope because by the time he wrote that letter
(August :,) Galileo had already presented his telescope to the Venetian Senate
on (August :).
59
Bartoli did mention the foreigners presence in Venice and
his attempt to sell his telescope to the Senate in an earlier August :: letter to
Florence, but we have reliable reports that Galileo was already demonstrating
57
Giovanni Bartoli to Belisario Vinta, :, August 1oo,: Galilei, Opere, 1o (1,oo), :.
58
Parenthetically, the last part of the report suggests the presence of two telescopes in Venice one
inspected by Sarpi and a second (French) instrument allegedly used (owned?) by Galileo.
59
Galileo Galilei a Giovanni Donato [Doge of Venice], : August 1oo,, Galilei, Opere, 1o (1,oo),
:o-:1; Deliberazione del Senato, : August 1oo,, Galilei, Opere, 1, (1,o8), 11-11o; Ducale,
Galilei, Opere, 1, (1,o8), 11o-11;.
uow oio caiiiio oiviioi uis riiiscoii: ::
his telescope to Venetian patricians on August :1.
60
It was therefore easy to as-
sume that Galileo had already built his telescope by the time Bartoli reported
an alleged exchange between Sarpi and Galileo. However, this all changes
dramatically so once we realize that Sarpis July :1 letter to Castrino indi-
cates that Bartoli may have been lagging behind in his correspondence with
Florence. Some of the events he wrote about on August :: and :, could have
taken place (or were at least set in motion) signicantly earlier.
Furthermore, there is a report of what appears to be the same exchange
in the Life of Fra Paolo Sarpi written several years later by one of his closest
friends and collaborators, Fulgenzio Micanzio a scholar who had direct ac-
cess to Sarpis documents and recollections:
Te manufacture of the spyglass known in Italy as Galileos (but invented in the
Netherlands) was discovered by him when [the instrument] was presented to the Doge
with a request of a 1,ooo-zecchini reward. Brother [Paolo] was put in charge of testing
its uses and give a report, but because he was not allowed to open it up and inspect
it, he guessed what he could. He then shared this with Mr. Galileo (who thought that
Sarpi had got it right), as well as with others.
61
Tis passage should be taken seriously. No doubt Micanzio was eager to give
Sarpi some posthumous credit for the development of the telescope, but he
was by no means an enemy of Galileos. He supported him during the trial,
attempted to publish his e Two New Sciences in Venice a few years later and,
when that proved unfeasible, he facilitated the transfer of Galileos manuscript
to Amsterdam to have it published by the Elseviers. Furthermore, Micanzios
and Bartolis reports seem to be independent of each other. As Micanzio would
have had no need to rely on Bartolis information, the remarkable similarity
between the two reports indicates that they came from same source, most
60
Priuli, Cronaca, in Galilei, Opere, 1, (1,o8), 8;-88.
61
Fulgenzio Micanzio Vita del Padre Paolo: Locchiale, detto in Italia del Galileo, trovato in
Olanda, fu da lui [Galileo] penetrato lartizio quando, presentandone uno alla serenissima signoria
con dimanda di mille zecchini, fu al padre dato carico di far le prove a che potesse servire e dirne il
suo giudizio; e perche non glera lecito aprirlo e vedere, imagino` cio` che potesse, e lo conferi col
signor Galileo, che trovo` il padre aver dato nel segno; e tanti altri, in: Sarpi, Istoria del concilio
tridentino, : (1,;), 1;:-1;.
xaiio niacioii ::o
likely Sarpi himself.
62

Tis passage from the Life of Fra Paolo seems to have gone largely unused
by Galileo scholars possibly due to the fact that Micanzio failed to attach a spe-
cic date to the events he was describing. It did not help, of course, that Favaro
decided not to include this text in the Opere. (Incorrectly believing it to be
an anonymous text of dubious origin not a biography written by Micanzio
Favaro took the whole Life of Fra Paolo to be untrustworthy).
63
But if we
agree that, given their strong resemblance in content and structure, Micanzios
narrative and Bartolis letter refer to the same events, and that Sarpi is referring
to the foreigners instrument when he write on July :1 that the telescope has
arrived in Venice, then these three pieces of evidence gel with each other (and
with the e Assayers chronology) to provide a substantially new picture of
Galileos development of the telescope.
As relayed by Micanzio, Sarpi did not provide Galileo with a full disclosure
of the secret of the telescope, but rather with a close description and some
thoughts about how it functioned guesses Galileo seemed to agree with. Still,
by reporting to him the overall dimension of the instrument, the approximate
diameter of the lenses, and the fact that the objective lens was convex and the
eyepiece concave, Sarpi could have put Galileo very close to the secret of the
telescope (if there was any secret left at that point), and helped him to narrow
down the range of further experimentation to the focal length of the two lenses
or, if we follow Rolf Willachs recent work, the diaphragm applied in front of
the objective lens.
64
Sarpis detailed input may account not only for Galileos
initial development of the telescope, but also for the exceptionally short time
about : hours he claimed it took him to get there.
What Sarpis technology transfer does not account for, however, is the de-
velopment of Galileos subsequent higher-power instruments ,X, :oX, and
nally oX. Still, as discussed by Albert Van Helden in this volume, those
developments were much more material than theoretical expanding grind-
ing and polishing techniques beyond those of traditional spectacle-makers to
handle larger blanks and produce weaker convex lenses, selecting the best kind
of glass (at mirror glass), and produce tens of lenses from which to select only
62
A recent book by Filippo de Vivo mentions a Giovanni Bartoli a lawyer active in Venice in
this exact period connected to Sarpis unorthodox religious networks and its nodes, including the
Golden Ship (De Vivo, Information and Communication in Venice (:oo8), 1:. Te Golden Ship
was the shop of Bernardo Sechini, where Sarpi, Galileo, Acquapendente, and Asselinau regularly
convened. (Favaro, Galileo e Venezia, : (1,oo), 8;).
63
Favaro, Il telescopio (188/1,oo), :o8.
64
Willach, Te Long Route (:oo8), part .
uow oio caiiiio oiviioi uis riiiscoii: ::;
a handful of suitable ones, and so on.
65
Te secret of the telescope, therefore,
appears to have been closer to a guild secret than to a theoretical understand-
ing of telescope optics.
66

Finally, if we properly understand Sarpis role in this process we do not
need to speculate as Drake did that Sarpi may have blocked the foreigners
application to favor his friend.
67
Sarpi was, no doubt, a friend of Galileos but
he was rst and foremost the Consultore of the Republic doubling as technical
expert on res telescopica. Having written Castrino that, [I] dont value it at all
for its military uses, either on land or at sea, it would seem that Sarpi ended
the foreigners bid not because of his friendship with Galileo, but because of
his telescopes poor performance relative to the 1,ooo zecchini he demanded.
Furthermore, being an ex parte examiner for the Republic, it would have been
expected of Sarpi (and ethical according to the technology transfer customs of
the time) to pass on to Galileo (as local talent, not just a personal friend) what-
ever information could have enabled him to come up with a better instrument
that could then be oered to the Senate.
68
Sarpi may have viewed Galileo as a
means for achieving the (Venetian) common good.
69
And indeed, he ended up
helping them both.
Galileo and the oltramontano
Sarpis letter connects Galileos invention of the telescope to the foreigners
instrument, but it says little about the timeframe of that technology transfer.
70

For instance, did Sarpi view and look through the foreigners telescope prior
to being asked by the Senate to evaluate it? How long did the foreigner stay
in Venice? Were Bartolis reports of the demise of the foreigners application as
out of date as they appear to be, or did they indicate that the evaluation pro-
cess of the foreigners telescope did indeed drag into August? (Tis is not un-
reasonable, as it would have taken some time for the Oltramontano to develop
65
Van Helden, Galileo and the Telescope, this volume.
66
Biagioli, Galileos Instruments of Credit (:ooo), 11o, 1:o.
67
Drake, Galileos First Telescopes at Padua and Venice (1,,), :o-note 1.
68
Finally, at the suggestion of one of my friendly patrons, I presented it to the ruler in a in a full
meeting of the Council. (Galileo, e Assayer, cited in: Van Helden, Invention (1,;;), :). It is pos-
sible that the patron mentioned here was Sarpi.
69
Tis t the logic (and ethics) of early modern patent law, as rst promoted and then articulated
in Venice.
70
Based on other letters, we know that Venice was quickly becoming populated with more tele-
scopes in August, suggesting that Galileo may have seen or heard about other telescopes as well, as
suggested by Bartolis report of :: August.
xaiio niacioii ::8
the appropriate connections with the Venetian bureaucracy and Senate to oat
his proposal).
Sarpi could have already recommended the Senate against the foreigners
oer by the time he wrote to Castrino on :1 July. But it is as likely that he was
still in the process of evaluating the instrument, and passing crucial informa-
tion to Galileo along the way. If that were the case, it could explain the remark-
able rush with which Galileo got to work on the telescope, and the urgency
with which he immediately sent news back to Venice about his invention: the
following day I constructed the instrument and sent word of this to the same
friends in Venice with whom I had been discussing the subject the previous
day.
71
Perhaps he wanted to let Sarpi and other ocials know that he was in
the running too, and that they should wait before deciding on the foreigners
device?
72

Given the circumstances, a race to the Senate might have then devel-
oped between the foreigner and Galileo. If, for instance, Bartolis report of
:: August that many have seen and tested [the foreigners telescope] from
St Marks bell-tower is chronologically accurate, that would make that test
virtually contemporaneous with Antonio Priulis report of having seen those
marvelous and singular eects of Galileos tube together with some Venetian
notables on :1 August.
73
Up and down St Marks tower, the two telescopes may
have been publicly tested in the same days.
Conclusion
Tese last remarks are hypotheses that we may be able to test in the future, if
new documents surface. Still, the fact that Sarpis letter to Castrino has been
hiding in plain sight for almost two centuries suggests that we may not have
asked all the questions we could have. In particular, we have been too eager to
accept Galileos narratives as descriptions rather than discursive instruments.
Sarpis letter has brought up some of the chronological and empirical prob-
lems in these narratives, but one can nd other tensions as well. Consider, for
instance, Galileos predicament in the narrative of invention he presented in
e Assayer.
71
Galileo, e Assayer, cited in: Van Helden, Invention (1,;;), :.
72
It would seem, in any case, that those same friends in Venice mentioned by Galileo must have
been very few and quite tight-lipped to account for the media silence over Galileos telescope for
the six weeks until the test on :1 August witnessed by Priuli.
73
Galilei, Opere, 1o (1,oo), :o; Ibidem, 1, (1,o8), 8;.
uow oio caiiiio oiviioi uis riiiscoii: ::,
In it, Galileo is caught between rebung Grassis accusation that the tele-
scope was not his child but only his pupil, while also having to acknowledge
that the telescope did have a Dutch father already. Tis would not have been
a problem in the economy of inventions, where there could be as many inven-
tors of the telescope as there were countries. Claiming local (that is, Venetian)
inventorship of the telescope would have allowed Galileo to acknowledge ex-
tensive borrowings from foreign inventors (as they had no relevance for that
denition of inventorship). But Galileo, trying to develop the right prole for
a recipient of princely patronage, decided to cast himself as a purer inventor.
What Grassi did was to force Galileo to confront the problems he had created
for himself by adopting that illustration.
In turn, Galileo tried to evade the paradox of claiming to be the biological
father of a child who already had a biological father by positing the existence
of two types of telescopes one accidentally fathered by the Dutch spectacle
maker, and a very dierent one fathered by Galileo through reason. Tat is,
in e Assayer he did not argue that he was the inventor of a telescope that
was unique by virtue of having better resolution and enlarging power than
all previous instruments. (Tat would have been an engineers argument, and
Galileo, eyeing the court, did not want to cast himself as an engineer, not even
a very good one). He claimed, instead, a kind of inventorship dened by a
specic process of invention (a reason-based one) rather than by the quality of
the product resulting from that process.
Te issue here is not whether these two breeds of telescope existed or not,
whether one could tell them apart, or whether they were twins or distant cous-
ins. Te point is to recognize that Galileos narrative is not an empirical answer
to Grassis accusation, but rather an attempt to reframe it in terms that would
allow Galileo to come up with an answer not necessarily a good answer, but
something that looked like an answer. In other words, that Galileos telescope
was unique by virtue of having been produced not by chance but through
reason, the science of refraction, and the knowledge of perspective is a kind
of conceptual product dierentiation aimed at dening an object that Galileo
(and, in his narrative, only Galileo) could then claim inventorship for. In do-
ing so, he was creating an opposition between him and his telescopes and the
simple spectaclemakers and theirs. But while there were of course substantial
dierences between Galileos instruments and the others, there is no guarantee
whatsoever that those dierences could be reduced to the kind that Galileo
had posited.
Te same applies to the secret of the telescope. No doubt, there were all
sorts of steps and problems that needed to be sorted out in order to produce
the kind of telescope Galileo was able to produce problems that could easily
xaiio niacioii :o
straddle the line between so-called practical and theoretical knowledges. But
there are very good reason to doubt that the concept of secret would be able
to adequately describe the nature of these challenges. As a concept, secret
seems as overdetermined as Galileos claims to inventorship based on the sci-
ence of refraction: it is precisely the kind of object Galileo needed to be the
inventor of in order to be able to cast himself as the kind of inventor he wanted
to be.
As Galileo was inventing the object we now call the telescope, he was
eectively inventing a new notion of invention and a new illustration of the
inventor to go with it. Tat adds to the fun of tracing and retracing these ma-
terials, especially if we pay as much attention to his narratives and concepts of
invention as we do to the material results of his innovation.