400 Years of the Telescope

In Florence and Pisa this morning, a late-summer thunderstorm descended with force, and, where I was staying at Steve Shore's apartment, produced some impressive flickering and computer problems, but passed over before long, leaving the city in oncoming sunshine. After various issues had been resolved by Kris and the crew, we convened at the Museum for the History of Science, where the staff proved remarkably accommodating. Karen, one of the Museum's Science Education Services staff, made sure that all of our needs were met by spending the day negotiating between us and the Museum curators what could and could not be filmed in the museum. With the most extraordinary luck and with the overwhelming trust of the museum staff, we were allowed to film everything we wanted to during our few hours at the museum. The first order of business was to open the windows to reduce the heat, then to find the necessary extension cords and other paraphenalia, and then to set up the shots--of the giant armillary of nested spheres; of a couple of key books by Galileo (the Sidereus Nuncius that brought news of his discoveries with the telescope to the world, and the Dialogue Concerning the Two Great World Ssytems that brought the wrath of the church on his head); of the cracked lens said to come from Galileo's first telescope; and--finest and most cheering of all--of Galileo's oldest telescope, which at first was said to have to remain its case, but which before long was produced for our close-up filming, and then, to touch history, for each of us to look through across the Arno to the Piazza Michelangelo.
Certainly one can say that modern telescopes are much easier to use, but just as clearly, Galileo's telescope worked. By 5 PM we were nearly through--not counting negotiating the final details of who owed whom what for the material we got on tape and which the musuem has rights to use--and in possession of the props for the filming tomorrow at Galileo's home in Arcetri. Again, Karen and Georgio's assistance and trust in us allowed us to borrow replica items from the museum for the shoot on Wednesday. Two taxi loads got us up the hill, with a stop for wine, and we are now about to dig into a Tuscan warm-up repasts of bread, cheese, chips, and an assortment of the red liquid that makes Chianti famous. Since the filming tomorrow begins early--and I have to rise that much earlier to arrive from Pisa--fatigue may remove the chance to send another entry before I leave for London on Thursday. Let me describe again our happy team: Kris Koenig, our leader, totally unflappable except when heavily provoked, and even then capable of finding the best way out; Anita, ready to do whatever must be done to make the filming work; Scott, whose resemblance to Robin Williams seems more noticeable as time goes on, and whose striving for perfection as a cameraman remains impressive day after day; Krista, our intern who has taken the semester off from UC Irvine to participate in this project, as affable and competent a 19-year-old as one may hope to meet in the USA, and myself, two cases worth (as they say in Kansas City) of stored-up, pent-up knowledge of various arcana that surface at appropriate and inappropriate times. I'll miss the hard work and feelings of success once I leave the team as it goes on to Holland, Paris, and the Canary Islands, but it has been great to have the sun shine (almost always) on our efforts to produce excellent television despite the lack of a champagne budget. Good wine will have to do.