400 Years of the Telescope

My final full day in Italy on this trip began before 6 AM--about four hours before my usual rise time--so that Steven and I and Steve's colleague Laura could drive to Florence in time for our rendezvous at the hotel with the film crew, our Galileo re-enactor, his friend and the make-up man, so that we could then move on to meet Franco Pacini to be let into Galileo's house in Arcetri for our morning filming. Steve's car proved handy--and Steve and Laura still handier as they went out in search of a candle for our scenes, and came back with a big one--and along with two taxis, transported the crew and equipment further up the hill, where we unloaded on a beautiful morning and began to set up. Before long Kris and Scott, with plenty of help from Anita and Krista, had prepared the basement room with a shaft of light from outside for the Galileo recantation scene, and Stefano, our Galileo, was in full beard and costume. He came in old-man style, full of woe and angst, and recited his recantation, which I, having copied it from the exhibit at the museum the day before (see photo of Galileo's telescope), felt to be almost my own words, and quite sobering words they are too: "I, Galileo, abjure, curse, and detest my errors and heresies . . . "
The second photo gives a feeling for how the shot worked-having said his piece, Galileo kneels into the darkness, highly symbolic and effective in my judgment. Working against a noon deadline, we finished that shot and set up the next, upstairs, of Galileo with his telescope behind a table--all the props lent by the museum the day before. Finishing on time, but still not finished with our needs, we adjourned back to the hotel and decided to film the younger Galileo--45 instead of 69, in his prime and full of fame and vigor--against the walls of the hotel courtyard, which looked properly old Tuscan, and so moved on to lunch near the Porta Romana. From there I went to Santa Croce to admire the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Dante, and lesser lights of the Florentine pantheon, and proceeded to meet my friend Sara Matthews Grieco, who runs the Syracuse University program in Italy. Her late arrival--meetings have already grown too long as the fall semester begins--called for more rapid conversation, and soon it was time for her to leave and me to meet the crew for our celebration dinner, attended by Karen and Giorgio from the museum. Once again I had to duck out early to catch the Pisa train, and now, sleep deprived but relaxed, am ready for a good eight or nine hours and so to the airport and London tomorrow.