For Saturn alone stands apart from the pattern of the remaining celestial bodies, and shows so many discrepant phases, that hitherto it has been doubted whether it is a globe connected to two smaller globes or whether it is a spheroid provided with two conspicuous cavities or, if you like, spots, or whether it represents a kind of vessel with handles on both sides, or finally, whether it is some other shape.
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References
1.
Van HeldenA., “Christopher Wren's De Corpore Saturni”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, xxiii (1968), 213–29, p. 220.
2.
Le opere di Galileo Galilei, Edizione Nazionale, ed. FavaroA. (Florence, 1890–1909, reprinted 1929–39 and 1964–66), hereafter referred to as G.G., x, 409–10. Unless otherwise indicated, the translations are mine.
3.
KeplerJ., Dioptrice (Augsburg, 1611), preface, 15. Translated in CarlosE. S., A part of the Preface of Kepler's Dioptrics, forming a continuation of Galileo's Sidereal Messenger (London, 1880), 88. Kepler here gives his own attempt at solving the anagram: “Salve umbistineum geminatum Martia proles”, rendered by Carlos “Hail twin companionship, children of Mars”.
4.
G.G., x, 474.
5.
Ibid.
6.
Ibid.
7.
G.G., x, 484–5. See also G.G., xi, 92–93.
8.
ScheinerC., Tres epistolae de maculis solaribus scriptae ad Marcum Welserum (Augsburg, 1612), G.G., v, 31.
9.
Galileo, Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle macchie solari (Rome, 1613), G.G., v, 110.
10.
G.G., v, 110–11.
11.
G.G., v, 237.
12.
G.G., v, 238.
13.
G.G., xi, 532.
14.
LocherJ. G., Disquisitiones mathematicae de controversis et novitatibus astronomicis (Ingolstadt, 1614), 88.
Carlos, op. cit., 91–92. Geryon was a three-headed or three-bodied king of the island of Erytheia, in Greek mythology. He was killed by Hercules.
20.
G.G., v, 238.
21.
Locher, op. cit., 88.
22.
G.G., xii, 276.
23.
G.G., xii, 276, n. 1.
24.
Ibid. See also FavaroA., “Intorno alla Apparenza di Saturno osservata da Galileo Galilei nell'Agosto dell'Anno 1616”, Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, lx (1900–01), part II, 415–32.
25.
Astronomische Nachrichten, xi (1833), no. 252, 199.
26.
G.G., xiii, 13.
27.
G.G., vi, 361. Also shown in DrakeS. and O'MalleyC. D., The controversy of the comets of 1618 (Philadelphia, 1960), 324.
28.
G.G., xiii, 13.
29.
Galileo, Dialogo … sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (Florence, 1632), G.G., vii, 287.
30.
BiancaniG., Sphaera mundi seu Cosmographia (Modena, 1620), quoted here from the second edition (Modena, 1635), 155.
31.
G.G., xviii, 238–9.
32.
G.G., xviii, 18.
33.
Gassendi, Opera omnia (Lyons, 1658), iv, 142.
34.
Ibid., iv, 183.
35.
These observations were published in his Novae coelestium terrestriumque rerum observationes (Naples, 1646).
36.
An observation of Saturn made by Fontana in 1638 with a telescope 14 “palmi” long, Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, MSS Galileiana 95, f. 81r. Reproduced here from ArrighiG., “Gli ‘Occhiali’ di Francesco Fontana in un Carteggio Inedito di Antonio Santini nella Collezione Galileiana della Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze”, Physis, vi (1964), 432–48, p. 441.
37.
Gassendi, Opera omnia, iv, 441.
38.
Bibliothèque Nationale MSS Fonds Français 13058, f. 63.
Gassendi, Animadversiones in decimum librum Diogenis Laertii (Lyons, 1649), 904 ff.
47.
Riccioli, op. cit., 487–8.
48.
This sheet is reproduced in GoviG., “Della Invenzione del Micrometro per gli Strumenti Astronomici”, Bullettino di bibliografia et di storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche, xx (1887), facing p. 614.
49.
DiviniE., Brevis annotatio in Systema Saturnium Christiani Hugenii (Rome, 1660), in Oeuvres complètes de Christiaan Huygens (The Hague, 1888–1950), xv, 410.
50.
Van Helden, op. cit., 220.
51.
Hevelius did not discover the flattening of Saturn's poles: He drew the ‘solitary’ appearance perfectly spherical.
52.
Rheita, Oculus Enoch et Eliae sive Radius sidereo-mystico (Antwerp, 1645), 277.
