Galileo Galilei and a forgotten poem on the 1604 supernova

Abstract

In October 1604, when SN1604, the last naked-eye visible supernova in our Galaxy, exploded, Galileo Galilei was the professor of mathematics and astronomy at the University of Padua, teaching the mechanics of planets. He was therefore the figure of reference to whom all the doubts and questions that such an apparition brought with it were addressed. The University of Padua asked Galilei to outline the situation by exposing in three public conferences his point of view in order to answer the many questions that raged among the academic community and the common people. Three conferences that Galilei held almost immediately between November and December in the Aula Magna of the Bo, the central building of the University. A month after Galilei's lectures a treatise on the supernova appeared in Padua. The unknown Antonio Lorenzini, behind whose name it is easy to see the inspiration of Cesare Cremonini, an Aristotelian professor of natural philosophy in Padua, published a booklet entitled Discourse about the new star which debunked the conclusions of Galilei. One month after was published in Padua by the same editor the Dialogo de Cecco di Ronchitti da Bruzene in perpuosito de la stella nuova, a booklet in Paduan dialect replying to Lorenzini. The Dialogo appears in the national edition of Galilei's works and is attributed to Galileo himself with the help of the monk Girolamo Spinelli; it does not appear instead a poem in octaves, by an unknown author (presumably Galilei), published as an appendix to the first edition of 1605, and immediately replaced in the second edition. We publish it here, with a comment.