Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/43

Rh terrible pictures, also in wax, from scenes during the plague in Florence, in the 16th century, completed this melancholy impression, and it was in vain that I went out into the warm sunshine, into the animated city; it was in vain that I lingered amongst the happy and beautiful figures in the temple La Tribuna; in vain that I visited again and again Galileo's Tribuna, which La Specola holds as her innermost sanctuary. I could not for many days free myself from them.

A word now about this last-named Tribuna, which is solely dedicated to the memory of Galileo, and one of the most beautiful monuments to his memory. Three beautiful paintings in fresco represent three principal periods in his life. The first shows him in the Cathedral of Pisa, at the moment when the movement of the swinging lamp turned his mind to the mechanic law which regulates the pendulum; the second, when he, already certain of his scientific knowledge, and inspired by it, demonstrates his discovery of the telescope before the Doge Leonardo Donato, and the Council of Ten in Venice. He is surrounded by inquisitive, admiring, and envious men, but he heeds no one, he is occupied, both body and soul, with his scientific truth alone. The painting represents him as a short but strong figure, full of fire and life, with a round countenance, and a good, frank expression; the eyes blue, clear, and large. In the third painting he appears as an old man and—blind, blind from having with too much perseverance gazed into the phenomena of light. You can trace in the old man's countenance the features and life of the youth; the blinded eyes are raised as if investigating, whilst with one hand