A pleasant recollection birthed serindipitously from yesterday's posting: I visited the Basilica of Santa Croce in 2000, well before 9-11, a trip my wife won to Italy - Rome and Florence - for her sales at Dell.
I recall it was somber, silent except for the tourists - of which we were two - the snapping of photos and the films that invariably ended up on You Tube in one form or another.
Wikipedia: It is the burial place of some of the most illustrious Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Foscolo, Gentile and Rossini,...
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| Florence, Italy |
It was humbling thinking I'd studied many of the concepts and theories of Marconi, Fermi; especially to stand before the tomb of Galileo, the father of modern scientific inquiry. The irony of the discovery that Copernican theory was more valid and contradicted (then) Aristotle and Church doctrine on geocentricity. He was labeled a heretic, sentenced to house arrest, had to "renounce" his theories, and died pretty much a pauper. Now the heretic is part of the Temple of the Italian Glories (Tempio dell'Itale Glorie). Vindicated by the passage of time and corroboration.
"Living well is the best revenge," George Herbert. Even in the face of ignorance...
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