From: Stella Revard [srevard@siue.edu] Sent: Monday, October 09, 2000 6:15 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and Galileo I think there is a difference between what Milton as narrator of PL says and Milton the author of Areopagitica. If Milton the poet said he saw Galileo in the former, we might regard it as poetic license. I don't think we can of statements made in the prose, especially statements involving biography. We can expect the truth, not fancy There were two questions raised at the Florence conference. One involved whether Milton had ever been to Vallombrosa, the other whether Milton had really seen Galileo. We can't say yes or no to either based on a second witness account. But though Milton alludes to the fallen leaves of Vallombrosa, he never says that he saw them. And the context is poetic, anyway. Evidence suggests that he wasn't at Vallombrosa in the fall. Evidence puts him in Florence at the right time to have gone to visit Galileo. He knew the right people who could have arranged it. And rather than just alluding to Galileo in Areopagitica--as he might have without making a personal claim to have seen him, he adds the personal claim. I think we are on dubious grounds to dismiss the claim. Even if he never says elsewhere that he saw Galileo, he does say so here. There is no reason to doubt him. Other claims about the biography are substantiated by second hand witnesses. This one may not be. But Milton's word is good enough for me. Now, can we hear it from the biographers? From: Norman Burns [nburns@binghamton.edu] Sent: Monday, October 09, 2000 12:24 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Recordings of Paradise Lost I'm sure I speak for many when I thank Mario DiCesare for his judicious reviews of the major available recordings of PL. Now, if we could only persuade Jacoby or McKellen to do right by their language's greatest epic. Come to think of it, I wonder whether the Milton Society of America couldn't be asked to sponsor a project that would undertake just that-- to raise a fund sufficient to subsidize a major performer to record an unabridged PL, perhaps produced (like the Fagles translations) by Penguin. I'll send a copy of this post directly to Al Labriola so he can get the wheels turning right away. Meantime, all praise to Mario. --Norm Burns From: melsky [melsky@gc.cuny.edu] Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2000 11:51 AM To: MILTON-L Subject: Correction: CUNY website Second message, with apologies for incorrect website: Last Spring the Renaissance Studies Program and the Ph.D. Program in French of the CUNY Graduate School held a three way teleconference with the University of Kentucky and the University of California-Santa Cruz. The topic was the impact of cultural studies on Renaissance studies. The featured speakers were Carla Freccero and David Lee Miller. Their papers are available at http://web.gsuc.cuny.edu/renaissancestudies/Cultstudies We invite you to read them, and we welcome your response. Martin Elsky Coordinator Renaissance Studies Program Francesca Canade Sautman Executive Officer Ph.D. Program in French Graduate School and University Center City University of New York 365 Fifth Avenue New York City From: Roy Flannagan [Roy@gwm.sc.edu] Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2000 9:09 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and Galileo (poetic license vs. biography) Any biographer worth his or her salt would have to say something like "By = Milton's own account, he met the astronomer Galileo in Florence, under = house arrest by the Inquisitors." I might add, mischievously, that = Milton's allusions to Galileo and his telescope in PL are richly ambiguous:= "Tuscan artist" might mean "artisan from Florence," and a "less-assur'd" = telescope looking at a "spotty globe" is obviously not as good as a = more-assured telescope that can see the mountains of the moon clearly. As a sidelight, for this group: Galileo's telescope, which I am told is = equivalent to about a 30x modern scope, was only about three feet long. I = haven't looked through the one in the case at the Museum of Science and = Technology in Florence (next to Galileo's finger! as I remember), but I = imagine that the image of the moon through Galileo's scope is indeed = blurry and spotty, because the lenses were probably poorly-ground and = therefore produced distorted images of planets, at least according to = modern optical standards. If you want to get biographical about it, = probably neither Galileo nor Milton could see all that well in 1638. It would also be fair to Milton to remember that his memories of Galileo = in PL are something like 25 years old and therefore subject to distortion = or coloration. By the 1660s, Galileo might be less important as a = political prisoner and more important as an astronomer. A modern interpreter of Renaissance history might also see Galileo as a = liberal saint or a resistance-fighter, as Brecht did (if I am remembering = rightly). If Milton saw the real Galileo under house arrest, and ill, he = may have been more impressed with the facts of his imprisonment and his = frailty than by Galileo's scientific discoveries or his heroism under = indictment. Roy Flannagan From: melsky [melsky@gc.cuny.edu] Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2000 8:48 AM To: MILTON-L Subject: CUNY Renaissance Studies Website [With apologies for cross posting] Last Spring the Renaissance Studies Program and the Ph.D. Program in French of the CUNY Graduate School held a three way teleconference with the University of Kentucky and the University of California-Santa Cruz. The topic was the impact of cultural studies on Renaissance studies. The featured speakers were Carla Freccero and David Lee Miller. Their papers are available at http://web.gsuc.cuny.edu/renaissancestduies/Cultstudies We invite you to read them, and we welcome your response. Martin Elsky Coordinator Renaissance Studies Program Francesca Canade Sautman Executive Officer Ph.D. Program in French Graduate School and University Center City University of New York 365 Fifth Avenue New York City From: Sean Thomas [SeanT@harker.org] Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 4:12 PM To: 'milton-l@richmond.edu' Subject: RE: CUNY Renaissance Studies Website To all, Change "stduies" to "studies" in the URL and the link will work. Sean Herrera-Thomas -----Original Message----- From: melsky [mailto:melsky@gc.cuny.edu] Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2000 5:48 AM To: MILTON-L Subject: CUNY Renaissance Studies Website [With apologies for cross posting] Last Spring the Renaissance Studies Program and the Ph.D. Program in French of the CUNY Graduate School held a three way teleconference with the University of Kentucky and the University of California-Santa Cruz. The topic was the impact of cultural studies on Renaissance studies. The featured speakers were Carla Freccero and David Lee Miller. Their papers are available at http://web.gsuc.cuny.edu/renaissancestduies/Cultstudies We invite you to read them, and we welcome your response. Martin Elsky Coordinator Renaissance Studies Program Francesca Canade Sautman Executive Officer Ph.D. Program in French Graduate School and University Center City University of New York 365 Fifth Avenue New York City From: tom bishop [tgb2@po.cwru.edu] Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 10:51 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and Galileo (poetic license vs. biography) Actually, as others will also recall I'm sure, Brecht saw Galileo as a figure who failed to become an intellectual hero and political resistance leader, and who capitulated to power, thus betraying the liberatory implications of his own work. From: Tony Hill [mjksezth@fs1.ce.umist.ac.uk] Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 10:19 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and Galileo (poetic license vs. biography) Date sent: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 09:51:25 -0500 To: milton-l@richmond.edu From: tom bishop Subject: Re: Milton and Galileo (poetic license vs. biography) Send reply to: milton-l@richmond.edu > Actually, as others will also recall I'm sure, Brecht saw Galileo as > a figure who failed to become an intellectual hero and political > resistance leader, and who capitulated to power, thus betraying the > liberatory implications of his own work. > Yes and didn't Brecht also suggest that the Princes of the Church knew, being no fools, that Galileo's cosmology was most probably right? The reason they wanted to supress the information was that if the Aristotelian view of the universe was shown to be false then it's reflection in the hierarchical structure of society, and the great "chain of existence" itself might be threatened too. In fact something like that happened in the 17th. Century in Europe, the "century of revolution" I think. Tony Hill www.ce.umist.ac.uk From: Carol Barton, PhD [cbartonphd@earthlink.net] Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 7:49 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Some Galilean insights . . . Yes, Tom -- and not, apparently, without good reaon. I did a little work on this for a different application, so (for what they're worth) I thought I would share some tidbits on the subject: 1. It was Johann Lippershey who was the inventor of the telescope, not Galileo (as most people seem to think): Galileo merely refined the lens. 2. From a passage written for another purpose (for which my primary authority was Arthur Koestler, _The Sleepwalkers_): Copernicus "was denied the essential qualities of the prophet: awareness of mission, originality of vision, the courage of conviction," and it was only with much prodding and not a little procrastination that the timid Canon -- who "for thirty six years on his own testimony [had] hugged his theory to his anxious heart," and would have recoiled in horror had he foreseen the epistemological cataclysm his star data would precipitate -- published the cosmos-shaking De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543, and THE EARTH DID NOT TREMBLE! In point of fact, the document was "unreadable and unread," according to one modern scientific historian, and had to wait some fifty years for the combined talents of Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei to unleash its myth-annihilating power--whereupon it "burst upon the world like a conflagration caused by a delayed-action bomb." . . . As early as 1597, Galileo in his turn would privately affirm that Copernicus had been right, as his own observation of sunspot movement through the terrestrial telescope he did not invent, but did refine, would later convince him, though he could not at this point be persuaded to make his opinions on heliocentricism public. (He was, he confided to Kepler, "frightened by the fate of Copernicus himself . . . who, though he acquired immortal fame with some, is yet to an infinite multitude of others . . . an object of ridicule and derision.") Galileo's lectures for the next sixteen years embraced the old cosmology according to Ptolemy (while his teachings expressly repudiated those of the Polish cleric), and he did not come out of the astronomical closet (so to speak) until 1613, after the publication of the Siderius Nuncius, which announced his discovery of the "four new planets" that turned out to be Jupiterian moons. The portrait of Galileo's disposition painted by his biographers is an unflatteringly arrogant and condescending one, and by 1616, it is reported that his high-handedness with the Roman Catholic clergy (who had until that point encouraged the secular discussion of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium as long as it was confined to the language of science) put the famous septuagenarian in the uncomfortable position of having either to recant his belief in heliocentricism, or face the wrath of the Inquisition. He chose the former, rather than risk the fire, though it is clear that the gesture was a purely political one. In the stubborn myopia that compelled him to ignore Kepler's discovery (reported in Astronomia Nova in 1609 after seventeen months' observation of the behavior of a supernova) that the orbit of the planet Mars was elliptical, Galileo "prevented him[self] from deriving a full formulation of the law of inertia"; as a result, although he was actually the first to discover the principle, "it is usually attributed to . . . Descartes" -- who in his turn "prudently suppressed [his work] le Monde, which also espoused Copernican doctrine" when he learned that Galileo had been condemned by the Inquisition for similarly heretical views. To relinquish the concept of circular orbits was to admit to the imperfection of the cosmos, and Galileo simply could not bring himself to do it, though his Dialogo dei due massimi sistemi del mondo (Discourse on the Two Major Systems of the Cosmos) of 1632 was the "sharp attack on Ptolemaic astronomy" in favor of its Copernican successor that led to his summons to Rome. Similar resistance to empirical reality in deference to long-standing mythology was exhibited by David Fabricius, a colleague of Brahe and Kepler, who, though he noted in 1596 that Omicron Ceti showed periodic variations in brightness (and therefore was neither "fixed" nor "perfect"), likewise rejected Kepler's ellipses in myopic commitment to Plato's circles. I wonder if one might find records of Milton's visit with Galileo in the records of the Inquisition? Has anyone ever tried? (It is in _Areopagitica_ that he says he "found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisner to the Inquisition" (CPW 2:538), by the way. It still seems exceedingly odd to me, that he never says any more than that.) Best to all, Carol Barton ----- Original Message ----- From: "tom bishop" To: Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 10:51 AM Subject: Re: Milton and Galileo (poetic license vs. biography) > Actually, as others will also recall I'm sure, Brecht saw Galileo as > a figure who failed to become an intellectual hero and political > resistance leader, and who capitulated to power, thus betraying the > liberatory implications of his own work. > > From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Friday, October 13, 2000 5:08 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and Galileo (poetic license vs. biography) On Thu, 12 Oct 2000 14:18:51 GMT "Tony Hill" writes: > Date sent: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 09:51:25 -0500 > To: milton-l@richmond.edu > From: tom bishop > Subject: Re: Milton and Galileo (poetic license vs. > biography) > Send reply to: milton-l@richmond.edu > > > Actually, as others will also recall I'm sure, Brecht saw Galileo > as > > a figure who failed to become an intellectual hero and political > > resistance leader, and who capitulated to power, thus betraying > the > > liberatory implications of his own work. > > > > Yes and didn't Brecht also suggest that the Princes of the Church > knew, being no fools, that Galileo's cosmology was most probably > right? The reason they wanted to supress the information was that > if the Aristotelian view of the universe was shown to be false then > it's reflection in the hierarchical structure of society, and the > great > "chain of existence" itself might be threatened too. In fact > something like that happened in the 17th. Century in Europe, the > "century of revolution" I think. Tony, I think it's rather unwise to refer to a monolithic and unified conspiratoral will of the Church. We're talking about politics here--always a messy affair. If you pay attention to the complexity of patronage systems, Brecht's suggestion -and yours- are at best highly reductive. I'm currently reading Adrian Johns' The Nature of the Book, which points out that Galileo wisely conducted himself in ways that got him in the graces of powerful people--mainly the Medicis and the man who became Pope Urban VIII in 1623. This pope appreciated Il Saggiatore, so it's likely Galileo thought it was permissable for him to disregard an earlier private agreement not to support Copernicanism publicly. He went on to produce the Dialogo and had it licensed in Florence and Rome. Bellarmine and the Jesuits were not pleased, but Johns points out that Galileo didn't get into trouble until: "...his ally and patronage broker in Rome, Ciampoli, fell from grace, just as Urban came under stringent attack from Spanish interests for insufficient zeal in pursuing the Thirty Years War and the struggle against heresy. Ciampoli was just the kind of intermediary needed by such a book to smooth its progress into courtly circles; he it was who had read Il Saggiatore to Urban at table. Without such mediation the Dialogo would soon prove vulnerable, especially as the pope now associated its publication with Ciampoli's newly established impropriety. In these circumstances, what might otherwise have been appreciated as witty dialogic sallies came to be read very differently. Papal sensibilities took its barbs as personal affronts. That summer Urban called in the book, appointing a commission to investigate the circumstances of its appearance. In the autumn he transferred the case to the Inquisition." (27). Dan Knauss Department of English, Marquette University daniel.knauss@marquette.edu - tiresias@juno.com Faerspel Studios: http://home.earthlink.net/~faerspel ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. From: Paula Loscocco [ploscocc@Barnard.EDU] Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2000 5:27 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Barnard Medieval/Renaissance Conference 2000 >The Seventeenth Barnard Medieval and Renaissance Conference > >Public Performance/Public Ritual > >December 2, 2000 >Barnard College > >Continuing a tradition of excellence in inter-disciplinary scholarship, >Barnard College's Seventeenth Medieval and Renaissance Conference will be >an exploration of the meaning and impact of a wide variety of forms of >public performance, ritual and display from the Middle Ages to the Early >Modern period. > >Below you will find full information on the conference including a >registration form which may be printed and sent in with payment. Please >direct questions concerning the program of the conference to Laurie >Postlewate, (212) 854-2053, lpostlew@barnard.edu. >Please mail registration forms on or before November 22, 2000 to: > >Tiffany Dugan >Special Events Office >Barnard College >3009 Broadway >New York, NY 10027-6598 >Forms can also be faxed to (212) 854-5854 but payment must be mailed. > >Enrollment for the conference is limited and will be conducted on a >first-come, first- served basis. Registration forms should be mailed by >November 22, 2000. > >REGISTRATION FORM > >……………………………………………………………………………………… >Name > >…………………………………………………………………………………….. >Address > >……………………………………………………………………………………… >City, State, Zip > >…………………………………………………………………………………….. >Telephone (with area code) and e-mail > >……………………………………………………………………………………… >Institutional Affiliation > >Please circle the sessions of the conference you plan to attend: > >1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 > >Please send me information concerning: > >Travel Hotels Parking > >Conference fees >Pre-registration $40 >Walk-in registration $50 >(on December 2) >Alumnae Registration $35 >Senior Citizen $20 >Student (with ID) $05 >Lunch $15 > >Enclosed is my check for $……………………. made payable to Barnard College. > >Please Note: >The basic registration fee includes refreshments, but does not include >lunch. Lunch will be provided for conference participants at an additional >charge of $15. You must indicate on this form if you wish to order lunch >and include it in the registration payment. > >A conference brochure will be mailed to you upon receipt of registration >payment. Your cancelled check will serve as your receipt of payment. > >Cancellation: For individuals who pre-register, cancellations will be >accepted until November 28, 2000. The balance will be refunded less a $5 >processing fee. Individuals wishing to cancel after November 28 will >forfeit the entire conference fee. > >PUBLIC PERFORMANCE / PUBLIC RITUAL > >CONFERENCE PROGRAM >DECEMBER 2, 2000 >BARNARD COLLEGE, NEW YORK CITY > >All events will take place in Barnard Hall. The Barnard gate is on the west >side of Broadway at 117th Street. > >REGISTRATION AND MORNING COFFEE: >9:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m. > >PLENARY SESSION: 10:00 a.m.-12:00 noon > >Elizabeth A.R. Brown, Professor Emerita, The City University of New York, >Brooklyn College and The Graduate School >"The Last Act: Royal Funerals and Transi Tombs in Fifteenth- and >Sixteenth-Century France" > >Stephen Orgel, Stanford University >"The Monarch and the Dream" > >LUNCH 12:00-1 p.m. > >PERFORMANCE AND COMMENTARY: 1:00-2:00 p.m. >"Various Lenses for Medieval Spectacles" >Linda Marie Zaerr, Boise State University and Evelyn B. Vitz, New York >University > >FIRST AFTERNOON SESSION: 2:00-3:30 p.m. > >Session 1 >The Performance of Courtliness and Chivalry >Presider: Karen Green, Columbia University > >1. Nancy Freeman Regalado, New York University >"Performing Romance: Arthurian Interludes in Sarrasin's Le Roman du Hem >(1278)" > >2. Michelle Magallanez, New York University >"The Theater of the Pas d'armes: Performance of Aristocratic Ideology in >Fifteenth Century-Burgundy" > >3. Anthony B. Cashman, III, College of the Holy Cross >"Performance Anxiety, Courtly Ritual and Making La Bella Figura in Early >Modern Europe" > >Session 2 >Public Theatricality in the Middle Ages >Presider: Joel Kaye, Barnard College > >1. Dallas Denery, Stanford University >"Self as Self-Presentation in Early Dominican Religious Life" > >2. Carol Symes, Bennington College >"Early Medieval Plays and the Medieval Culture of Performance: >Studying the Interaction of Theatre and Public Life" > >3. Margaret Pappano, Columbia University >"Priests at an Execution: The Theatrical Arts of Dying in the Fifteenth >Century" > >Session 3 >Displaying Power through Performance >Presider: Julie Stone Peters, Columbia University > >1. Gordon Kipling, University of California at Los Angeles >"The Royal Entry and the Consecration of the City: >The Antwerp Triumphs of 1549 and 1582" > >2. L. Caitlin Jorgensen, Quinnipiac University >"Diversity in Unity: Elizabeth's Coronation Procession" > >3. Alejandro Cañeque, New York University >"Performing Power: The Politics of the Viceroy's Body in Colonial Mexico" > >Session 4 >Orality and the Performance of Narrative >Presider: Julie Crawford, Columbia University > >1. Paul Creamer, Columbia University >"Speaking the Truth about Orality" > >2. Adrian Tudor, University of Hull >"Performance of, in and by Short Pious Narratives" > >3. Marilyn Lawrence, New York University >"Heroine as Composer and Performer in Ysaÿe le Triste" > >BREAK: 3:30-4:00 p.m. > >SECOND AFTERNOON SESSION 4:00-5:30 p.m. > >Session 5 >Public Theatricality and Gender in Early Modern Europe >Presider: Jean E. Howard, Columbia University > >1. Felicity Henderson, Monash University >" 'A Bawdy Lecture unto Ladies': Music Speeches at Early Modern Oxford" > >2. Allison Levy, Newcomb College, Tulane University >"Funeral Rites/Rights, Sites/Sights, and Sounds in Early Modern Florence" > >3. Mary Macklem, University of Pennsylvania >"Public Theatricality and Performance in Late Seventeenth-Century Venice: >Improvisatory Entertainments in St. Mark's Square" > >Session 6 >Assuming Power through Performance >Presider: Peter Platt, Barnard College > >1. Sherri Olson, University of Connecticut >"Performance and Ritual in the Village Court: Drama with a Purpose" > >2. Amy Schwarz, The Frick Collection >"Eternal Rome and Cola di Rienzo's Show of Power" > >3. Joyce Coleman, Brown University >"Public-Access Patronage: Book-Presentation from the Crowd at a Royal >Procession" > >Session 7 >Rituals of Song and Dance >Presider: Anne Prescott, Barnard College > >1. David Schiller, University of Georgia >"Music as Representation and Sacrifice in the Coronation of Richard the >Lionhearted" > >2. Bill Engel, Independent Scholar, Nashville, TN >" 'Mummeries allso, and Moriskors': Performing Death" > >3. Sarah Klitenic, Trinity College, Dublin >"Ritual Chanting in the Renaissance Platonic Academy" > >Session 8 >Performative Reading >Presider: Paula Loscocco, Barnard College > >1. Kathryn A. Duys, University of Chicago >"Performance Through the Eyes of a Medieval Poet: A Guide for the Perplexed" > >2. Marlene Villalobos Hennessy, Columbia University >"Penitential Reading and the Ethics of the Manuscript Page: >'The Hours of the Cross' in London B.L. Additional MS 37049" > >3. Pamela Sheingorn, The Graduate Center, City University of New York and >Robert Clark, Kansas State University >"Performative Reading: >The Illuminated Manuscripts of Greban's 'Mystère de la Passion' " > >RECEPTION: 5:30-7:00 p.m. > >SPECIAL PERFORMANCE: >8:00 p.m. Minor Latham Playhouse, Milbank Hall >"Everyman" >A play produced by four Barnard theatre classes featuring the work of >Barnard and Columbia studnets. > >(Program is subject to change.) From: Stella Revard [srevard@siue.edu] Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2000 9:58 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and Ciampoli I was interested by the discussion of Ciampoli, Galileo and Pope Urban VIII. I wonder if Don Knauss or anyone else on the list knows whether Milton met Ciampoli. I presume this is Giovanni Ciampoli (1590-1643), who was an associate of Urban VIII. Thanks, Stella Revard From: Dan Knauss [tiresias@juno.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2000 12:00 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Milton and Ciampoli Yes, that's Giovanni Ciampoli. I do not know if Milton met him. Dan Knauss Marquette University On Tue, 17 Oct 2000 08:58:24 -0500 Stella Revard writes: > I was interested by the discussion of Ciampoli, Galileo and Pope > Urban VIII. I wonder if Don Knauss or anyone else on the list knows > whether Milton met Ciampoli. I presume this is Giovanni Ciampoli > (1590-1643), > who was an associate of Urban VIII. > > Thanks, > > Stella Revard > ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.