letters I made an uncouth verse which I inserted in my Short Account in the month of September of last year:—
But I was a very long way from the meaning of the letters; it contained nothing to do with Mars; and, not to detain you, reader, here is the solution of the riddle in the words of Galileo himself, the author of it:[2]—
"Di Firenze li 13 di Novembre 1610.—Ma passando ad altro, giacchè il Sig. Keplero ha in questa sua ultima narrazione stampate le lettere che io mandai trasposte a Vostra Signoria Ilustrissima e Reverendissima venendomi anco significato come Sua Maestà ne desidera il senso, ecco che io lo mando a Vostra Signoria Illustrissima per participarlo con Sua Maestà col Sig. Keplero e con chi piacerà a Vostra Signoria Illustrissima bramando io che lo sappia ognuno. Le
- ↑ Umbistineum. Apparently this is some German word with a Latin ending, such as um-bei-stehn; Kepler fancied that Galileo had discovered two satellites of Mars.
- ↑ The text of the four letters of Galileo followed here is that given in the edition of Galileo's works published at Florence, 1842-56; that in the edition of Kepler's Dioptrics, published at Augsburg, 1611, is very inaccurate. These letters were written to Giuliano de' Medici, ambassador of the Grand-Duke of Tuscany to the Emperor Rudolf ii. at Prague.
