GALILEO AND THE ROME OF THE 1600s

Science, Power and the Pursuit of Truth

This itinerary examines, through an urban walk in the historic centre of Rome, the tension between empirical observation and institutional authority in the context of the early modern period, taking Galileo Galilei's affair as its paradigmatic case. The aim is not a biographical reconstruction of the scientist, but an understanding of a fundamental turning point in the history of scientific thought: the transition from a model of knowledge grounded in authority and tradition to a paradigm based on observation, verification and reproducibility. The itinerary also seeks to show how the production and legitimation of knowledge are always embedded in a cultural and institutional context, and how scientific progress develops through conflicts, negotiations and long-term transformations.