http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8371521.stm
Museum finds astronomer Galileo's lost body parts
Two fingers and a tooth belonging to famed astronomer Galileo Galilei have been found more than 100 years after going missing, a museum in Italy says.
A collector bought the items, lost since 1905, at auction and gave them to Florence's History of Science Museum.
The museum said it had no doubt about the authenticity of the items.
Scientists cut the parts - plus another finger and a vertebrae - from Galileo's body in 1737, almost 100 years after he died.
Galileo, who lived from 1564 to 1642, was a hugely influential physicist and astronomer who helped develop the telescope.
He was branded a heretic by Italian authorities for supporting Copernicus's discovery that the Earth rotated around the Sun.
The body parts were removed from him 95 years after his death, when Church authorities decreed he could be reburied in consecrated ground.
One finger and the vertebrae have been conserved in museums since then, but the other parts were passed between collectors until they went missing in 1905.
The museum said that the discovery meant that everything taken from Galileo's body was now back "in responsible hands".
"On the basis of considerable historical documentation, there are no doubts about the authenticity of the items," it said in a statement.
The items will go on display at the museum in 2010, once renovation work is completed.
Collector gives Italy the finger.
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FBM
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Collector gives Italy the finger.
"A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it." ~ H. L. Mencken
"We ain't a sharp species. We kill each other over arguments about what happens when you die, then fail to see the fucking irony in that."
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"We ain't a sharp species. We kill each other over arguments about what happens when you die, then fail to see the fucking irony in that."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion."
Re: Collector gives Italy the finger.
While his contribution to science is very important, his body parts are special why?
no fences
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Gawdzilla Sama
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Re: Collector gives Italy the finger.
Italians love them some relics. They bust up a saint and scatter them about the planet. Ignoring the requirement in Revelations that all the body parts have to be in one spot for a person to ascend to heaven.Charlou wrote:While his contribution to science is very important, his body parts are special why?
Ein Ubootsoldat wrote:“Ich melde mich ab. Grüssen Sie bitte meine Kameraden.”
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FBM
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Re: Collector gives Italy the finger.
Charlou wrote:While his contribution to science is very important, his body parts are special why?
Tribal hero-worship among the post-Englightenment, scientifically-literate? 
"A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it." ~ H. L. Mencken
"We ain't a sharp species. We kill each other over arguments about what happens when you die, then fail to see the fucking irony in that."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion."
"We ain't a sharp species. We kill each other over arguments about what happens when you die, then fail to see the fucking irony in that."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion."
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JimC
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Re: Collector gives Italy the finger.
Saints are there already, silly!Gawdzilla wrote:Italians love them some relics. They bust up a saint and scatter them about the planet. Ignoring the requirement in Revelations that all the body parts have to be in one spot for a person to ascend to heaven.Charlou wrote:While his contribution to science is very important, his body parts are special why?
Nurse, where the fuck's my cardigan?
And my gin!
And my gin!
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Gawdzilla Sama
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Re: Collector gives Italy the finger.
No shit?JimC wrote:Saints are there already, silly!Gawdzilla wrote:Italians love them some relics. They bust up a saint and scatter them about the planet. Ignoring the requirement in Revelations that all the body parts have to be in one spot for a person to ascend to heaven.Charlou wrote:While his contribution to science is very important, his body parts are special why?
Ein Ubootsoldat wrote:“Ich melde mich ab. Grüssen Sie bitte meine Kameraden.”
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