‘Hauendo lui publicato sette fogli di carta’ : Leandro Pizzoni e la reputazione scientifica di Galileo

Leandro Pizzoni and Galileo’s scientific reputation. The Letter to Costanzo Salvi published in 1625 by Leandro Pizzoni has been totally neglected in Galileo’s scholarship because of serious misunderstandings concerning its authorship, nature and scope. This article calls attention to this text and shows that – however inept and heavily reliant on previous sources, such as Orazio Grassi and Francesco Sizzi – Pizzoni’s criticism of Salvi is historically interesting because it provides evidence of the reaction of a conservative Aristotelian against several aspects of Galileo’s teachings. Not content with criticizing Salvi’s Atomism, Pizzoni openly attacks Galileo’s scientific reputation, qualifies his way of philosophizing as «extraordinary», and refutes his astronomical discoveries, recalling that they had been badly received at the University of Padua. Moreover, Pizzoni praises Aristotle in terms that are strikingly similar to the ones employed by Galileo when penning a satirical portrait of dogmatic Aristotelians in his Dialogue on the two Chief World Systems.