Padova I

They protect me from unfortunate results by locking it away page by page.
--Life of Galileo; Bertold Brecht

We walked through the narrow winding roads of Padova (Paduva), stopping here at the ornate arches of a medieval house and there to read the charcoal graffiti scored over the flaking paint of an old wall. On our way we passed a raised sarcophagus in stone and realised too late that it was a memorial to Dante.

The poet is believed to have spent a few years of his career in the city. Passing by the medieval Zabarello palace and further along the via San Francisco we turned into a small stone paved side street. There a few hundred feet down the lane, we saw what we were looking for.

Casa di Galileo (The house of Galileo) is now an unremarkable two-storey building, with fading walls and plain wooden window panes- marked only by a small sign board and an Italian flag. A swift walker might walk right past it without so much as a glance.No excited groups of tourists were crowded in front of those walls. The doors were locked. An air of neglect hung around the building. Yet Dani and me were excited. We stood many minutes on the street gaping at the building.Galileo Galiliei lived in this house, while he taught at University of Padua from 1592-1610. It was here that he developed his ideas on Copernicanism- ideas that would later lead to his inquisition by the Roman catholic church and later imprisonment.

If Galileo is lost inside the web of Padua's streets, the catholic church is jarring in its visibility. The Basilica of St. Anthony is the most celebrated of the city's land marks.This imposing structure , built over the centuries is a mix of Romanesque, Gothic and Roman styles with its huge domes giving it a Byzantine appearance. The inside of the Basilica is dotted with various funeral monuments and chapels. Frescoes and paintings fill its ceilings and pillars.Noted among these is the chapel of relics built in Baroque style housing the relics of St. Anthony. The scene is crowned by celebrating angels in stucco-work, rich in detail and delicate in design.Little white tents spread all- around the Basilica sell blessings threaded on rosettes and suffused in the incense fumes.A steady stream of visitors pour in to touch the tomb of St. Antony or to pin up pictures of their babies seeking his mediation and blessings.

Catholic church took its time to confirm that the earth in fact might not be the centre of the universe. It was in the year 2000 that the then Pope John Paul II issued a formal apology for all the mistakes committed by the Catholic church which included Galileo's trial. Eight years hence Pope Benedict XVI, Ratzinger had to cancel his visit to La Sapienza university, where in the year 1990 he had defended the position of the church in the inquisition of Galileo. Today a statue of Galileo Galilei is erected within the walls of Vatican. Perhaps the most powerful institution in the world, the Catholic church has its well developed ways to gloss over a the nasty episodes in its history, freeze dissent in a statue and to impose its singular structure of reason across the catholic world.

But there is much that slips the gaze of the Holy Roman See. Daniela tells me how in Brazil St. Anthony is the saint of match making. Women in search of a suitable spouse fill a tumbler with water and stick the figure of the saint head down into it. There the poor saint is threatened to remain until he makes up his mind to act.
(cont'd..)