This desire has given us the images of famous men, sculptured in marble, or fashioned in bronze, as a memorial of them to future ages; to the same feeling we owe the erection of statues, both ordinary and equestrian; hence, as the poet2 says, has originated expenditure, mounting to the stars, upon columns and pyramids; with this desire, lastly, cities have been built, and distinguished by the names of those men, whom the gratitude of posterity thought worthy of being handed down to all ages. For the state of the human mind is such that, unless it be continually stirred by the likenesses of things obtruding themselves upon it from without, all recollection of them easily passes away from it. Others, however, having regard for more stable and more lasting monuments, secured the eternity of the fame of great men by placing it under the protection, not of marble or bronze, but of the Muses’ guardianship and the imperishable monuments of literature. But why do I mention these things? As if human wit, content with these regions, did not dare to advance further; whereas, since it well understood that all human monuments do perish at last by violence, by weather, or by age, it took a wider view and invented more imperishable signs, over which destroying Time and envious Age could claim no rights; so, betaking itself to the sky, it inscribed on the wellknown orbs of the brightest stars—those everlasting orbs—the names of those who, for eminent and god-like deeds, were accounted worthy to enjoy an eternity in company with the stars.
What do You think about The Essential Galileo (2010)?
