Galileo, Poetry, and Patronage: Giulio Strozzi's Venetia edificata and the Place of Galileo in Seventeenth-Century Italian Poetry

Abstract

The Venetian poet and librettist Giulio Strozzi (1583 –1652) spent much of his career glorifying the Serenissima through a series of theatrical pieces. His only epic poem, the Venetia edificata (1621, 1624), while ostensibly a celebration of the republic, shows a level of commitment to Galileo Galilei (1564 –1643) and to Galileo’s science that is unique among poets of the time, Venetian or otherwise. It is the apex of Strozzi’s artistic project to incorporate Galileo’s discoveries and texts into poetic works. The Venetia edificata also represents the culmination of a fifteen-year effort to gain patronage from the Medici Grand Dukes in Florence. While the first, incomplete version is dedicated to the Venetian Doge, the second, finished version is dedicated to Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici of Florence. More than a decade after Galileo’s departure from the Veneto to Florence, Strozzi cites from Galileo’s early works, creates a character inspired by Galileo, incorporates the principles of Galileo’s science into the organizing structure of the poem, and answers one of Galileo’s loudest complaints about Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered (1581). Strozzi’s strategies both in writing the Venetia edificata and in seeking patronage for it underscore the ambivalent response to Galileo in contemporary poetry.