Regarding the lodestone that I purchased for Prince Cosimo from Sagredo a few months ago:  I have devised a plan in which I intend to compare the lodestone to the power of the prince, for whom I shall propose an emblem of a medal.

The body of the impresa shall be globe-shaped with a number of small pieces of iron that surround it.  The soul of the impresa will comprise the motto: Vim Facit Amor (Love produces strength.)

Accordingly, the pieces of iron which are inevitably attracted to the lodestone will metaphorically represent Prince Cosimo’s subjects who are inevitably attracted (by love) to their ruler!

I am in the process of negotiating a price for Sagredo’s lodestone- a powerful magnet weighing 56 ounces, it can lift 132 ounces of iron.   The Grand Duke of Tuscany may be interested in procuring it.

Meanwhile, snowfall in Padua continues, unabated.

I shall not say what I have accomplished by this work of mine, but let those judge who have learned from me up to now, or will learn in the future.  GG

I confess that I do not possess such a perfect faculty of discrimination.  I am more like a monkey that firmly believed he saw another monkey in the mirror, and the image seemed so real and alive to him that he discovered his error only after running behind the glass several times to catch the other monkey.  GG

If we could believe with any probability that there were living beings on the moon or any planet, different not only from terrestrial ones but remote from our wildest imaginings, I should for my part neither affirm nor deny it, but should leave the decision to wiser men than I.

GG

    Tethys “eyeball”

And thus I tear the blindfold from your mind;

My tongue is never tied when truth it sings,

You think that scorn and injury can bind

From alteration all supernal things

But now a flame begins from which we find

That heaven can create anew, which brings

Our thanks to Mother Nature for this light

That shows us truth and causes us delight.

GG

Which reminds me of a dialogue  I overheard between two farmers concerning that new star which appeared in the heavens:

Natale: Why, didn’t you see that star three months ago, shining at night like a skunk’s eye? The one that you see now in the morning when you go out to prune the grapevines?  The real bright one.  Well, it was just born then and had never been seen before.  That’s what’s really causing these freaks and this drought, according to what a Doctor at Padua said.

Matteo:  How do you know it was never seen before?

Natale:  The other day I heard a man that was reading this little book and he said it only began to show last October eight.  The book was by a Padua prof, and said a lot of things.

Matteo:  A pox on those goat turds at Padua.  Maybe just because that fellow never saw it before, he wants everybody to believe him that it wasn’t there.  Me, I’ve never been to Germany, but it’s there just the same.

GG

This contemporary conversation reported three weeks ago between two customers at a printer’s  shop in Juneau, Alaska regarding this remarkable photograph,  illustrates vividly  that we are still profoundly confused about aurora:**

Woman: Oh!  That’s GORGEOUS! Is that the “green flash”?

Photographerr’s Wife: No, it’s the sub-visual aurora.

Woman:  No, my friend told me that at 5PM you can see a green flash right where the sun is setting.

Photographer’s Wife: No, the green flash occurs closer to the equator, not up here, plus…

Woman: No, my friend said he’d seen it before.

Photographer’s Wife: OK, see the glacier? When you are looking at that glacier from that angle you are looking north, and also? we are too far north for the greenflash, and also? that’s taken at midnight.

Woman: Are you SURE?

Printer: Yeah, I think she’s sure.

**Courtesy of April McVay

The pious inform us that we should accept misfortune not only in thanks, but in infinite gratitude to Providence; misfortune detaches us from an excessive love for earthly things and elevates our minds to the celestial and divine.  That whatever the course of our lives, we should receive it as the highest gift from the hand of God, in Whom is equally reposed the power to do nothing whatever for us.

It’s just that I sometimes forget to thank the Almighty for the gift of my arthritis!  GG

Remembering Francis Bacon–

Francis Bacon–the late, great British philosopher reportedly had a sharp appetite for new sensations and curiosities. Unfortunately for him, his final experiment– on putrefaction, was lethal.

Seems that Bacon’s wife assigned him the task of procuring a chicken for dinner. Dutifully, he went to the market and bought one. But on the way home his fertile mind began to wander, and wonder: if the chicken were killed and frozen, how long would its flesh remain fresh and free from decay? So he dispatched the chicken and stuffed it with snow, but in removing his gloves to do the job more thoroughly, had himself become chilled and fell ill. Upon arriving home he immediately went to bed before dinner. Upon arising, he checked the chicken, noted that his experiment had gone exceedingly well and instructed his wife to prepare the bird for consumption. But suddenly fever consumed him and the phlegm choked himand Bacon died. It was a pity. Poor Bacon had preserved the chicken, but paid the ultimate price with his own life.

(We could hardly expect Mr. Bacon to retain a fondness for poultry after an experience like that, could we?)  GG