as discussed by Kepler, conducted that most fervid, powerful, and
sagacious mind to the discovery of some of the most important laws of
the celestial motions; but it was not till Galileo, at Florence, had
pointed his telescope to the sky, that the Copernican system could be
said to be firmly established in the scientific world.


THE HOME OF GALILEO.

On this great name, my Friends, assembled as we are to dedicate a temple
to instrumental Astronomy, we may well pause for a moment.

There is much, in every way, in the city of Florence to excite the
curiosity, to kindle the imagination, and to gratify the taste.
Sheltered on the north by the vine-clad hills of Fiesoli, whose
cyclopean walls carry back the antiquary to ages before the Roman,
before the Etruscan power, the flowery city (Fiorenza) covers the sunny
banks of the Arno with its stately palaces. Dark and frowning piles
of mediæval structure; a majestic dome, the prototype of St. Peter's;
basilicas which enshrine the ashes of some of the mightiest of the dead;
the stone where Dante stood to gaze on the Campanile; the house of
Michael Angelo, still occupied by a descendant of his lineage and name,
his hammer, his chisel, his dividers, his manuscript poems, all as if
he had left them but yesterday; airy bridges, which seem not so much to
rest on the earth as to hover over the waters they span; the loveliest
creations of ancient art, rescued from the grave of ages again to
enchant the world; the breathing marbles of Michael Angelo, the glowing
canvas of Raphael and Titian, museums filled with medals and coins of
every age from Cyrus the younger, and gems and amulets and vases from
the sepulchers of Egyptian Pharaohs coëval with Joseph, and Etruscan