Science Museum

We were lucky enough to have a private tour of  the Galileo Museum in Florence. (P.S. I am writing this because, it was a highlight of our trip and Matt didn't write about it because he says it is not related to food). Karina our tour guide was from London and married to an Italian. She led us across the Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore to the Palazzo Vecchio telling us that in Medici times the rich people were beheaded in the square they got the easy quick death. While the poor people were paraded around the square and hunks of flesh were pulled from their bodies and then they were drawn and quartered. When we got to museum she explained it was all about control. The church control and the medici control were absolute.
There were many gorgeous  gold, intricately worked sundials. She explained most people didn't have any way of telling time except by the Church bells and there was a curfew after the last mass at 5pm. There was also may beautiful globes based on the astrological system and of course on the idea that the sun and  the planets revolved around the sun. She stated that when Galileo proposed differently it was a remarkable act of courage.later he had to recant his statements and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. She said womens jobs were to have as many boy babies as they could and if they died ..oh well.. She also said that the Church considered your body sinful, so the Christians didn't wash themselves because you had to touch yourself to wash yourself, so they died from the plague in record numbers while the Jews who washed as a part of their religious rituals fared much better .

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