Galileo’s Lost Fingers Have Been Found

By Mark Lorenz on November 24th, 2009

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What the hell? How should I react to this? OH, THANK YOU LORD. FOR YEARS, I HAVE STROKED MY FACIAL HAIR IRONICALLY WORRIED ABOUT THE WHEREABOUTS OF THE FINGERS OF ONE OF SCIENCE’S GREATEST MINDS. Or should I just feel creeped out some dude was hording fingers of dead guys?

Yes, for those of you who have been truly concerned; Galileo’s fingers have been found. And this isn’t an Indiana Jones quest. Unfortunately, they weren’t jammed up the Pope’s ass like he would’ve wanted. One was his middle finger, though, which we can assume was extended to the Vatican and the rest of us mortals with pea-sized brains.

Galileo’s corpse had three fingers cut off of it nearly 300 years ago, and in that time, whoever perpetrated the deed was surely looking for an interesting way to use his fingers, but came up with nothing. In addition, the last remaining tooth on his lower jaw was taken. Oh come on, grave robbers. That’s just low.

Where were his fingers found? In a jar. Of course they were found in a jar. If you’re going to steal fingers from corpses, you’re not going to hang them in a picture frame. The jar was taken to an auction at the Museum of the History of Science in Florence by an enterprising person who suspected he had Galileo’s fingers. Kudos to you sir. You’re either very well informed or a paranoid schizophrenic.

Removing body parts from the corpse was a practice common with saints, whose digits, tongues and organs were revered by Catholics as relics. Relics with sacred powers. It’s an irony that Galileo got the same treatment even though the Catholic Church opposed his research.

The fingers will be reunited with the body in March of 2010.

Photo Source: Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza di Firenze

Source: CNN