Emilio Isgrò “The abjuration of Galileo” – Palazzo del Bo, Università degli Studi di Padova
During the inauguration of the 801th academic year, on February 13, the work that the artist Emilio Isgrò made for the eighteenth anniversary of the University of Padua was unveiled: “The abjuration of Galileo”, installation in two acts.
In this work, the artist erases Galileo Galilei, or rather, erases the text of that abjury he pronounced before the inquisitor cardinals on June 22, 1633 as an act of repentance and compulsion for his innovative scientific theories then judged heretical.
The first act, entitled “Eppur si muove” places in the centre of the cloister of Palazzo del Bo a large granite globe whose continents are defined by black gates, the now unmistakeable figure of Isgrò’s art. Only a few distinct words emerge that abstract from the context acquire new and unpublished meanings. Isgrò’s erasures are not an endless succession of denials, but an anthem to love and life, that is, the opposite of what is generally associated with them.
