Galileo 4

Latin Medieval and Neo-Latin
1

I finally got back to this project. I have two questions.

First, here is the Latin on Galileo’s pg 18 after the diagram:
“…; quarum media triplo distabat a Iove, quam ab orientaliori: eratque orientalior duplo fere maior reliqua, …”

Do I have this reasonably close?:
“of which the middle one was triple the distance from Jupiter, than from the more easterly one:
and the more easterly one was almost double the brighter remaining one.” What is maior connected with?

Second, he wrote a few lines later after, stating the starlets are wandering around Jupiter like Venus and Mars around the sun:
“quod tandum luce meridiana clarius in aliis postmodum compluribus inspectionibus observatu est”

I’m lost here: mid-day light? How does this fit the context? Is he saying something like we would in English “it dawned on me”? Became “clearer by mid day”?

Thanks for any suggestions.

2

  1. It is connected with orientalior

  2. You seem to have some typos: quod tandem luce meridiana clarius in aliis postmodum compluribus inspectionibus observatum est:

I interpret it as

which was eventually observed more clear than daylight in…

3

Thank you, Bedwere,

I did have a typo with tandum for tandem; however, obseruatu est, with a macron over the last u, is in the facsimile of the original from which I am working. (I don’t know how to add macrons in my post.) When I check a modern edition, it has observatum est.

So, I took the original to be the supine and figured if he went to the trouble of putting the macron over the u, it must so.

What do you think about this difference in texts? Is it meaningful?

4

According to Wikipedia, a tilde (not a macron)

[…] was used to make abbreviations in medieval Latin documents. When an ⟨n⟩ or ⟨m⟩ followed a vowel, it was often omitted, and a tilde (physically, a small ⟨N⟩) was placed over the preceding vowel to indicate the missing letter;[…]

A passive supine would be very odd there. Especially with observō.

To add macron (or tilde), you can use your compose key, followed by _ (or ~) and then the letter over which you want to place the diacritic.

5

Thank you for that clarification, bedwere.
Upon closer inspection, the “macron” is a tilde. I am due for a new eyeglass prescription!