Galileo and Luna

Latin Medieval and Neo-Latin
1

I finished a lot of Galileo’s observations of Jupiter’s moons, and now moved to his first observations, which were of the moon.

From his page 7, he talks of the features on the moon as spots (if I’ve got that right). Then he writes:

“…; istae autem maculae suboscurae, & satis amplae unicuique sunt obviae, illasque aevum omne conspexit; quapropter magnas, seu antiquas eas appellabimus, ad differentiam aliarum macularum amplitudine minorum, …”

The phrase that I can’t get is: illasque aevum omne conspexit. Does omne go with aevum or conspexit? Is it “…every age” or “Everyone saw…”? I almost always have trouble with omnis.

He seems to relate the size of the spots he sees on the moon with their age. Here is my attempt with aevum omne:

“…; however, those somewhat-obscured spots,
and were big enough to meet one another,
and he perceived them every age (double accusative?)
wherefore, the largest, or if we will label them older,
for the differentiation by size of the smaller spotted ones, …”

How far off am I? Thanks for any help.

2

omne refers to the subject of the parenthetic, aevum (age in the sense of period of time).

But these somewhat obscure spots and rather large are obvious to everyone, and every age observed them; therefore we shall call them great or ancient, to distinguish from the other spots of smaller amplitude.

3

bedwere,

Thanks for your help. It’s quite clear now.

A question about your translation: you wrote “are obvious to everyone”. I was looking at obviae in the sense of: getting in the way, up against, meeting, etc., hence joining up or overlapping, as craters on the moon often appear. I could not find a reference for using “obvious.” How did you decide on “obvious”?

4

Hi. L&S also has obvious (which obviously derives from obvius :smiley: ) as a possible meaning. It just made sense to me. You could say easy to observe.

5

You know, it always seemed obvious to me that obvious ought to mean obvious!
Thanks again,
Wilbur