Dantes Inferno

Ironically, it was a lecture on literature that would turn Galileos fortunes. The Academy of Florence had been arguing over a 100yearold controversy: What were the location, shape, and dimensions of Dantes Inferno Galileo Galilei wanted to seriously answer the question from the point of view of a scientist. Extrapolating from Dantes line that [the giant Nimrods] face was about as long And just as wide as St. Peters cone in Rome, Galileo deduced that Lucifer himself was 2,000 armlength long. The audience was impressed, and within the year, Galileo had received a threeyear appointment to the University of Pisa, the same university that never granted him a degree.