On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the publication of Il Saggiatore , the treatise by Galileo Galilei published in Rome in 1623 which laid the foundations of the experimental research method of modern science, the Galileo Museum in Florence presents the exhibition "The City of the Sun. Baroque art and scientific thought in the Rome of Urban VIII", which will be inaugurated on 16 November 2023 in Rome in the Exhibition Space of Palazzo Barberini .

With this exhibition the celebrations of the election of Urban VIII to the papal throne (1623) continue after the great exhibition “The sovereign image. Urban VIII and the Barberini", organized by the National Galleries of Ancient Art last spring-summer.

Curated by Filippo Camerota with the collaboration of Marcello Fagiolo , “La Città del Sole” is conceived by the Galileo Museum in collaboration with the National Galleries of Ancient Art, the National Central Library of Rome and the Center for Studies on Culture and Image of Rome , and avails itself of the patronage of the Department of Culture of Rome Capital and of the National Committee for the celebrations of the fourth centenary of the election of Pope Urban VIII . The exhibition is produced by the Galileo Museum in partnership with Opera Laboratori.

The exhibition, scheduled from 16 November to 11 February 2024, celebrates 400 years since the publication of Il Saggiatore , the treatise by Galileo Galilei published in Rome in 1623 which laid the foundations of the modern concept of science, based on observation and on experimentation : supported and published by the Accademia dei Lincei, and offered as a gift to the newly elected Pope Urban VIII , the book was born from a dispute on the origin of comets between Galileo and the Jesuit Orazio Grassi.

In the work, in pages destined to remain memorable, the foundations of scholastic philosophy on which the Jesuit's arguments were based were radically refuted, to which Galileo contrasted his own conception of a nature organized on the basis of rigorous mathematical principles that do not allow exceptions.

On display are around a hundred precious original works, including paintings, drawings, engravings and books, loaned by prestigious Italian and foreign institutions ( including, in addition to the National Galleries of Ancient Art and the National Central Library of Rome, co-organisers of the exhibition, State Archives of Rome, National Central Library of Florence, Cabinet of Drawings of the Sforzesco Castle in Milan, Uffizi Galleries, Albertina of Vienna, Bibliothèque de l'Observatoire of Paris, Hessisches Landesmuseum of Darmstadt).

The exhibition intends to showcase the partnership between arts and sciences favored by Barberini's clients in the capital of the Baroque. The election of Maffeo Barberini to the papal throne in 1623 coincides with the publication of Città del Sole by Tommaso Campanella, the philosopher whom Pope Urban VIII freed from imprisonment and welcomed among the scientists of his court.