ATOMI, INDIVISIBILI E DOGMA

Seventeenth century atomism was a factor of the transition from renaissance nationalism to modern science; its theoretical program was difficult to execute and was contested (in the Catholic world) by official eucharistie theology. One proof of this is the record of Galileo's atomism, reconstructed here through a lexicographical analysis of the words atom/indivisible. The phases of development of this language have been reconstructed in relation to the physical phenomena under study and to the ideas with which Galileo was in contact; Jesuit scholasticism, the nominalism of Sarpi, and Agostinian mysticism. In the context of the conflict between atomism and the eucharist (Grassi, Froidmont), the unpublished speculations on indivisibles published in the Discorsi, which substituted the earlier mechanistic theses, reveal to a philological analysis the presence of an attempt at apologia. They are in agreement with the allusions attested by the correspondence (Micanzio, Castelli) and also with the reception of the Discorsi both then and later. Such aspects confirm the hypothesis that the question of atomism and the eucharist offered Galileo an analogy which played a heuristic role in the evolution of his natural philosophy.