With a procession of extraordinary masterpieces, from Caravaggio to Ribera, from Artemisia Gentileschi to Guercino, Pisa is paying homage to its most famous citizen, Galileo Galilei, showing the influences of science on the arts of that time. To celebrate the 400th anniversary of his first astronomical observations, the city will be hosting a major show, from 9th May to 19th July, that retraces the great scientist’s entire life and intellectual career, with 150 works that throw light on the density of relations with which the sciences and arts responded to the Galilean "revolution". The show is set in the charming Palazzo BLU, the new exhibition space recently opened along the banks of the River Arno.

"The telescope and the paint brush. New science and new art in the age of Galileo" is one of the most important events marking the Galilean anniversary, offering visitors the chance to get to know the great scientist’s life story and how he influenced the culture of his time, in the very places where his early life was played out.

The show is divided into sections, beginning with Galileo’s birth and christening in Pisa in 1564, then progressing to his early years of schooling in Pisa, Florence and Padua. Alongside masterpieces by Aurelio Lomi, Passignano and Arcimboldo, visitors will have a chance to admire objects, instruments and manuscripts.

The second section opens with one of art history’s great masterpieces, Caravaggio’s The Crowning with Thorns, and records the multiple connections between the arts and sciences at the end of the sixteenth and

beginning of the seventeenth centuries. The contemporary fashion of the Wunderkammer is explored in the next section, highlighting Galileo’s criticism of the "strange little men" and his collections of exotic and extravagant objects.

Galileo’s artistic passion is the main theme of the fourth section, which tells the story of the scientist’s friendship with the painter Ludovico Cardi, known as "il Cigoli", some of whose most important works are on display.

The fifth section looks at the publication of the Sidereus Nuncius and its impact on the culture of the time, well portrayed in the masterpieces of Elsheimer, Ribera and Callot, while the next section shows the canvases of the artists who were influenced most by Galileo: Artemisia and Orazio Gentileschi, Francesco Furini, Filippo Napoletano and Jacopo da Empoli.

After the imaginary reconstruction of the small picture gallery that Galileo kept in Arcetri, in the room where he died in 1642, the exhibition ends with the most famous portrait of the scientist (painted by Justus Suttermans) who is still an icon of modern science today.