There are several good portraits of Galileo extant, two of which, by Titi and Subtermanns, are engraved in Nelli's Life of Galileo. Another by Subtermanns is in the Florentine Gallery, and an engraving from a copy of this is given by Venturi. There is also a very fine engraving from the original picture. An engraving from another original picture is in the frontispiece of the Padua edition of his works. Salusbury seems in the following passage to describe a portrait of Galileo painted by himself: "He did not contemn the other inferior arts, for he had a good hand in sculpture and carving; but his particular care was to paint well. By the pencil he described what his telescope discovered; in one he exceeded art, in the other, nature. Osorius, the eloquent bishop of Sylva, esteems one piece of Mendoza the wise Spanish minister's felicity, to have been this, that he was contemporary to Titian, and that by his hand he was drawn in a fair tablet. And Galilæus, lest he should want the same good fortune, made so great a progress in this curious art, that he became his own _Buonarota_; and because there was no other copy worthy of his pencil, drew himself." No other author makes the slightest allusion to such a painting; and it appears more likely that Salusbury should be mistaken than that so interesting a portrait should have been entirely lost sight of.
Galileo's house at Arcetri was standing in 1821, when Venturi visited it, and found it in the same state in which Galileo might be supposed to have left it. It is situated nearly a mile from Florence, on the south-eastern side, and about a gun-shot to the north-west of the convent of St. Matthew. Nelli placed a suitable inscription over the door of the house, which belonged in 1821 to a Signor Alimari.[175]
Although Nelli's Life of Galileo disappointed the expectations that had been formed of it, it is impossible for any admirer of Galileo not to feel the greatest degree of gratitude towards him, for the successful activity with which he rescued so many records of the illustrious philosopher from destruction. After Galileo's death, the principal part of his books, manuscripts, and instruments, were put into the charge of Viviani, who was himself at that time an object of great suspicion; most of them he thought it prudent to conceal, till the superstitious outcries against Galileo should be silenced. At Viviani's death, he left his library, containing a very complete collection of the works of all the mathematicians who had preceded him (and amongst them those of Galileo, Torricelli, and Castelli, all which were enriched with notes and additions by himself), to the hospital of St. Mary at Florence, where an extensive library already existed. The directors of the hospital sold this unique collection in 1781, when it became entirely dispersed. The manuscripts in Viviani's possession passed to his nephew, the Abbé Panzanini, together with the portraits of the chief personages of the Galilean school, Galileo's instruments, and, among other curiosities, the emerald ring which he wore as a member of the Lyncean Academy. A great number of these books and manuscripts were purchased at different times by Nelli, after the death of Panzanini, from his relations, who were ignorant or regardless of their value. One of his chief acquisitions was made by an extraordinary accident, related by Tozzetti with the following details, which we repeat, as they seem to authenticate the story:--"In the spring of 1739, the famous Doctor Lami went out according to his custom to breakfast with some of his friends at the inn of the Bridge, by the starting-place; and as he and Sig. Nelli were passing through the market, it occurred to them to buy some Bologna sausages from the pork-butcher, Cioci, who was supposed to excel in making them. They went into the shop, had their sausages cut off and rolled in paper, which Nelli put into his hat. On reaching the inn, and calling for a plate to put them in, Nelli observed that the paper in which they had been rolled was one of Galileo's letters. He cleaned it as well as he could with his napkin, and put it into his pocket without saying a word to Lami; and as soon as he returned into the city, and could get clear of him, he flew to the shop of Cioci, who told him that a servant whom he did not know brought him from time to time similar letters, which he bought by weight as waste paper. Nelli bought all that remained, and on the servant's next reappearance in a few days, he learned the quarter whence they came, and after some time succeeded at a small expense in getting into his own possession an old corn-chest, containing all that still remained of the precious treasures which Viviani had concealed in it ninety years before."[176]