Antonio Pellicanò
Del periodo giovanile di Galileo Galilei. 
Il trattato di fortificazione. 
Alle radici del pensiero scientifico e dell'urbanistica moderna
Gangemi Editore, Roma, 2001

Introduction
Prof. Rosario Giuffrè
Ordinario di Cultura Tecnologica  della Progettazione e Preside Facoltà Architettura Reggio Calabria

Antonino Pellicanò's work, with a detailed proposition of evidence and of interpretations, takes up anew the ever open and pertinent debate, on the two central theses of the unitary nature of  scientific research during the Italian Renaissance and of the proposition that scientific progress always occurs on the fringes of intersection of the various sectors of investigation.
That the figure of Galileo Galilei is in itself a paradigmatic path of how experience becomes an active exploratory and operative philosophical route, has already been accepted by the multiplicity of studies and re-evaluations of his figure. It is equally true that, however deeply he has been studied, admired or contradicted, the Pisan scientist has still been very little discussed structurally and even less has the range of his thinking been evaluated in the light of the great influence it has had.
I have already had the opportunity on other occasions to underline how the mere intuition of weight as produced by a mass in rapid movement completely upset the whole structural experience of architects, reintroducing themes about functional variability, about the aleatory nature of the response and finally about the concept of the location of the plant: Borromini would certainly not have existed without him, nor his imitators or late followers, all too often attributed to a revival of gothic styles completely extraneous to their project work.
On the other hand, as often happens for all the intelligences that have produced a lot about the thesis of the research for a thread which might represent the suffering of the exploration work made by them, also in the case of Galileo, not everything has been explored and not all of what has emerged has been placed in a central position as influencing further developments.
It is true that Tafuri, Manno, Di Pasquale and Fiore have widely suggested aspects and visions to reveal  other sides of Galileo's research, but it is also true that Galileo Galilei has hardly even been explored for the relational interferences between the physical-natural themes, and those morphological and aesthetic ones: rightly in carrying out a very rigorous investigation, Pellicanò recalls the note of Panofsky on the mutual influences of the investigations, in as much as "If Galileo's scientific attitude is held to have influenced his aesthetic judgement, might not his aesthetic attitude have influenced his scientific theories?".  In this proposition of the author, naturally, the consolidated controversy about post-galileian determinism comes to the surface again: every consequence comes from the assumption that the causes  determine the effects.
Undoubtedly this is a culturally undeniable and incontrovertible position, but it is also true that a deeper examination, like this of the Author, leads to the discovery of aspects and doubts that propose a figure newer than can be imagined. 
The manuscript on fortifications brought again to critics' attention (to attention of the critic's), throws a new light on the detailed complexity of the galilean exploration, and in a certain sense it gives meaning to those forms of mystical affection that the scientist had for all natural manifestations and objects, with the systematic interest to propose and verify concrete actions for attitudes of coherent and correct utilisation of the environment.
We certainly cannot imagine that Galileo intended to anticipate absolutely contemporary experiences about territorial culture, but it is equally true that Pellicano's detailed attention seems to let us understand that the various principles  of physical reality followed by the Pisan have always linked to or perhaps are complemented by the descriptive and utilitarian intention to let the territory be utilized by the superior capacity of the Man.

In this sense we must understand the esse est percipi, and the requisite of functional utility, and its organization in performance aspects, transfers the perceptive knowledge of territorial structure to the possibility of a planning definition: reality is a phenomenon that exists, yet to be interpreted. It is therefore extremely interesting to imagine that  beside the enormous theoretical treatise production, that so enlivened deeply and widely the culture of the city, there was also a scientifically valid premonition, that could foresee not only a project art but also an authentic and coherent science of architectural planning.
Today, regarding those working hypotheses, it is usual to speak of a technological culture of environmental planning, but it is undeniable that Pellicanò's reasearch opens a horizon to be explored completely and to enrich with further debates, and it transfers the scientific origins of urbanistic science to the same origins of contemporary scientific thought, re-creating an epistemological and structural unity,  already explored and recognized in the total genius of the works of Michelangelo and Borromini, and today traceable to the whole phase of the post - Renaissance path.
It is certainly not my task, either for competence or specific knowledge, to evaluate the merits of the historical and documentary aspects of the work carried out, but if the manuscript ascribed to Galilei is this offered us by Pellicanò, here we find complete notes  on the itinerary, the contextualization and finalization of territorial realizations,  the description of the actions necessary for the transformations and of the geometrical and building modes to be used, until the almost pedantic description of the equipment utilized and in the recognizable congruent material solutions.
I am certain in any case that it would be most interesting to make a comparison of the text so as to explore all the roots of the knowledge which are attributed to Galilei in this case, of the cultural heritage which the scientist may have dipped into, and of the projections that he would have solicited on the same theme as other authors working more systematically on the territory.