Not many people know that the middle finger of the great Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei is on view in the Galilei Museum in Florence.
A fascinating science museum
The Galilei Museum is one of Italy’s most interesting science museums with, of course, a section dedicated to the great astronomer and scientist who was born in Pisa in 1564. Here you can admire many scientific collections linked to the Medici and other ancient noble dynasties and works, objects and memorabilia linked to Galileo. And then there is an object you would not normally expect to find in a museum: a middle finger. 
Galileo was under house arrest for life
When Galileo died in 1642, the Grand Duke of Tuscany wanted to bury him in the Church of Santa Croce in Florence but, as the scientist was considered a heretic – and this is why the finger should not be called a relic – and an enemy of the Church that had placed him under house arrest for life, he was buried next to the novices' chapel. Almost a century had to pass before the Church, in 1737, allowed the remains to be moved to the Church of Santa Croce. And at some stage, either during the exhumation of the skeleton and its transfer to the crypt, or at another time, the thumb, index and middle fingers of the great scientist’s right hand, together with a vertebra and a tooth were removed. 
The three fingers have since been reunited
The vertebra ended up in the University of Padua, where it can still be seen today. The middle finger remained in Florence, while the thumb, index finger and tooth disappeared. It was only in 2009 that Galileo’s fingers turned up at an auction, and they are now in the Galilei Museum together with the middle finger which sits in a small glass egg, while the index finger, thumb, and tooth are preserved there in a jar.
What would Galileo think?
Who can tell how Galileo would have felt about the final resting place of his finger? Would be see it pointing upwards to the sky in triumph, as he was the one who discovered that the earth revolves around the sun? Or is the pointing finger a gesture of defiance to the Church that condemned him? We will leave this for the visitor to decide.
For information: https://www.museogalileo.it
