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From: paul@phs.UUCP (Paul C. Dolber)
Newsgroups: net.astro
Subject: Galileo's Anagram
Message-ID: <951@phs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Oct-84 13:26:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: phs.951
Posted: Fri Oct 19 13:26:28 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Oct-84 15:03:56 EDT
Organization: Dept. Physiol., DUMC
Lines: 20

In Evan Connell's "Points for a Compass Rose," which is a fascinating
book having nothing do do with astronomy, I came across the following:

     "Galileo, having recognized the phases of Venus
     and anxious to claim credit without revealing
     what he had learned until he could verify it,
     published the anagram: *Haec immatura a me jam
     frustra leguntur, o.y.* I've gathered this too soon.
     Or, these letters could be rearranged to read:
     *Cynthiae figuras aemulatur mater amorum.*
     The mother of Love follows the phases of Diana."

The book is a strange mixture of the bizarre but true and the
flagrantly untrue; does any astrobuff out there know if this
story is true? And for that matter, just what Galileo meant in
the rearranged version? (I'm no astronomer.)

Regards, and thanks if you come up with anything, Paul Dolber @ DUMC
(...duke!phs!paul).