On 7 December 1592, Galileo Galilei gives his inaugural lecture as a newly appointed professor at the University of Padua. At 28 he is already famous with results in mathematics, in physics, and in applied science, and he comes from Pisa where he has held a chair for three years. He has already put to remarkable use his magnificent combination of keen observation and mathematical idealization and rigour, which clearly makes him the founder of our modem scientific approach. His book De motu

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... /t/ora, which combines some of his past works, already departs clearly from the Aristotelian way of thinking. His polemical style is already apparent in many incisive verses which he has written. ' Talk presented on the occasion of the 400th Anniversary of Galileo's professorship in Padua. Text prepared with the collaboration of P.