I’m delighted to reblog this post by Josie Holford, who brings the past to bear on the present with such erudition. One of the commentators on her original blog pointed out that in Hart’s painting Galileo appears to be using a mobile phone and an iPad! He was indeed ahead of his time. And as Josie concludes, recent events in the UK, the US, and other English-speaking countries around the world suggest we could also do with a dose of Milton in the public arena. 

Josie writes:

I chanced upon this painting of the meeting between Galileo and John Milton and had a flashback to undergraduate days and the anthology we were required to buy and lug around (and possibly read.) It was  American, very heavy, very expensive, and full of all kinds of interesting but rather dense texts. I remember the…

When Milton met Galileo — Rattlebag and Rhubarb