The splendid and recently renovated halls of the noble floor of Palazzo Borromeo in Cesano Maderno are hosting the exhibition “L’Occhio Nuovo. Occhiali, microscopi e cannocchiali.
Arte e Scienza fra ‘600 e ‘700” [The New Eye. Glasses, Microscopes and Telescopes.
Art and Science between the 17th and 18th century], sponsored by the Cesano Maderno municipality, by the Milan provincial authority and by the Institute for the History of Lombard Art.

This exhibition was devised by Prof. Andrea Spiriti of Isal and of the University of Insubria, whereas the scientific side was supervised by Prof. Pasquale Tucci, tenured Physics lecturer at the University of Milan, and administrator of the Brera astronomic museum. Such a broad-range exhibition, investigating into two centuries during which the fragmentation of knowledge and science as a whole came for the first time into the limelight in a systematic manner, called for the creation of a scientific committee, headed by Maria Luisa Gatti Perer of Isal and comprising art historians, science historians, literature historians and book historians.

The exhibition is therefore located between the noble floor of the Palazzo Borromeo and the famous Torretta, which Bartholomew III Arese already used as a sky observatory. At the bottom of the Torretta stairs, you will indeed be able to admire the interesting monochrome picture entitled “Allegory of Astronomy” by Giovanni Ghisolfi.
The exhibition enquires into the scientific culture which in the 17th century marked the outgrowing of the geocentric theory, also known as Ptolemaic system, and the birth of modern science; this was a real revolution which, together with technological progress, increased out of all proportion the possibility of seeing what is infinitely small and what is infinitely large, thus producing a radical change in man’s relationship with the world and space.
Amateur in the field of optics, inquisitive in the field of natural science and astrophysical observer from the tower of his Palace in Cesano Maderno, Bartholomew III Arese (1610-1674) was a typical exponent of this new age, just as Carlo IV Borromeo Arese (1657-1734), his favourite grandchild and worthy heir, who was to broaden his mathematics and zoology interests also thanks to his daughter-in-law Clelia del Grillo Borromeo, extraordinary example of femme savante, on the very threshold of the Enlightenment Age. The Borromeo-Arese Palace in Cesano represents in the best possible way the seat and symbol of this fervour, which countered the geocentric of Ptolemaic theory with the heliocentric or Galilean theory, thanks to the use of the medieval tower as an astronomic observation point, but also thanks to the magnificent endowment of scientific tests and of course of the most advanced instrumentation that could be available at the time.
This is the purpose of the “Occhio Nuovo” exhibition, which offers, through a harmonious correlation the various vestiges from this prolific age.
In these halls you can admire precious scientific instruments, including Bion’s Astronomic Ring coming from Specola in Bologna, Lusverg’s Quadrant, coming from the History of Science Museum in Florence, Sevin’s graphometer, dating back to 1675, used to approximately measure corners, and the Gregorian telescope, dating back to approximately 1870, as well as the Germanic telescope dating back to the late 17th century.
These articles are surrounded by valuable portraits of various members of the Borromeo-Arese family and of scientists, such as Bonaventura Cavalieri and Manfredo Settala, who was to make a precious contribution to the revival of the Ambrosian Academy, an institution protected by the Borromeos.

The painter Giacinto Santagostino, from Milan, was paid 100 lire in 1669 for a large portrait of Bartholomew III Arese.
It is interesting to note that this exhibition also includes six pieces from the Settala collection, that is six stones, including an Egyptian jasper; these are a sign of the late-Renaissance appreciation for the ludus naturae and the scientific ability to produce typological order.
Displayed in showcases, rare scientific texts of the time, such as “Dialogue on the two maximum world systems” by Galilei, “De rivolutionibus” by Copernicus, the Complete Works by Girolamo Cardano, Nuncio Sidereo by Kepler and Astronomiae Instauratae by Tycho Brahe; some of these pieces come from the Trivulziana Library, others from the Ospedale Maggiore in Milan, from the National Braidense Library and from the Florence Specola.
A really impressive and strongly fascinating human and scientific learning itinerary of great historic importance, revealing the scientific background shared by the contemporaries of Galileo, Torricelli, Bacon and many others.

An engrossing chapter is also the one dedicated to the physician Francesco Giuseppe Borri, a friend of Bartholomew Arese, who displayed great genius in reading the great book of nature (even though he accomplished this in a disorderly manner, wandering between heresy and mysteries), since with his “De artificio oculorum humores restituendi”, he exhaustively tackled the issues of 17th century knowledge on the mechanisms of vision.