Fingers, tooth said to be Galileo's are found

ROME (AP) — A Florence museum says two fingers and a tooth believed to belong to Galileo Galilei have been found and will go on display next spring.

Three fingers and a tooth were taken from the astronomer's body in 1737 and placed in a container.

Paolo Galluzzi, director of the Museum of the History of Science, said a private collector had bought a container at auction containing two fingers and a tooth. The collector contacted Florence cultural officials and the parts and the container were found to match descriptions of the Galileo relics in historical documents.

The fingers, from the right hand, and the tooth, will be shown to the public next spring.

Galileo, who died in 1642, was branded a heretic by the Vatican for saying the Earth revolved around the Sun. In the early 1990s, Pope John Paul II rehabilitated him.