Giovan Battista Odierna statue

The Statue Giovan Battista Odierna

Giovan Battista Odierna was a presbyter, astronomer and architect, co-founder of Palma di Montechiaro as, together with the Tomasi family, he participated in the planning of the Duchy of Palma, drawing the famous orthogonal plan of the town that we see depicted on the pavement in front of the Monastery of the Benedictines, u Ritu, inside the Palazzo degli Scolopi and on the parchment of this installation.

Son of a shoemaker and bricklayer from Ragusa, his initial training was economically possible thanks to the help of a wealthy relative. The young Odierna immediately showed a strong inclination for astronomy and it was precisely his astronomical studies that made him famous in Italy and in Europe. Since the early 1600s, using rudimentary, self-constructed instruments, he observed space, thus managing to constitute one of the first systematic cataloging of celestial objects discovered by him, including comets, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies; Odierna studied Jupiter's moons, discovered some new fixed stars, and came very close to identifying Saturn's rings.

Not for nothing else, in addition to the scientific high school of Palma, there is also an asteroid that wanders free between Mars and Jupiter in space, which bears his name. Odierna was not limited only to astronomy, his insatiable curiosity and his talent led him to investigate every possible and hidden secret of nature. He was attracted by botany and meteorology, by anatomy and entomology, by "corpuscular philosophy" and by optics.

He built himself a microscope and studied with extraordinary skill the eye of the fly and other insects; he was probably the first to study and understand the nature and function of the retractable fangs of vipers; he also studied the human eye and had interesting insights into the nature of the rainbow. Finally, this great man, scientist, researcher, who spent his life observing the universe, asking himself questions about what the stars, planets, meteorite galaxies were, was the first Archpriest of Palma.