Galileo’s Daughter
Dava Sobel
In spite of the name, this is a biography of Galileo. The name is justified because the author had access to 124 letters that his oldest daughter wrote to her father and all or part of many of these are included in the book. These letters are all that remains of the correspondence between father and daughter. None of Galileo’s letters to her have been preserved.
Galileo’s children—two daughters and a son—were illegitimate and this meant that the daughters’ prospects for marrying good husbands were very poor. He therefore placed them both in a convent of the Poor Claires Order. The eldest daughter, who took the name “Maria Celeste,” was believed to have had the intellectual ability of her father but the intellect of her siblings was nothing to brag about.
Being a “Poor Claire” meant that all money for both the nuns and the convent had to come from alms; they were not even allowed to sell the produce they raised in the convent gardens. Thus many of the letters included requests for money and although he often seemed to be concerned about his money, Galileo was able to provide it.
While this biography covers Galileo’s life in considerable detail including the fame derived from his invention of the telescope, it is his quarrel with the Catholic Church that gets a good deal of attention. Galileo considered himself a devout Catholic, but he also felt the Church was wrong in insisting that the sun traveled around the earth. He got into trouble twice. The first time he received little more than a reprimand and a demand that he not espouse his view that the earth traveled around the sun. Later he wrote a book in which he seemed to rather blatantly disobey the conditions previously imposed on him, although he maintained his innocence. The book brought down the wrath of the Church and Pope Urban VIII. He was required to travel to Rome for his trial and Ms. Sobel has included a transcript of a portion of that trial. He was found guilty in spite of considerable support from his friends. His punishment was a house arrest at the home of a friend in which he could not under any circumstances leave that house nor could he receive any scientific visitors, nor discuss his improper views with anyone. Galileo’s friends and many others from the scientific world made many appeals to Urban VIII to relax or cancel the punishment but the Pope was adamant that the punishment should stand. Later he did allow Galileo to return to his own home which was next door to the convent where his daughters lived. But he could not leave his home and the nuns were never allowed to leave the convent, so even though they were close neighbors, he and his daughter could communicate only by letters.
Pope Urban VIII was not a popular pope, although the main reason was not his treatment of Galileo but his decision to participate in the Thirty Years War and the increase in taxes that were required to pay for it. It is said in reference to a statue of Urban VIII, that he died at 11:15 a.m. and by noon the statue was demolished.
Although our founding fathers probably did not have the Galileo story in mind when they insisted that the Church and State must be separate, it is easy to see why they felt that way.