Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love

* Of course I'm not going to give the ending away. * However erudite I might smugly think I am about the merits of well-written non-fiction, I was simply blown away by the emotional firepower of the conclusion of this book. * I have been to Florence many times, and have visited the Church of Santa Croce during each visit, where Galileo's tomb resides today on the same floor as the legendary Michelangelo and Machiavelli. * If I had read something like Sobel's book 10 years ago, it would have sparked a burst of emotions heretofore missing in those visits, similar to splashing a million colors onto a blank canvas, or in the case of Galileo's tomb, injecting life onto a slab of colorless marble. * The amazing beauty of this work is that it reads like a novel, or more to the point, it paints pictures reminiscent of the language of cinema. It is historical, factual and meticulous. Yet it is not TOO detailed. * Unlike typical historical treatments of people whose accomplishments are regarded so magnificent that they are automatically given an entrance ticket into the pantheon of immortality, Sobel's story of Galileo and his relationship with his daughter is engrossing, spellbinding and bereft of the technical minutiae that bogs down many works of non-fiction. * Too often, authors attempting to bring life to the thoughts and actions of great figures, go so overboard with tiny details that they undercut their own efforts. They disrupt the narrative momentum so critical to good old fashioned story-telling. There's nothing worse than to read half way down a page and then realize that you missed everything crammed so badly into two paragraphs that you're forced to read them again. * "Galileo's Daughter" is a work of non-fiction and an easy read, despite its potentially forbidding subject. While much verbiage is expended about the master's fight to prove Copernicus' theory of a sun-centered galaxy, in the face of recriminations and potential persecutions from the Catholic Church, the author's method of tackling this issue is unlike anything you will ever find in a boring textbook. The result is pure entertainment, like watching a drama about a clash of ideas and egos, the stuff movies are made of. * After a while, you are lulled into thinking that the title of Sobel's book is merely a subtext to what is really Galileo's story. His daughter's letters simply humanize the "legend" of Galileo, transforming him into a domestic, a real person, a parent with the normal concerns for his children. For all of his cranial powers, Galileo is not so self-absorbed that he abrogates his responsibilities as a father. He comes off as a concerned parent who endeavors to provide the best for his children. * But then the twist! You think you know where this story is going because after all, this is a work of non-fiction! But you're wrong! * By the end of "Galileo's Daughter," author Sobel finds an ingenious way to circle back to what is inferred by the title of his book, despite the preponderance of words expended on Galileo himself. * The result is a stunner. * If you buy this book, and I recommend you do, DON'T cheat and go to its last few pages. If you do, you'll deprive yourself of the emotional impact of a revelation that may be common knowledge to some, but in reality is obscure to the greater body of people who think they know history. * "Galileo's Daughter" is a marvelous achievement. If all non-fiction works were written this way, I'd stop going to the movies.

GALILEO'S DAUGHTER By Dava Sobel (Penguin Books 2000) Sour Marie Celeste was the illegitimate daughter of Galileo Galelei - the eldest of his three, and only, children At the age of 13 her father had her admitted to the convent of San Mateo in Arcetri, where she would remain until her death at the age of 34 in 1634. Once admitted, or shortly thereafter, she started writing letters to her father - the most loving, beautiful, intelligent letters I have ever read. There aren't too many of them, but they have been preserved and form the excuse (if that is the right word) for this book - which is a part history of the life of Galileo, part comment on his times and a setting to publish the letters chronologically along with and in tune with events in his life. Every school child knows something about Galileo - whether it was his "invention" of the telescope (he didn't invent it; he improved it immeasurably) or his "discovery" of the fact that it was the earth which revolved around the sun rather than vice versa - and this too was wrong, He didn't "discover" this. The sun-centered universe (heliocentered) had been discovered and described by Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) in 1543, 21 years before Galileo was born in 1564. Using Copernican theory Tycho Brahe (1545-61) had fixed the positions of may stars both as to distance and location and Johannes Kepler (1591-1630) had established the planetary motion of the planets - or most of them. So it wasn't what he invented or what he "discovered" that eventually got him into trouble with the Catholic Church, it was the fact that he was by far the most gifted and the most prominent man to have advocated - or thought to advocate - the heresy of a heliocentered universe. He had been a star from the start, one of the most gifted mathematicians of his age or any other, one of the few who, instead of taking things as they are said to be, tried to find out how they really are. And thus was one of the first true scientists, a man who dropped balls of different weights from the tower of Pisa, who rolled balls of different weight and different sizes down inclines of different pitches, who measured the tides, floating bodies - always studying motion and/or the laws of motion - and almost all of modern physics is the study of motion whether it's string theory - action at a distance - or general relativity or the measurement of the effect of a collision of protons in the CORE tunnel in Switzerland this summer. He was always an academician, teaching mathematics at the University of Pisa or Padua or being the resident mathematician and experimenter for one of the Medici's. And on retainer to the same. He was always ill. He never married. His work was his spouse. However, he recognized his three children by his liaison with the beautiful Marina Gamba of Venice. Domestic life was not for him. To the end he worked and thought, living as a guest or retainer in many ducal palaces in Tuscany and Rome. He lived as an untitled man at the highest level of worldly or ecclesiastical aristocracy. He made enemies - many of them - but he persevered and died in a kind of house arrest at the age of 72, still working and under banishment for daring to support the idea that the earth moved about the sun which the Catholic Church, relying on Aristotelian and Pythagorean thought and on the literal word of Holy Scripter believed as holy writ that it was the sun which revolved about the earth. I have just spoken of his many enemies and of the ducal residences in which he often made his abode: and the book is full of this detail - too full in my opinion. It would have been better if much of this had either been omitted or if Ms. Sobel had taken the time to tell us something about the governance of his time, I would have been much better informed had I known something of the Medici's or the Doges of Venice or the politics of the Popes who were involved in his life. And I would like to have known more about how people lived in his time. Similarly I would have liked to know more about convent life. There is enough in the book to indicate that it was perfectly dreadful -cruel, inhuman by our standards. Hared work, cold water, bad food, no rest, small quarters, iron discipline and no sleep. The Hanoi Hilton in San Matteo. Why would anybody lived this way? And why did Galileo put his daughters "away" at age 13. He robbed them of a life! (The excuse given by Sobel is that he learned he had known enemies in court because of his success and wanted to protect them; but this doesn't wash with me. All he had to do was to acknowledge them and, as his heirs, they would have properly evaded his enemy's attempts to take his property. I think he put them away because he was selfish. He didn't want three illegitimate children to be staining his record as he surged his way upward, buoyed by talent and reputation.) As Galileo stepped through his professional life he wrote to Sour Marie Celeste, but his letters did not survive. Her replies and her spontaneous letters to him did survive, however, and manly of them are quoted here. Would that all children would love their father so much. Would that any one of us would have a child as intelligent, as articulate as she. Would that she were here today - or those like her - to call our attention to enduring love as contrasted to the conditions in which we live. There are a couple of other comments I want to get down here on paper before I quit. First - about Galileo's "Trial". It is covered accurately and well in the book. In brief Galileo had published in Dialogues the essence of Copernican thought spoken through the mouth of a neutral that was just saying what it was. Then there were two characters, one of which was Galileo under a false name, who discussed it. Thus he never on paper espoused the Copernican heresy. He just said what it was. He thought he had a deal with Cardinal Bellarmino (later Saint Bellarmine) that as long as he didn't teach or espouse it he was not in conflict with Church teaching. However, 15 years later he fell out of favor with Pope Urban VIII. His enemies in the Vatican called on the Inquisition to question him and it was as the result of this that he was sentenced to house arrests. The trial is well covered in the book, but I wish Sobel had told us more about the Inquisition, how long it lasted, what it did, what procedures were followed, how it was independent (if it was) of the Vatican. What was the Index? What happened to people who wrote things that made their way to the Index of banned books? What kind of books? How many? I also wish she had told us more about the thirty Years War because it is frequently mentioned and apparently played a direct role in the attitude of the Catholic Church at the time. Woven through out this history of Galileo's life and the beautiful love expressed by his daughter (who was every bit as bright as he was) is the conflict between science and religion. Sobel never addresses it. But it's pretty clear to me. Religious belief cannot overrule, change or ignore true scientific discovery. And the greatest conflicts in this area have been the Galileo incident with respect to the heliocentered universe and Darwinism. God made the world and He made the rules of nature and God doesn't bend, break or ignore His rules because they are contrary to the ideas of His people

Fantastic read for those historically inclined and sentitive to gender issues.

After hearing such rave reviews about this book, I expected it to be more about - oddly enough - Gallileo's daughter. Unfortunately, it's not, really. What the book is, though, is a facinating biography of Gallileo. For that alone, it's worth the read. It's easy to forget what difficulties he labored under and what a staggering intellectual contribution he made; certainly the father of modern science. This is the majority of the book, and this much is well-written, engaging, and interesting. It's very unusual to find history that is all these things. Somehow, though, the parts that bring in his daughter are much less successful and just not that interesting. We really learn very little about her through her letters, and that's all we get to see of her. We find that she was deeply religious, she adored her father, and that he found her a sustaining presence, but the nature of this relationship is largely unexplored and unexplained; we just get the superficial expression - and that only from one side (Gallileo's letters to his daughter are lost), and with massive gaps. It's like listening to only one side of a conversation, and that only intermittantly. Plus, many of her letters are mainly focused on domestic details which are, sad to say, rather boring. I guess after all the hype I had expected or hoped for more exploration of Suor Maria Celeste's character, perhaps filling in the gaps and exploring the themes "I Claudius"-style, but no dice. Since the communication is so sparse, the "Science, Faith, and Love" elements do less well than the "historical memoir" (whatever that means). Anyway, this is a hard book to rate because I did quite enjoy it for it's "Biography of Gallileo" element, and as such I might give it 4 or even 5 stars. But as a book rather grandiosely titled "Gallileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love", I found it fell rather short of that mark; it's attempts to delve into the character of Suor Maria Celeste were not particularly successful in my opinion.

This is a super book which brings to life the daily routines of the 17th century -- including those life of a cloistered nun -- while telling a great love story, recounting the development in Europe and Italy of modern physics, and describing the political and academic intrigues and jealousies that led to the banning in Italy of the Copernican theory of the universe. Yet, at the same time as Galileo endured persecution by the inquisition and was forced to recant his ideas, buoyed by the love of his friends and, especially, his remarkable daughter, Marie Celeste, he retained both his religious faith and his confidence in science, and continued to work, producing some of his finest work even while under house arrest. Galileo's story continues to have significance in our present era, when science, and particularly biology, is under attack by political and religious fundamentalists. Sobel's book shows the pettiness and ultimate impotence of such attacks in the face of courageous, ethical minds such as Galileo's and the force and beauty of nature. Best of all, she brings this point home without pedantry or proselytizing, but rather by telling the story simply, as it occurred: and indeed, "Eppur, si muove."

For us laymen - neither historians nor scientists - Dava Sobel has delivered a fascinating and readable exploration of a time in history that has had an immeasurable effect on our own, "modern" life, both at the societal and individual levels. She offers a thorough and apparently well-documented re-analysis of events that shaped the futures of the sciences and the Catholic faith. She tackles these large issues with clarity and an ability to communicate technical, or hairsplitting, concepts to the average reader. She is able to take us through the relationships, personal strengths and follies, and international events that led up to Galileo's famous trial, and does it in such a way that we are not bored in the least. At the same time, she gives a unique look at the daily lives of people who walked, talked, breathed and loved, just as we do today. Through her research and descriptions, we see that we are not so different from the people who lived so long ago - a good lesson for these very-millennial, oh-so-modern times. In fact, the joy of this book is not the discovery that Galileo had a daughter, and that they wrote letters to each other that we can peek at. The joy is in realizing that we are part of that same tapestry of life; that we are not so unique - and alone - after all. In terms of expectations for this book, other reviewers are correct: the first portion of the text barely touches upon Suor Marie Celeste at all. However, this delay works. By the time we get to her story, and the story of Galileo's trial, we have enough background information to make them meaningful, and not just a list of dates and characters. This book was well-written; the style is comfortable and the narrative flows. It's as if a favorite storyteller has moved from fact to fiction and, with no embellishment of the truth, makes the past come alive. I recommend you read this, if only to get a sense of what has made us who we are today.

The book was just exactly as described, only in better condition. Arrived promptly at a very fair selling and shipping price. Absolutely the best way to buy books. My first experience buying used books. Except in exceptional circumstances, as gifts, I'd never pay the new price again when I can get almost new at a fractional price. Now that I've read it, I'd like to tell y'all about it. This is a fine book. The author researched it completely. The period literature about Galileo at the time of his problem with the pope was read and studied in the original Italian by the author. The book covers most of Galileo's life and accomplishments. As a court reporter, I was especially interested to find that a court reporter recorded his trial as well as depositions, what we would call "Discovery Depositions" now. The transcript is very, very similar to what I see today. A little stilted maybe, and in the third person. Question by Cardinal: "When did the accused first publish his book?" Answer: "He published it one book at a time as it could be copied, over a long time." And that was Galileo answering. The author read the actual documents in order to write about them. Read the book and you'll want to go to Firenze one more time, to see it through Galileo's eyes, and see bits of physical history that remain of his time. You'll want to go up to Siena, where he wintered while waiting the verdict on his church trial. The very thorough backbone of the book is the series of letters to Galileo by his daughter, she being placed in a convent with her sister because of their illegitimacy. No letters were ever found from father to daughter.

Strong writing and evidence of excellent research. Well written with a strong voice. By definition, telling a story by way of ancient letters is tedious. That said, Dava Sobel keeps the flow with reportage of events and background not included in the letters to keep the reader engaged. What was especially noteworthy to me was the backstory of the letters. The life of some women in the 1600s was revealed leaving this reader wanting more detail. The submissiveness was repulsive, but the need for it, the pervasiveness of it, was shown as ordinary. I do believe a whole other book could be composed just to reveal more of what the nuns and other women had to endure. The myths about Galileo's life were corrected.

Among the books I've really loved recently I'd group this one with Sobel's own "Longitude" and Gleich's "Isaac Newton". Even Mantel's couple of Cromwell dramatic biography novels. So, is Masterpiece a superlative too far? I'd argue that one of the outstanding achievements of this book is her love of the two main characters. This is lightyears away from a dry historical repositioning. At the end, Galileo's coffin is finally moved to a place worthy of the man's stature, and Sobel has done the same, to both father and daughter. The contribution of these people is to be finally recognised, and that is a worthy premise for a book and a writer. Sobel maintains and defends the man's dignity and reminds us that in observation, concept, theory, evidence and proof the was consistently accurate, in a period of human history when such things were rare or unheard of. In response to his critics and specifically those who campaigned to suppress his enlightening discoveries he argued robustly and with immense strength of character and courage. Despite long periods of personal suffering he dedicated his life to creating significant works, bringing mankind into a new era of understanding. If all of that were not enough, Sobel throws open the door to 16th and 17th century life in a cloistered convent, a spiritual prison for non-marriable girls. The poverty and denial over a short period would test any modern sensibility, but these women spent their lives suffering and providing what little they had to share with other people. Sobel quotes the daughter's letters and reveals the devotion and love which somehow sustained both of them, and her own many talents. I loved this book. Not a single sentence was irrelevant, every thread of context, every name, family lineage, outbreak of the plague, his books and works, the discoveries and innovation, it's all there to describe a life, a lifetime of a genius, the father of modern science. Her understanding of historical context is magnificent. It's a work of art.

J'avais lu ce texte en français mais je suis heureux de l'avoir acheté dans l'édition originale, en anglais. Cette version est riche d'illustrations et d'une belle présentation dans le graphisme. Le texte reste d'un intérêt majeur: à travers ce livre Galilée est encore vivant. J'ajoute que j'ai acheté le livre d'occasion mais qu'il était en parfait état.

Another wonderful book by Sobel. Her prose is clear and concise. I have read all of her works and have found all of them fascinating and illuminating.

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Full of information that was new to me. The relationship Galileo had with his eldest daughter was wonderful and very touching to see. She wrote him long, beautiful letters which are in the book in translation. The letters are set in context through a narrative of events in Galileo's life. A recommended read.