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Original Post: Galileo's Daughter
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Everyone knows the tales of Galileo discovering the moons of Jupiter, and his dropping cannon balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa -- Albert Einstein referred to him as the Father of Modern Science -- and we all know of his trials by the Inquisition. But who was the man and how did he live? Dava Sobel addresses these questions as she tells the story of Galileo and his daughter, Suor Marie Celeste, a cloistered nun, in Galileo's Daughter.
Essentially a biography, letters from Galileo's daughter are interspersed throughout the book. At first, the letters seem trivial, overly pious, self-serving, and filled with requests for money and gifts, but as his story unfolds so does hers. Cloistered by her father at a young age, she depended on him for the bare necessities of life, but she repaid him with lifelong devotion. Her letters, concerned primarily with daily minutiae, show keen intelligence and unwavering support during his oppression by Pope Urban VIII.
To put it mildly, the letters of a cloistered 17th century Italian nun would not normally interest me, and frankly, I was expecting discussions of Galileo's work. Dava Sobel does a great job of telling Galileo's story in well written prose, but it is the letters from Sour Marie Celeste that make the book worth reading.
A personal challenge arising from this book: getting my (adult) sons to address me as Most Illustrious and Beloved Lord Father.
Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love, by Dava Sobel, ISBN 09-14-028055-3.
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