Galileo's Daughter

Author Dava Sobel has published another great story. Wrapping a family with intimate history has again served her well. Like her book, LONGITUDE, this book gives the reader a glimpse into Renaissance Italy. This was the time of exploration and discovery, a time of religious authoritarianism, papal confusion and turnover, and a remaking of the map of Europe. Galileo, the professor, scientist, observer, inventor, and father.
The story revolves around the relationship between Galileo and his older daughter, the eldest of his 3 children. The 2 daughters have been given to the Catholic Church as nuns in a convent. This was commonly done by Catholic families, given the cost of dowries of the period. The daughter was educated, intelligent and loved her father very much. The surviving letters of their correspondence detail not only life in the convent, but her response to the many travails of her famous father.
Galileo began to challenge the Copernican earth centric theory with a solar centric theory based on mathematics and observations. This theory did not sit well with the Church, the Pope, and the members of the Inquisition: the fact finding board of the Church. It was like a Grand Jury, excepting that the Inquisition could find a suspect guilty and impose sentence and penalties. So it was with Galileo. Despite his failing health, he was found guilty of a mild form of heresy and confined in Rome. He was then sentenced to house arrest at his home near Florence but he was not allowed to leave to visit his daughters even though they lived within a few miles.
The Pope would not relent, even when Galileo's daughter took sick and died within days at age 26. Galileo himself, died just a few years later without any relief from his sentence. It wasn't until 1899 that the Church reviewed his case.
Galileo's crime revolved around the discoveries made with with his "new" telescope. Grinding his own lenses, he was able to calculate the necessary curvature to be ground for each lens. His crime: writing about what he saw and what it meant to him as an observer. Of course, this differed from what Church officials said was written in the Bible. Robert Bellarmine, the Church official who made the investigation, deemed his efforts heresy. Galileo was a devout Catholic, but also the father of modern science. He used what we call today the scientific method. The Catholic Church does not come off well in this book, truth be told!
It's a good read. It includes the local reaction to the Bubonic Plague and how it affected the population: survivors and victims alike. It's not a pretty picture. Somehow, Galileo survived
the plague, but not the Inquisition.