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

Dava Sobel

May 2009 · Bloomsbury Publishing USA

About this ebook

Inspired by a long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of Galileo's daughter, a cloistered nun, Dava Sobel has written a biography unlike any other of the man Albert Einstein called "the father of modern physics- indeed of modern science altogether." Galileo's Daughter also presents a stunning portrait of a person hitherto lost to history, described by her father as "a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me."

Galileo's Daughter dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishment of a mythic figure whose seventeenth-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion. Moving between Galileo's grand public life and Maria Celeste's sequestered world, Sobel illuminates the Florence of the Medicis and the papal court in Rome during the pivotal era when humanity's perception of its place in the cosmos was about to be overturned. In that same time, while the bubonic plague wreaked its terrible devastation and the Thirty Years' War tipped fortunes across Europe, one man sought to reconcile the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic with the heavens he revealed through his telescope.

With all the human drama and scientific adventure that distinguished Dava Sobel's previous book Longitude, Galileo's Daughter is an unforgettable story

Ratings and reviews

My late husband bought me this book around 15 years ago and i read it in the bathtub. Saw it again recently when moving and definitely gonna read again ASAP. I liked the cover better on mine than the one i see here tho. It was helpful in my decision to leave the cult I grew up in I do believe. It also contributed to my love for astronomy and science I think. I for sure recommend to anyone especially unfamiliar with the history of Galileo and that entire time period. 🔭💙🔭💙🔭💙🔭

About the author

Dava Sobel is an award-winning science writer and former New York Times reporter who has contributed articles to Audubon, Discover, and The New Yorker. As a contributing editor to Harvard Magazine, she covered scientific research and the history of science.