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Summary: Galileo New? In This Gem Of A Book YES! With A Twist!
Review: Dava Sobel has accomplished what is nearly impossible when dealing with a subject who is as well known, and documented as the life of Galileo. There must be literally hundreds of books on the man, and his works. Dava Sobel not only finds new source information, the letters of Galileo's eldest Daughter Sister Maria Celeste, but also uses them to expand on what is commonly known about Galileo the Scientist, the accused Heretic, and gives us Galileo the Father. It could be argued that the book is as much about Galileo as his Daughter, but that would be misplacing the emphasis of the book. We learn of the extremely harsh life of Cloistered Nuns, the medicines that Galileo's Daughter made and treated him with. This to me was fascinating as opposed to just knowing that Galileo was often sickly. From the detail in the book one could recreate these medicinal treatments if one chose to. This type of detail would not normally interest me, but here it is presented as a Daughter trying to maintain the physical health, as well as constantly buttressing the man's faith as he was accused, tried, sentenced, and watched his life's greatest work banned by his own Church. And to have this torment take place with the consent of a man that Galileo counted as a friend, both prior to his being Pope, and when he became Pope Urban VIII. I feel the Authoress did a brilliant job of handling the religious issue. Rarely can this be attempted without the writer being branded anti-Catholic. She was able to state the facts, without editorial comment, by which she successfully navigated a secular minefield. Some of the facts are so petty and mean-spirited that was it not for the fact they came from Vatican Records, Dava Sobel would find herself the target of the narrow-minded. She often will let the testimony speak for itself. When accused of publishing that which was considered Heresy, Galileo produces written permission granted by the Church Authorities prior to publication of his work. Hard to argue with that, but the Church not only ignored it, but convicted him in spite of it. This is not a Science book yet the Authoress includes enough without discouraging the non-scientist with math formulae. This is not a textbook that recites facts to be memorized and then repeated by rote repetition. What this is, is a gem of a book that makes a familiar historical figure new and fresh to the reader. She expands Galileo from one of history's great scientists, to a man, a man cruelly hurt, the head of a Family, a man betrayed by someone he called a friend. And finally, portrays a devoted Daughter that suffered along with, and did what she could, to support her Father spiritually and physically with a devoted Daughter's love. As I mentioned in the title this book has an outstanding surprise that I was never aware of. Dava Sobel brings it to light with such subtlety and grace that it is a touching revelation, rather than a cheap trick of literary device. Dava Sobel, many thanks, I look forward to your next work.
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Summary: Science, technology, and religion
Review: In her previous book, Longitude, Dava Sobel showed how technology (the construction of a sea-worthy clock) solved the problem of determining a ship's longitudinal position in the ocean. In Galileo's Daughter, we see how technology, i.e. the invention of the telescope, gave rise to a an intellectual problem -- how to reconcile truths of science with those of faith. Galileo never intended to contradict the church, but hoped to present the Copernican system of the world as merely an alternative hypothesis to the Ptolemaic view that the earth was at the center of the world. Sobel uses his correspondence with his daughter, a nun, to provide the context of his struggles that ultimately led to his conviction by the Inquisition. As a resuslt of his house arrest, Galileo worked during the last years of his life on Two New Sciences, a work perhaps even more important than the Dialogues on the Two Chief World Systems, and one that laid the foundation for Newton's Principia. Beautifully woven into Galileo's story are the events of the 17th century: the Thirty Years' War, the bubonic plague, the role of the Medicis and that of Pope Urban VIII
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Summary: Delightful Story
Review: Galileo's Daughter sheds insight into 17th century culture, both scientific and religious. From Arthur Koestler's The Sleepwalkers, I had formed an unflattering opinion of Galileo as a gifted but cold-hearted soul. As a Catholic and a father, I was touched by the devotion that both Galileo and Sr Maria Celeste had for the church, despite its political intrigues, and the affection they showed towards each other. As a former engineer, I appreciated the technical background to that era. As a reader of history, I enjoyed learning more about the background in which the stage of life was set for the principle characters. Galileo's Daughter was a delight to read, and I highly recommend it for those interested in looking beyond the politically correct synopsis of the trial. I found what appears to be one minor erratum in the geneology on p. 15 in which Galileo's brother Michaelangelo is stated to have died in 1671 - on p. 207 Sova indicates he died during the plague and so implies that the year was 1631.
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Summary: Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, a
Review: There were several reasons I really enjoyed this book. It was well written which was no mean task as someone needed to fill in the history between Galileo's daughter's letters. Secondly, as a scientist, it was fasciniating to try to understand the world through Galileo's eye's and mind. Third, as a physician I have a special interest in middle age medicine. Galileo's dauhgter's letters were filled with interesting details of medical concepts of the middle ages. Fourth, it was fascinating to see the unnecessary tension between the church and science portrayed through the letters and Galileo's response. I have already recommended it to my physician friends.
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Summary: A masterful and illuminating new portrait of Galileo.
Review: When Dava Sobel first told me of her desire to write about Galileo and his elder daughter, I knew very little about the great scientist and did not know he had had children. Now, having read a good deal by and about Galileo, and all of his daughter's letters to him, I wish I could meet them both. For me, "Galileo's Daughter" is a fascinating window onto science and history, offering three magnificent voices: Dava Sobel's skill as a storyteller and explicator is extraodinary, and she blends in the writing of Galileo, who was one of the great prose stylists of his or any time, and the letters of his daughter, Maria Celeste, who has a voice as clear as crystal. Dava Sobel's new book is, I think, even more accomplished and compelling than her great success "Longitude."
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Summary: Fascinating New Tack in Creating a Book
Review: Journalist/writers this year seem to have discovered the tack of tapping into a whole new area of source material about a previously "well-known" personage and weaving an entirely new story and slant. Sobel does it here using the daughter's letters; Johnson and Coates' Nabokov's Blues does it with the previously untapped scientic documents from that master's years as a scientist. Sobel not only presents the letters themselves but is cunningly able to use them to devise also some "new wine". I don't know if there are any other books around this year that take this tack-- perhaps one could argue that the controversial bio's of Sagan also tap new material-- but I think it is this new combination of "new material/new slant" that makes these kinds of efforts so intriguing. With Sobel we have a proven record from Longitude; how simply the added ingenuity of old letters make new story. Any other archives or backwaters laying around out there for the resourceful journalist to tap into? Hard to say, but in the meantime, Galileo's Daughter is bound to fascinate for a long time to come. A great book.
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Summary: This book was brilliant and entertaining. A joy to read.
Review: Dava Sobel is a brilliant author. Galileo's Daugther brings an era and a controversy to life. The parallels between the arguments concerning the universe and man's place in it as juxtaposed to evolution and man's place in the world are striking but never mentioned. The book is balanced and thoughtful. Ms. Sobel brings Galileo to life in a way that only a great author can. This book is a gem.
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Summary: Establishment pressures -- on Galileo and his daugher
Review: Stars, intolerance and a wascally wabbit by Dava Sobel, distinguished lecturer, Southampton College of Long Island University. His work remains a beacon to our scientific times, his treatment a monument to the cruelty that establishment thinking can exert. In 1609, Galileo developed the telescope and became the first human to see the separate stars of the Milky Way, the Moon's mountains and valleys, and the moons of Jupiter -- "the greatest series of astronomical discoveries ever claimed by a single individual," Sobel says. Painstakingly measuring how balls rolled down chutes, he laid the foundations for experimental physics that later were codified by Sir Isaac Newton. And because his analysis of the heavens supported Copernicus' theory that the Earth is not the center of the universe, as Catholic doctrine had determined, but moves around the sun, in 1633 the charismatic scientist, aged 70, was tried by the Inquisition, forced to recant, and sentenced to permanent house arrest. Throughout most of his life, and especially when his work became controversial, Galileo was supported by letters from his daughter Virginia, child of a long affair with a Venetian beauty. Since her illegitimacy rendered her unmarriageable, when she was 13 Galileo placed her in a convent, where she took the name Suor Maria Celeste. Sobel, who has made the first published translation of the 124 surviving letters from Maria Celeste (Galileo's notes to her apparently were destroyed), says Galileo's daughter became his confidante because she "mirrored his own brilliance, industry and sensibility." From her convent, she managed his household and its finances when he traveled. Over and over, her reactions to his religiosity made clear that her father's deep Catholic faith was genuine. The book, by the science writer whose "Longitude" was a bestseller in more than 20 languages and adapted into a PBS television documentary, interweaves absorbing accounts of Galileo's science with a demonstration of doctrinaire implacability, adding for the first time the sweetness of a devoted father's relationship with a highly-accomplished daughter: "On June 16, Pope Urban VIII presided over a meeting of the cardinal inquisitors. ... Now His Holiness demanded that Galileo be interrogated "on intent" -- to determine, technically by torture if necessary, his true purpose in writing the "Dialogue" [his report on evidence for the Copernican theory]. The book itself could not escape censure in any case, the pontiff averred, and would assuredly be prohibited. As for Galileo, he would have to serve a prison term and perform penance. His public humiliation would warn all Christendom of the folly of disobeying orders and gainsaying Holy Scripture dictated by the Mouth of God. "To give you news of everything about the house," Suor Maria Celeste wrote on June 18, unaware of the awful turn of events in Rome, I will start from the dovecote, where since Lent the pigeons have been brooding. ... The capers, when the time comes, will be sufficient to suit you, Sire. The lettuce that was sown according to your instructions never came up, and in its place La Piera planted beans that she claims are quite beautiful, and coming lastly to the chickpeas, it seems the hare will win the largest share, he having already begun to make off with them."
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Summary: Refreshing Perspective
Review: From the title of this book, I naturally expected it to be a biography of Galileo's daughter, which it is not exactly. I was a bit disappointed to begin with, as the first hundred pages or so are Galileo's early biography. Once his daughter, Virginia (later Suor Marie Celeste) came into the picture, the story became much more interesting. Virginia was one of Galileo's three illegitimate children by the mistress of his early years, Marina Gamba. She eventually married, with Galileo's blessings, and he never lost interest in his children. Due to their illegitimacy which he felt would eliminate any chance of a decent marriage, Galileo had his two daughters entered into a convent at a very early age. The both became nuns at the convent of San Matteo on turning sixteen, Virginia taking the name Suor Marie Celeste and Livia that of Suor Arcangela. The son, Vincenzio, lived with Galileo in his late teens and eventually (after an unpromising start) became a good son to him. This book recounts Galileo's personal and private life, using letters from Marie Celeste to give color to what would otherwise be a black and white, straight forward biography. Their shared love is beautiful to see in her letters--his to her having been lost--and the bits and pieces of every day life that she treats the reader to are thoroughly enjoyable. This is a very detailed and readable history of Galileo, and gave me a much greater understanding of the man, his work and his difficulty with the Church. The conflict he felt between himself and his discoveries comes through very clearly and poignantly in his own words through his other letters. Her faith in him, and in the fact that he was not being heretical, is very apparent. It was interesting to me to see how differently Sobel portrays Galileo's fight was the Church--if her sources are to be believed (and I see no reason to disbelieve) it was not at all what history textbooks would have us believe. As a history major and fanatic, I truly enjoyed reading this book. The alternate perspective of Galileo was refreshing and real--and made sense of a lot that had previously seemed murky to me about him and the Church. The addition of Marie Celeste's letters gave this book personality and took Galileo from a science god to a human being. My only regret is how few letters are in this book, and that the title is a bit misleading. Despite that, if you have any interest in Galileo, this is a must-read!
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Summary: Little else to say.
Review: Apparently this is one of those books that either snags or bores the reader. I'm afraid I'm in the camp of those who were disappointed. This narrative is much too lengthy, heavily reminiscent of textbook style, and as many Amazon reviewers have noted, not about the daughter but the father. Medieval history, religion, and folklore are among my very favorite areas of study, but I'm afraid I couldn't finish this particular volume.
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