Galileo's Daughter

5 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
A biography of Galileo Galilei, told in part through letters from his daughter and supporter.

Review
Dava Sobel is easily the best science history writer I've encountered, challenged only and tangentially by Mary Roach. I've enjoyed Sobel's books Longitude and The Planets, and Galileo's Daughter is even better.

I knew only the outlines of Galileo's story, and not all of it correctly at that. I initially thought the approach of telling the story through letters from his daughter was forced, contrived. And in fact the first portion of the book – Galileo's early life – is necessarily not told through these letters at all. Yet once the daughter is old enough, and the letters do turn up, Sobel's handling of them is masterful – they're interspersed among narrative history sections in a way that feels entirely organic and natural.

Despite the title, the book is about Galileo, not his daughter. Yet they appear to have been so close that the title is fair – Galileo's story includes that of his daughter, who was his close confidante, advisor, friend, and even at times manager of some of his affairs – all from within the tight confines of a convent far from Rome and its intrigues.

Intrigues and politics are a substantial part of the story – currying of favor, influential supporters, and careful management of friends are essential to Galileo's successes and failures. What was heartening to me, though – especially in days like these, when science is seen by some as a bad word – is just how committed and supportive many people were. Galileo is seen, rightly, by many, many people as a forward-thinking genius. The fact that they have to twist their thoughts (or at least utterances) into theological knots in order to both appreciate progress and toe the Catholic line does credit to their intent, and their recognition of Galileo as a force to be reckoned with. It's equally heartening that his daughter, Sister Maria Celeste, a cloistered, prematurely toothless, 17th century nun under a vow of poverty, is, at least to some extent, recognized by contemporaries as an important participant in Galileo's achievements.

The book isn't perfect. I felt it ran a little long, and runs out of energy after Galileo's encounter with the Inquisition. And there are a lot of Vincenzios to keep track of. But Sobel picks it up somewhat at the end, with a conclusion that left me in tears (okay, it's not that hard to make me cry). All in all, a beautifully written, carefully researched and organized history of a giant in science, and the daughter who helped him get there.

So I may have fallen in love with Galileo a little bit. What a man! And what a book! This book was a rich, human, layered look at a really incredible life and deeply touching father-daughter bond.

I was inspired to get this as it was sitting in the Museo Galileo bookshop, and - boy - is that a fun museum! After gazing in wonder at a majestic, giant Ptolemic sphere, as well as the dried, leathery remains of Galileo's three fingers (!!!! yes, these exist and they're preserved in a weird-ass goblet thing in Room XI, visit as soon as you can, I highly recommend), I was like, hell yes I'd like to learn more.

Written in equal parts primary document, general Renaissance history lesson, and straight-up biography, this book is - in turn - equal parts deeply philosophical about the history and philosophy of empirical research and the scientific method, and deeply human about daily life in 16th century Italy (romantic music). I feel like Galileo's story is often framed as an iconoclastic religion vs. science show-down, featuring the honorable scientist pointing out the not-obvious-but-true (we're sitting on a spinning rock as it loops around a giant ball of fire) while shrill, shrieking forces of superstition and oppression (here embodied in the Catholic Church) violently shut him up. I was certain there was violence? But I guess I had conflated poor Giordano Bruno's story with Galileo's. There's no violence, except psychic violence and much bad feelings. And people get sick a lot, oh boy, do they - but I guess it was 400 years ago.

What's nice is that this book actually humanizes both sides of the Vatican vs. Galileo trial, and, in turn, brings out all the gritty nuances and complexities. Galileo, for example, seems eminently pragmatic, a brilliant man at the bleeding edge of a proto-scientific method, arguing with “philosophers” (which then meant both philosophers and mathematicians/scientists/etc) about the importance of using math in “natural philosophy” (i.e. physics; oh, but everything was jumbled up by then and not in these ridiculous academic divisions - a discussion for another book review, I suppose). He's also, un-paradoxically, deeply Catholic, and very quick to disavow any of that crazy Copernican (Earth-around-the-sun) stuff as soon as the Vatican leans on him. Yo, he was just playin'. The Vatican, for its part, and particularly Pope Urban-the-Roman-numeral, isn't so much shrill and regressive - so much as reacting against various internal and external pressures. Internal pressures from, it seems, other scientists with bruised egos trying to drag down Galileo, and external pressures in the form of a Lutheran revolution happening up north and everyone kinda laughin' at the Catholics/Italians. In short, it seems like Galileo definitely got the wrong end of the stick and was scapegoated. And it was definitely fascinating to see how insecure both Galileo and the Church felt about having this kerfuffle spectated by all the now-liberating-themselves Lutherans up north. “They're laughing at us!” etc etc.

But much of the drama did give me pause, and make me think of the cultural slot that science often needs to fit in, and also - oh - the majesty of empirics. The glory of creating things, of tinkering, or discovering and understanding! And - of course, in these days (hours!) of NASA's New Horizons passing Pluto - the gorgeous, mind-bending astronomy of it all!

So what about the titular daughter then? In Galileo's younger days, he had several illegitimate children with a nice Venetian woman who was not noble enough or something to marry. The eldest was a daughter and, since Galileo had no prospects of marrying her off (cuz illegitimate), he sent her to a convent when she was super young. And she grew up into, I guess, Maria von Trapp? i.e. Picture the best nun you can imagine. The nicest, sweetest, most loving, most Platonic ideal of a nun, and you have this woman, I guess. She really seemed great. And she and Galileo maintained a life-long correspondence about EVERYTHING. We've lost Galileo's letters (burned in the pits of Vatican, no doubt), but hers survive - and they're rich, funny, interesting insights into life back then. They're also a super-interesting way to contextualize Galileo's genius: here was a man who, when not working on his paradigm-shattering masterwork, had to worry about, among other things, (1) the donkey that was too stubborn to let the servant ride it, (2) many many sick nuns suffering various minor and major ailments, (3) how's the season's wine coming along?, (4) could you please send 20 scudi?, and, OK, (5) the Bubonic plague (fair).

What I'm saying is, the mix of the mundane with the magnificence was brilliantly done. It made you realize how buried genius can be. How it's so difficult to see the amazingness of what you're doing until many centuries pass. But not TOO difficult - the Vatican, after all, justifiably believed Galileo's ideas would be influential, widespread, and alter everything. And they were - immediately! As much as Galileo himself (vainly) tried to downplay and “j/k” everything.

tl;dr: Super good. Read it if you love science, a day in the life of the Renaissance, or space.

A bit of a slog at the end, but overall an interesting look at the era. It's really amazing that any advancements in science were made in such an environment.

Great science, history, and religion – as well as a touching father-daughter story.