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Title: Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love by Dava Sobel ISBN: 0-14-028055-3 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 31 October, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.12 (191 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The title got it wrong-it should be:
Comment: Galileo AND His Daughter. This book is not a biography about Sister Maria Celeste. Which is fine really--truthfully, I'm more interested in Galileo himself; I just take issue with the title. We do learn a bit about his daughter and her fawning adoration for her father, but missing are Galileo's letters to her. Instead, weaved into a biography of her father, are many of the letters she sent.
If you're reading this review, I'm assuming you know a bit about Galileo--a man who studied math, matter, gravity, and of course, the heavens. He improved the telescope, and introduced his daughter to the stars in their garden when she was young. Much of his life was devoted to studies of the sun and planets--and to rejecting Aristotle's philosophies (adopted by the Roman Catholic church), in favor of Copernicus's theories. Although his belief's didn't distance him from all theists (he remained a theist to the end), he made some powerful enemies. One was a scientist--a scientist who happened to be a member of the Dominican Order, which staffed the Office of the Inquisition.
Sobell characterizes the problems Galileo experienced as differences of opinion based on astronomy rather than differences based on science and religion. Although Galileo was found guilty by the Inquisition, he remained a respected scientist. The Archbishop of Siena still publicly supported him, and with that support, he continued to produce great work.
Galileo's relationship with his oldest daughter is also explored, of course. We realize the extent of their love for each other through the surviving letters--all of which came from Maria. As another reviewer mentioned, we also learn of Galileo's financial support to the convent in which he placed his illegitimate daughters.
The book is written clearly, and unveils more than just the science in a great scientist's life. We become aware of a man rather than just a name, with emotional ties that run deep. It's a great story--and I'm glad Sobel was the one to tell it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Thoroughly enjoyable
Comment: I picked up the book expecting it to be like "Longitude" -- an exposition of the personalities involved in a scientific and technical breakthrough -- and I wasn't disappointed in that. But this book has much more depth: not only does Sobel give a well-researched, convincing picture of the individuals involved, but she puts Galileo's achievements and his persecution by the Inquisition into their scientific and historical context. His case wasn't a simplistic "religion vs. science" debate (as it's often depicted) but a tangled web of personal vendettas, intellectual rivalries, and religious/political authority figures with conflicting agendas, and Sobel made it all much clearer to me.
I felt that Suor Maria Celeste came across vividly in her letters: she was clearly an intelligent, perceptive, and levelheaded person, capable of taking care of her father's affairs (and writing witty descriptions of domestic disasters in her letters to him), while at the same time she was coping with the stresses of living in a poverty- and illness-ridden convent. I found the mundane details fascinating because they gave me a feeling for daily life at the time: Galileo may have revolutionized science, but he also wore out his collars and had a weakness for candied citron!
I think some readers' dissatisfaction with the book stems from the fact that Sobel didn't feel the need to spell everything out. She doesn't speculate at length about Suor Maria Celeste's character, just lets the letters and the facts of the story speak for themselves. (It's clear to me that Galileo loved his elder daughter so deeply because they related as ADULTS, and she gave him the unqualified emotional support he didn't have from anyone else -- so it's not surprising that her early death devastated him.) I did feel that the book was more about Galileo than his daughter, but the historical records give her short shrift compared to him, and Sobel made the best of what was available.
Although the book is solidly referenced, it's not obtrusively "scholarly," and the appendix material (e.g., weights and measures) is useful. I wish that the author had provided better maps: the 1603 map of Italy didn't show some cities that loom large in the story (e.g., Padua). Otherwise, the illustrations are well chosen and add a great deal to the story. All in all, I enjoyed the book thoroughly, and recommend it as a painless way to learn more about this period of intellectual history.
Rating: 5
Summary: Not only a great man, but a great father, too!
Comment: A historical Memoir of science, faith, and love. The book purports to use letters from Galileo's daughter to form the basis of this biography and they are certainly a major part of the book but they are hardly the backbone. Tucked away in a cloister, there is simply no way the daughter could keep up with the intrigue and politics that swirled around this brilliant man except through his letters to her - which, for the most part, are no longer existent. Still, it is a brilliant and vibrant biography because it paints Galileo as a man - often sick, always intense, and forever a dutiful father.
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Title: Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel ISBN: 0140258795 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1996 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King ISBN: 0142000159 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 30 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester ISBN: 006099486X Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: August, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Letters to Father: Suor Maria Celeste to Galileo (1623-1633) (Penguin Classics) by Maria Celeste Galilei, Dava Sobel ISBN: 0142437158 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Illustrated Longitude by Dava Sobel, William J. H. Andrewes ISBN: 0802775934 Publisher: Walker & Company Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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