Galileo: Watcher of the Skies

by David Wootton

Galileo (1564–1642) is one of the most important and controversial figures in the history of science. A hero of modern science and key to its birth, he was also a deeply divided man: a scholar committed to the establishment of scientific truth yet forced to concede the importance of faith, and a brilliant analyst of the elegantly mathematical workings of nature yet bungling and insensitive with his own family.

Tackling Galileo as astronomer, engineer, and author, David Wootton places him at the center of Renaissance culture. He traces Galileo through his early rebellious years; the beginnings of his scientific career constructing a “new physics”; his move to Florence seeking money, status, and greater freedom to attack intellectual orthodoxies; his trial for heresy and narrow escape from torture; and his house arrest and physical (though not intellectual) decline. Wootton reveals much that is new—from Galileo’s premature Copernicanism to a previously unrecognized illegitimate daughter—and, controversially, rejects the long-established orthodoxy which holds that Galileo was a good Catholic.

Absolutely central to Galileo’s significance—and to science more broadly—is the telescope, the potential of which Galileo was the first to grasp. Wootton makes clear that it totally revolutionized and galvanized scientific endeavor to discover new and previously unimagined facts. Drawing extensively on Galileo’s voluminous letters, many of which were self-censored and sly, this is an original, arresting, and highly readable biography of a difficult, remarkable Renaissance genius.

Genres: Biography, History, Science, Nonfiction, Italy, Physics

354 pages, Hardcover

First published October 26, 2010

About the author

MA, PhD (Cantab), FRHistS

David Wootton is Anniversary Professor of History. He works on the intellectual and cultural history of the English speaking countries, Italy, and France, 1500-1800. He is currently writing a book entitled Power, Pleasure and Profit based on his Carlyle Lectures at the University of Oxford in 2014. His most recent book is The Invention of Science, published by Allen Lane.

In 2016 he will give the annual Besterman Lecture at the University of Oxford.

He was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and has held positions in history and politics at four British and four Canadian universities, and visiting postions in the US, before coming to York.

Reviews

[Jorge Zuluaga · Rating 5 out of 5]

¡Maravillosa biografía! Original, profunda, bien escrita, fácil de leer y llena de tesis novedosas sobre Galileo.

Como su autor lo señala, "Galileo: watcher of the skies" es una biografía de la obra científica de Galileo Galilei. Más que concentrarse en eventos específicos de la vida del matemático pisano (pisano, no florentino como siempre quiso presentarse el mismo Galileo, en una muestra de snobismo de la época), la obra hace un recorrido por el proceso de maduración de las ideas con las que revolucionó para siempre la física y la ciencia en general.

Naturalmente, como esas ideas se incubaron en un contexto personal y social específico, el libro presenta también una descripción de algunos de los más importantes eventos de la vida personal de Galileo; pero más importante, hace un interesante análisis de las relaciones que mantuvo a lo largo de su vida con algunas personas claves: su padre, su madre (¡que joyita!), su hermano (¡que hermano! ¡terrible!), sus amigos intelectuales Sagredo, Salviati, Castelli, sus discípulos y finalmente, pero no menos importante, su hija Maria Celeste.

Para quiénes estén más interesados por los detalles personales, esas descripciones y análisis ayudan a conocer mejor a un Galileo de carne y hueso al que yo, después de haber leído 2 o 3 biografías íntimas del personaje, no conocía realmente.

El libro se divide en capítulos relativamente cortos (4 o 5 páginas) que exponen un tema particular: la lampara de Galileo, la torre inclinada, ver es creer, nudismo, inercia, madre, el científico católico, etc. No saben lo que agradezco yo (y espero les pase también a ustedes) que un autor o autora piense en eso al componer un libro. Los capítulos cortos no solo permiten que el libro pueda ser leído de a poco, como un texto de mesa de noche, sino que además te ofrecen pequeños premios como lector y te dan un sentido de avance que no sientes en libros con capítulos de 20 o 30 páginas.

Uno de los elementos más destacados de esta biografía es la introspección (¿o "extrospección"?) que hace el autor de algunos de los aspectos centrales de la obra, y como ya dijimos de la vida personal de Galileo. Me refiero al esfuerzo de reconstruir, a partir de sus cartas y libros (que el autor parece haber leído en su totalidad y en la lengua original, el Toscano de los 1600), algunos aspectos de la obra y la vida de Galileo que no son explícitos. ¿Cuándo empezó Galileo a ser un Copernicano convencido? ¿era Galileo en realidad un creyente devoto o un católico oportunista y por defensa propia? ¿por qué suspendió algunos de sus trabajos más relevantes por tantos años antes de terminarlos y retomarlos en los últimos 10 años de su vida? ¿cuál fue el impacto que tuvo en su vida y obra la influencia de su padre, un artista antipitagórico pero experimentalista en el sentido moderno de la palabra? ¿cuál fue el impacto que tuvo la relación con su madre? (lamentablemente, también en este libro las mujeres no salen muy bien libradas y creo yo por culpa del machismo estructural del que también sufre la visión del autor) ¿fue Galileo un verdadero representante de la ciencia experimental, su fundador, como muchos lo señalan, o realmente fue en la aproximación a la naturaleza más cercano a Aristóteles, al que combatió siempre? ¿cuáles eran las concepciones cosmológicas de Galileo? ¿eran tan ingenuas como muchos señalan? ¿qué papel jugo en su vida su necesidad por asegurarse una comodidad económica de la que no gozó durante buena parte de su existencia y cómo eso afecto su relación con la ciencia? ¿fue realmente Galileo un buen cortesano, como muchos autores señalan, o en realidad su rebeldía nunca le permitió encajar en los círculos de poder y fue por eso que termino su vida encerrado?.

Antes de leer esta biografía, en mis clases y conferencias de física y astronomía, hablaba de Galileo usando descripciones cómo Galileo fue un gran físico y solo un modesto astrónomo; Galileo era un fervoroso creyente católico y su idea de que la naturaleza era un libro escrito en caracteres matemáticos seguro producía en él, como creyente, una disonancia cognitiva que lo habría hecho sufrir toda la vida; Galileo no quiso enviarle un telescopio a Johannes Kepler por temas de celo profesional; Galileo era de una familia acomodada y siempre tuvo las mejores oportunidades de su época; el experimento de la Torre inclinada de Pisa es una historia apócrifa; Galileo fue un gran experimentalista; Galileo fue condenado por la inquisición por burlarse del Papa en sus libros; Galileo fue perseguido por la iglesia siempre y el cardenal Barberini fue su peor enemigo; y así un largo etcétera.

Después de leer "Galileo: Watcher of the Skies" ahora sé que muchas de esas afirmaciones son entre imprecisas e incorrectas y me alegra por conocer a través del juicioso análisis de David Wootton, una versión de Galileo más rica, más profunda. Tampoco definitiva. Soy consciente que la historiografía es una ciencia y que las hipótesis para explicar un enfoque en un libro, una frase en una carta, un evento de la vida de un personaje, pueden ir y venir y algunas serán a la luz de la evidencia mejores que otras. Pero leer una nueva biografía, y en especial una biografía tan rica como esta, te da mejores elementos facticos e interpretativos para entender figuras intelectuales como la de Galileo Galilei.

Lo único malo de esta biografía es que está en inglés. A todos las personas que leen en esa lengua como si leyeran su lengua materna, las felicitó. Yo llevo casi 30 años estudiando el idioma (empece en la adolescencia como muchos de mi generación), más 20 años usando el inglés en mi vida cotidiana como académico y más de 15 escribiendo en esa lengua artículos científicos (lo único que siento ha incrementado mis habilidades en la lengua); aún así después de leer un libro como este puedo asegurarles que me perdí de entender el 10% del contenido, al no estar escrito en mi lengua materna. ¡Que le vamos a hacer!. Larga vida a los y las traductoras.

Finalmente me encontré con datos curiosos y tan originales en la biografía que decidí hacer este hilo en Twitter, primero para recordarlos y segundo, para animarlos a conocer más sobre Galileo.

Descubrí en esta biografía un Galileo más humano; pero también descubrí un Galileo aún más genial, aún más revolucionario de lo que habría pensado. Todo esto no ha hecho más que incrementar mi admiración por él.

[Tlaura · Rating 2 out of 5]

The second star is grudging as I find Wootton to be an impossibly irritating writer and this a seriously annoying book. Wootton does have a good grasp on the history of the church in Italy (he is a social historian who has previously published on Paulo Sarpi). The parts of the book about Galileo's trips to Rome in 1616 and 1633, and his trial, are interesting, clear, sympathetic and seem credible enough for me to feel like I learned something. Hence the second star.

The problem is that Wootton really doesn't know anything at all about the scientific revolution, or about Galileo's physics or astronomy in the context of his time. He wastes a huge amount of space speculating about Galileo as a man, subjecting him to psychoanalysis (one particularly vomitous chapter is called "The Cosmography of the Self"), while taking a completely uncritical view of Galileo's scientific ideas and accomplishments as being utterly unprecedented and unparalleled.

Just to give a couple of examples, there is no reason a biography of Galileo needs to concern itself with, say, Simon Stevin. But Wootton wants to establish Galileo as "the greatest physicist before Newton" and thus brings up Stevin in the main text exactly once, not to provide context for late sixteenth century physics or to contrast the two men in a meaningful way, but simply to declare Galileo the greater scientist. Moreover, Wootton often just seems to assume by default that Galileo is right about whatever he's arguing, for instance in his dispute with Grassi over the working of the telescope. But on that particular topic -- how the telescope made some new stars visible -- Grassi was largely right and Galileo wrong.

Wootton also completely sublimates Galileo's physics, where he was indeed a pioneer, to his astronomy, where he really wasn't. Wootton blithely asserts that Galileo was "the only man in Europe" improving the Dutch telescope in 1609, a statement completely refuted by the fact that at least four independent astronomers in different countries (all of whom are mentioned in footnotes or in passing in the text) were observing the moons of Jupiter concurrently with or very soon after Galileo. To see the moons of Jupiter requires about a 15x power model and by most accounts the original Dutch model was 6x power. Clearly many people were working on improving the telescope for sale or for personal use, including in astronomy. Wootton then claims that Galileo had a 100x power telescope by 1615, which is physically impossible with the Dutch/"Galilean" model he was developing! Huygens built the first 100x telescope in the 1660s. It was several feet long and was a "Keplerian" double-convex lens model, as were all the big powerful mid-century telescopes.

Wootton obsesses about Galileo's "premature Copernicanism" which he dates to 1592 and sees as a direct result of Galileo discovering the parabolic path of the projectile. Though not completely original to Wootton, the logic of this connection is pretty speculative, and is based almost entirely on a tangentially related entry in one of Sarpi's notebooks. But suppose it's true: Benedetti and Stevin also outed themselves as Copernicans during the same period. Did they also discover the parabolic paths of projectiles or something similar? And if so, what does that say about the sophistication of their physics compared to Galileo's? Over and over, Wootton simply ignores the problem, writing as if literally nobody else exists in Galileo's scientific universe, no intellectual currents that shape as well as are shaped by the hero.

Some details are just trite. Early on, Wootton explains that it's no coincidence that the scientific revolution started in Italy given that Italian was the only Renaissance European language with a word for "fact" in the modern sense (as opposed to "phenomena" etc). To the extent that this claim about Italy and the scientific revolution is even true (Dee? Gilbert? Stevin? Tycho? Not Italians), surely the fact that Italian had a word for "fact" was more a result of Italy's relatively advanced scientific culture than the other way around. Or maybe it is just coincidental, "facts" being a modern construction without a lot of applicability to the early scientific revolution.

Wootton makes up his reflexive worship of Galileo's singular scientific genius by overemphasizing Galileo's arrogance and bad moral character, congratulating himself on his steely-eyed devotion to myth-busting and even lecturing other historians about how "much has been misunderstood" in Galileo scholarship over the past 100 years. For instance, historians have failed to properly deal with essential issues like Galileo's "unbelief" in the Catholic God (it turns out that like nearly all Renaissance natural philosophers before Descartes, Galileo believed in an amina mundi!) or the scars left on him by his domineering mother. Galileo is in fact a bit of an enigma, which is part of what makes him so interesting. Wootton's Galileo isn't very interesting at all, and that's the real disservice Wootton does to his subject.

[Avid · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is presented in 4 parts. The fourth part is the only part i’d recommend to someone with my level of interest in galileo. I wanted to know about his life, his relationships, the inquisition and its findings and repercussions. Everything that came before part 4 was way more science-based than i was looking for.

That said, it was really a good read. Great sourcing and discussion/analysis by the author, who speculates on many aspects of galileo’s beliefs and motivations, but readily presents alternate theories and defends his own conclusions. For me personally, this was a 3-star read - just too much. But for someone with a scholarly or personal interest in galileo’s science, i can’t imagine a better, more readable source exists.

[Antenna · Rating 2 out of 5]

My fascination with Galileo, the brilliant thinker who was eventually gagged by a bigoted Inquisition, was fed by Michael White’s absorbing biography, “Galileo Antichrist”. Although very strong on childhood influences, personality, dealings with friends and family, his inventions and the tortuous path by which he fell foul of the priests pulling the strings behind an insecure and neurotic Pope, the biography seemed a little thin on the all-important scientific theories to do with motion and astronomy, and to have gone too far into trying to make ideas accessible by “dumbing down” the details.

In seeking out David Wootton’s much denser and more academic work, I got both more and less than I bargained for. Following an essentially chronological but more thematic approach, the author devotes lengthy passages to, for instance, experiments dealing with specific gravity, the physics of the motion of falling objects, or mathematical calculations to evaluate the respective merits of the theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy versus the more “heretical” Copernicus, and “fudged” Tycho Brahe. My lack of basic scientific knowledge made it hard for me to understand some of the author’s explanations and arguments, but I also suspected that, himself a historian, he may have strayed out of his own comfort zone. He certainly seems to make things overly complicated and long-winded.

Despite many examples of Galileo conducting practical experiments, Wootton is at pains to stress that these were mainly to demonstrate the truth of his real love, abstract theories, which is what led him to mathematics. Although he sometimes seemed too arrogantly confident, or perhaps simply busy, to put a theory to the test, he seems to me to have combined the two approaches, so that to suggest otherwise is hair-splitting. How could Galileo have done otherwise at a time when the words “experiment” and “scientist” were not used, and it was common for inquisitive thinkers to be polymaths.

Wootton concedes the limitations placed on historical research by the loss and corruption of data. So, we learn that much of the writing from Galileo’s most fertile period of invention was used by a butcher to wrap meat, or sold off as scrap paper. Similarly, his former student Viviani, who did so much to foster a positive legacy for Galileo, was not above fabricating appealing myths, such as the claim that he devised “the law of the pendulum” from observing the swinging of a lamp in Pisa Cathedral. However, in the absence of hard evidence, Wootton seems to me to indulge in too much academic conjecture as to, for example, the extent to which Galileo was a Catholic or even a Christian. For a man born in 1564, I see no contradiction in the fact that he, with unconscious male chauvinism, sent his two daughters to be nuns, that he paid lip service to Catholic belief when there was an Inquisition actively engaged in torturing and executing alleged heretics, but was dedicated to the pursuit of scientific enquiry which some Jesuits themselves pursued, yet could not deny what his reason told him to be true, unless his own life was at risk.

Not until two-thirds of the way through does Wootton state that his “primary purpose is to provide an intellectual biography of one of the world’s greatest scientists-to reconstruct the development of his ideas over time”. At the same time, he observes that, ”Amongst professional historians, biography is not an intellectually respectable genre”. He then makes what seems like a self-evident case for what he calls “a characterological approach to biography” to enable us to understand the study of scientific progress and cultural change, fitting themes for a historian, it would seem. This line of argument appears unnecessarily tortuous. However it explains why Wootton glosses over Galileo’s childhood and career, and why references to his family often seem awkwardly squeezed in, sometimes so condensed as to be hard to follow. I was troubled by the subjectivity of a chapter suggesting out of the blue that a bullying and devious mother may have been to blame for his reluctance to get married, his lack of communication as regards his emotional attachments and private beliefs, and also explain his aggressive, driven personality. In his summing up, Wootton writes, “the paternal conflict between experience and reason and the maternal conflict between power and influence shaped Galileo’s internal life and constitute the cosmography of his self” but I could not find clear and convincing passages in the book to support this.

Similarly, I was surprised by the author’s sudden break from the build-up to Galileo’s trial in order to speculate on his frustration over a missed opportunity to consummate a relationship with some married woman, Alessandra Buonamici who had not clearly figured in the story before. I would have preferred more along the lines of the moving account of Galileo’s close relationship with his daughter Marie-Celeste, a nun, to provide a more fleshed out picture of the man.

Although the work is informative and gripping in places, it continually frustrated me by failing to provide the further insights and deeper analysis I was seeking. The above factors make it an unnecessarily hard and opaque slog at times.

[Richard Marney · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointing read.

I finished the book little more informed on the man and the formation of his groundbreaking work, than I had been when starting.

As a first history on the subject, perhaps it warrants the expense and time. For more advanced readers, not.

[Everydayreader1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of us have heard of Galileo and his amazing discoveries in astronomy and other scientific areas. And, prior to reading this book, I did know that he was in trouble with the Catholic church. Aside from that, I knew next to nothing about him. This book brought him to life. It also described the culture and state of science and medicine in his time.

What kept coming to me as I read was the how complex life was for him. He had to deal with skeptics and haters and critics. He had to deal with family and "friends" who wanted money and/or favors, and some downright moochers. And, he had to deal with illness, and eventually, blindness. I would say, even though he was a genius, he lived a rather sad and unhappy life.

The research and detail this book offers is truly amazing. Mostly supported facts and very little supposition. Although a little dry at times, I enjoyed this book a great deal.

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part of this book is a straight forward history of Galileo's life and work which is the best biography that I have read of the man who invented modern science. I give this part of the book 4 stars.
Then the last portion of the book gets into the author's assertion that Galileo did not believe in God,
without any real evidence. He coupled this with a long discussion of the history of the history of biography about Galileo, which also was of no interest to me. So this part of the work is just 1 or 2 stars, for 3 stars overall.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s going to be various ways one can dig into a biography on Galileo. The most obvious: “oh, there’s another one?” Somewhat obvious: “alright, so what does this one have that others don’t?” And jumping ahead: “why should I read this one instead of the others?” There are just reasons for these questions and being not even an ‘armchair scientist’ nor a ‘folding chair fan of science’, but closest to ‘collapsible lawn chair fan of science fans’, my opinion is not going to hold much weight. But I do hope that my perspective—as layperson as it gets—can be of help for those like me who want to scratch that science-yearning side of their brains and perhaps like me more by chance than anything else, stumbled upon this book. After all, if two balls—one lead-filled and one wood-filled are dropped from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which Galileo biography will be crushed first? Let’s find out!

While it’s highly not recommended, it’s also something most of us do: peruse other reviews for a book we may read. For Galileo: Watcher of the Skies, a common critique came down to “too much focus on the man, not enough on his scientific achievements.” OK, while perhaps a valid point (but not really, as this book also heavily focuses on his output), this minus for some can be a plus for others. If you really want to learn more about the latter, simply reading the primary material may be worth the challenge. If you want to know more about the human side of the equation—not what he did (which is obvious), but the reasons why he did it, the information and conjectures—yes, conjectures as even the David Wootton admits there are large swaths of his life we have little information about are dare I say informative. Educated guesswork does abound, but this, I do not think, hurts the book in any way.

If anything, Wootton is quite clear about his intention:

“we must pay particular attention to those sources that bring us closest to Galileo's conversation with his disciples, and to those texts (the margins of books, for example) that Galileo least feared would be read by anyone else. We may not be able to speak with the dead, but we can sometimes listen in on their conversations, and even catch them thinking aloud. In this book I deliberately give such snatches of overheard conversation much greater weight than they have had in previous studies of Galileo.” (page 46, eBook)

On one hand, padding a review with neat observations would be my own poor attempt at emulating a Galileo-like treatise—observation over experimentation, right? But around the halfway point, I noticed something quite unusual that fans of the Enlightenment may raise a curious eyebrow at: “For Galileo did write a treatise on miracles, in 1627 or shortly before that time: a treatise providing a naturalistic explanation for the miracles recorded in the Old Testament.” (page 250) Is there any chance then that Spinoza knew of Galileo’s missing treatise and was influenced by it to write the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus in 1670?

Consider:

“Galileo's central claim is that the Scriptures are adapted to our understanding, while nature is not. Nature, he says, is ‘inexorable and immutable’. But of course it is a fundamental teaching of Christianity that nature is occasionally adapted in order to communicate with us – this is what a miracle is.” (page 246)

And then compare it to:

“Spinoza was the first to argue that the Bible is not literally the word of God but rather a work of human literature;...He also insisted that ‘divine providence’ is nothing but the laws of nature, that miracles (understood as violations of the natural order of things) are impossible and belief in them is only an expression of our ignorance of the true causes of phenomena,…” (Nadler, Steven. A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age . Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition, Location 55/5276)

Galileo: Watcher of the Skies is excellent. To return to a point I made above, this indeed is an “intellectual biography”. There are parts that do focus heavy on the man Galileo, but if one can give this book a lodestar, it remains less on his personal life and more on his output. However, just as historian David McCullough noted in an interview that to really get to know a person, you need to read what they have read, the same absolutely applies to whom they associated with and what types of correspondences they have left for us to analyze. I went in knowing not much about Galileo. I leave now having a sound idea of his achievements, him being essentially “the first true scientist” (page 419), his pretty much “deist” (page 415) views on religion (yes, from the information provided he seems to have been a Catholic in name only, but definitely not an atheist), and him perhaps leaving life with a wealth of unfinished business. The portrait that adorns the cover of this book is spot-on: he had things to do and few people who would happily listen to him. Like other great thinkers, it was only after death that he was finally vindicated.

[Ricardo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Intentando rellenar mis vacíos en el conocimiento de Galileo agarré esta biografía, que por ser una de las más modernas (2010), pensé sería más completa y con un lenguaje más moderno. Error. Primero, el prólogo es una larga excusa de por qué no se puede escribir una biografía completa sobre Galileo, para luego sumergirse en una serie de detalles intrascendentes, como su relación con John Donne, el oficio de su padre (ignorando completamente a su madre), el hecho de que su padrino fue obligado a casarse con su concubina cuando Galileo se fue a vivir con él, etc. Perdí toda esperanza después de leer que el gato de Galileo se había comido a un pájaro exótico que le habían regalado. Who cares about physics or astronomy. Todo esto en las primeras 20 páginas. Desconozco si el autor se vio impulsado a proveer la mayor cantidad de detalles insignificantes que no apareciesen en biografías anteriores por su insignificancia misma, o si estamos frente a un severo caso de ADHD.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picked it up from the library as it caught my eye and picked parts that seemed interesting to read. To get more out of the book, I think a general awareness of Galileo's writings and path is needed, this book can then put them in context.

The book itself is very much about piecing together the bits and pieces to create an image of Galileo referring to those he knew, and letters sent. It reads like a detailed encyclopedia article.

Galileo was unique in that he was a member of the upper class and still was skilled at working with his hands in making his own lenses.
He went blind at the age of 72.
His personal letters and works were use as wrapping paper at a butcher's shop after his death and found by chance.
Pope's view that "one cannot prove the truth of Copernicanism because God's power is such that he can achieve any natural effect by numerous different means, many of them beyond our comprehension" is the need to humble view of God I have read before.

[Cate · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a lot of information in this book and that is the reason I have given it 3 stars.

I chose this biography on Galileo because reviews stated it was very accessible. Well I'd hate to read the others then, because I found the style of writing by David Wootton was quite inaccessible. It didn't flow, it was hard to retain interest and generally far too wordy in an obnoxious manner. I felt I was being spoken down to quite a bit.

I would have given up early on had I not wanted to actually know the information in the book. I forced myself to read it, and despite only being a short book (267 pages) it just dragged on and on.

I know that I missed arguments and facts purely because of the writing, for which I feel annoyed about.

[Plato · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Wootton has a very simplistic take on the history of science and tries to conjure some grand narratives that don't really line up with reality. Like, he really wants to shove that Galileo is the sole inventer of the scientific method and that religion played no part in his scientific career. Yet, the actual biographical parts are fine and the writing is good and precise.

[Ryan Trauman · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're only going to read one biography of Galileo, this should probably be the one. It's recent and thorough. It was lot more detailed than what I was looking for, so some parts felt very dense, but it was worth it.

[Alexis Kaelin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe a 4.75 to be nit picky, but very good. While reading this, I am also reading Galileo's Daughter and they make a perfect pairing taken together.

[Sam Gerak · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5. Written more as an academic essay than a biography for entertainment. Jumped between topics frequently and was not always smooth.

[Louise Leetch · Rating 3 out of 5]

publishers Weekly Review

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic historical account of the science and the scientist. Follows his life, relationships, and observations to make conclusions about Galileo's strengths and weaknesses.

[Thomas Brueckner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent detail in the earlier chapters, but some of the author's conjectures in last two or three chapters concerning Galileo as a Catholic seem off the mark.

[Dr. Z · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting history I didn't know much about, better on the science than the bio. Didn't feel like you came to know the man. Though that may owe to lack of sources.