Galileo’s Daughter (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Dava Sobel
- First Published: 1999
- Type of Work: Biography
- Time of Work: 1564-1737
- Setting: Florence, Pisa, Padua, Rome, and Siena
- Principal Characters: Galileo Galilei, Suor Maria Celeste (Virginia Galilei), Vincenzio Andrea Galilei, Roberto Cardinal Bellarmino, Benedetto Castelli, Ferdinando II de’ Medici, Ascanio Piccolomini, Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini)
- Genres: Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: Parents and children, Science or scientists, Fathers, Eighteenth century, Seventeenth century, Sixteenth century, Italy or Italians, Rome, Astronomy or astronomers, Nuns, Inquisition, Catholic
- Locales: Florence, Italy, Rome, Italy, Siena, Italy, Padua, Italy, Pisa, Italy
Dava Sobel’s first book, the highly acclaimed Longitude (1995), told the story of John Harrison. The subtitle of that book, The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, celebrates the little-known eighteenth century Englishman who, by developing the chronometer, finally enabled the accurate determination of longitude. Galileo Galilei was in fact among Harrison’s illustrious predecessors who had wrestled unsuccessfully with that problem. Sobel’s similarly expansive subtitle of Galileo’s Daughter provides an...
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