Galileo’s Daughter: A Drama of Science, Faith and Love by Dava Sobel lands on the |> SALE <| shelves in my shop.
Fourth Estate, 1999, Hardback in dust wrapper.
From the cover: Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was the foremost scientist of his day, the man Albert Einstein was to call the father of modern physics indeed of modern science altogether. Though he never left the Italy of his birth, his inventions and discoveries were heralded around the world. His telescopes allowed him to reveal a new reality in the heavens and to publicly propound the astounding argument that the Earth actually moves around the Sun. For this belief he was brought before the Holy Office of the Inquisition, tried for heresy and threatened with torture. In contrast, his daughter, Virginia, became a cloistered nun. Born in 1600, she was thirteen when Galileo placed her in a convent near him in Florence, where she took the most appropriate name of Suor Maria Celeste. Galileo later said of her that she had an exquisite mind, and her intelligence and loving support proved to be her fathers greatest source of strength through his most difficult years.
Inspired by her long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of his daughter, which she has translated into English for the first time, Dava Sobel has written a book that brings Galileo to life as never before. A man who was compelled to explain the truths he discovered, he was a faithful Catholic devoted to family and, especially, to his daughter. Their voices, and those of others who touched their lives, echo down the centuries through letters and writings, which Sobel masterfully weaves into her narrative, building towards the crescendo of historys most dramatic collision between science and religion. In the process, Dava Sobel illuminates an entire era, when the flamboyant Medici Grand Dukes became Galileos patrons, when the bubonic plague wreaked its terrible devastation and prayer was the most effective medicine, when the Thirty Years War tipped fortunes across Europe, and when one man fought, through his trial and betrayal by his former friend, Pope Urban VIII, to reconcile the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic with the heavens he revealed through his telescope. Galileos Daughter is an unforgettable story.
Very Good in Very Good Dust Wrapper.
Black boards with Gilt titling to the Spine. 429 pages. Index. 9½” x 6¼”.
This book will be eventually reach my delightful website…(added to my Fiction Author: S category.) but get 60% off buying from this very blog blog… Buy it now for just £2.60 + P&P! Of course, if you don’t like this one there are plenty more available here!
BookLovers of Bath 