description: Inspired by a long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of Galileo's daughter, a cloistered nun, Dava Sobel has written a biography unlike any other of the man Albert Einstein called "the father of modern physics- indeed of modern science altogether." "Galileo's Daughter" also presents a stunning portrait of a person hitherto lost to history, described by her father as "a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me." "Galileo's Daughter" dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishment of a mythic figure whose seventeenth-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion. Moving between Galileo's grand public life and Maria Celeste's sequestered world, Sobel illuminates the Florence of the Medicis and the papal court in Rome during the pivotal era when humanity's perception of its place in the cosmos was about to be overturned. In that same time, while the bubonic plague wreaked its terrible devastation and the Thirty Years' War tipped fortunes across Europe, one man sought to reconcile the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic with the heavens he revealed through his telescope. With all the human drama and scientific adventure that distinguished Dava Sobel's previous book "Longitude, " "Galileo's Daughter" is an unforgettable story
language: English
title: Galileo's Daughter
titlecomplete: Galileo's Daughter
characters: Sister Maria Celeste, Galileo Galilei
genres: Historical, Biography, Religion, Italy, Science, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography Memoir, Astronomy, History
ratings_count: 29299
places: Florence, Tuscany
awards: awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY)
category: History, awardedAt: 915177600000
name: Los Angeles Times Book Prize
category: Science & Technology
publisher: Walker & Company