Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great ScientistsHubbard, Elbert
Science
Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists
Hubbard, Elbert
Scientists -- Biography
It was discovered that Galileo had been living with a woman by the name
of Marina Gamba, at Venice, even while he held the professorship at
Padua, and that they had a son, Vincenzo Gamba, and two daughters. One
of the enemy drew a map of the heavens, showing Galileo as the sun,
Marina Gamba as the moon, and around them circulated numerous little
satellites, which were supposed to be their children. The picture had so
great a vogue that the Doge issued an order that all copies of it be
destroyed.
Of Marina Gamba we know very little; but the fact that she made entries
in Galileo's journal and kept his accounts proves that she was a person
of considerable intelligence; and this, too, was at a time when
semi-oriental ideas prevailed and education was supposedly beyond the
feminine grasp.
Galileo did not marry, for the reason that he was practically a priest,
a teacher in a religious school, living with and looking after the
pupils; and the custom then was that whoever was engaged in such an
occupation should not wed.
The stormy opposition to Galileo was not without its advantages. We are
advertised no less by our rabid enemies than by our loving friends.
Cosimo the Second, Grand Duke of Tuscany, had intimated that Florence
would give the great astronomer a welcome. Galileo moved to Florence
under the protection of Cosimo, intending to devote all his time to
Science.
In giving up schoolteaching and popular lecturing, Galileo really made a
virtue of necessity. No orthodox lyceum course would tolerate him; he
was neither an impersonator nor an entertainer; the stereopticon and the
melodramatic were out of his line, and his passion for truth made him
impossible to the many.
He was treading the path of Bruno: the accusations, the taunts and
jeers, the denials and denunciations, were urging him on to an unseemly
earnestness.
Father Clavius said that Galileo never saw the satellites of Jupiter
until he had made an instrument that would create them; and if God had
intended that men should see strange things in the heavens, He would
have supplied them sufficient eyesight. The telescope was really a
devil's instrument.
Still another man declared that if the earth moved, acorns falling from
a high tree would all fall behind the tree and not directly under it.
Father Brini said that if the earth revolved, we would all fall off of
it into the air when it was upside down; moreover, its whirling through
space would create a wind that would sweep it bald.
Father Caccini preached a sermon from the text, "Ye men of Galilee, why
stand ye gazing up into heaven?" Only he changed the word "Galilee" to
"Galileo," claiming it was the same thing, only different, and as reward
for his wit he was made a bishop.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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