To Father
The Letters of Sister Maria Celeste to Galileo
1[zasłonięte]623-16
Translated and Annotated by Dava Sobel
London 2001
Stron XV+359, format: 13x20 cm
Książka jest nowa
Tekst bilingwiczny: włosko-angielski
Galileo's daughter was her father's greatest source of strength during his most difficult years. Now readers can follow their story in her own words.
Galileo Galilei was at the heart of the most dramatic collision between science and religion in history. He was also a loving father
who treasured his illegitimate daughter, Virginia. Perhaps her father's equal in brilliance, industry and sensibility, she became his greatest source of, strength during his most difficult years - from mending his shirts to managing his household affairs while he stood trial in Rome.
Virginia led a cloistered life in a gilded age. Since marriage was an impossibility, at thirteen she entered a convent near Florence to spend the rest of her days there as Sister Maria Celeste. Her 124 surviving letters span the decade in which a new Pope battled the Reformation; the Thirty Years' War embroiled all of Europe; the bubonic plague erupted, ravaging Florence until stemmed by a miracle; and a new philosophy of science threatened to overturn the order of the universe. Maria Celeste's evocative letters touch on all of these situations, bur they dwell in the details of everyday life. Through them, the man generally thought to have defied the Catholic Church is seen to depend on the prayers of a pious daughter.
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