Links
The Galileo Project
es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/
Rice University's Galileo Project Web site offers hundreds of pages of detailed information on Galileo, including a timeline of his life and era, a detailed diagram of his family villa, and an extensive bibliography.
Institute and Museum of the History of Science (IMSS)
www.imss.fi.it/museo/
The Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence, Italy features a permanent exhibition of Galileo artifacts. Images of these items, which include telescopes and, surprisingly, the withered middle finger of Galileo's right hand, can be viewed at the Institute's Web site.
Galileo Galilei's Notes on Motion
galileo.imss.firenze.it/ms72/index.html
The IMMS Web site also offers hi-resolution scans of more than 300 handwritten pages of Galileo's notes and diagrams on motion.
Galileo and Einstein
galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu
This companion Web site to a University of Virginia course on Galileo and Einstein provides a wide range of information related to Galileo and his place in scientific history. You will find a complete online version of Galileo's Dialogue Concerning Two New Sciences, an overview with diagrams of Galileo's relationship to Copernicus, and the full text of more than 20 related lectures.
Books
Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love
by Dava Sobel. New York: Walker, 1999.
Based on 124 letters from Galileo's illegitimate daughter, Maria Celeste, to
her father from inside a Tuscan convent, Sobel paints an intimate picture of
Galileo's personal and professional life and the times during which he lived.
(See our adaptation, His Place in Science.)
The Crime of Galileo
by Giorgio de Santillana. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
Those interested in reading more about the difficult relationship between Galileo
and the Vatican should consult this volume, still considered to be the
definitive resource on the subject. Giorgio de Santillana's meticulous prose
quotes liberally from official Vatican documents and puts the entire affair in
perspective.
The Sleepwalkers
by Arthur Koestler. New York: Arkana, 1990.
Koestler presents the history of cosmology from the Babylonians to Newton and
shows how Galileo sat at the center of the scientific revolution that spawned
our contemporary worldview.
Seeing and Believing: How the Telescope Opened Our Eyes and Minds to the
Heavens
by Richard Panek. New York: Penguin, 1999.
Journalist Richard Panek brings 400 years of the telescope into focus in this
slim, highly readable volume. What is the purpose of the telescope? Why did its
invention have such a profound effect on science and life as we know it? Find
out here.
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