Galileo's Daughter

by Dava Sobel

  Everything Suor Maria Celeste intimated about Galileo’s standing in the wide arena of the world was true. His former pupils still revered him, and elsewhere in Europe they spoke out against the injustice of his condemnation. His supporters included Rene Descartes in Holland, astronomer Pierre Gassendi and mathematicians Marin Mersenne and Pierre de Fermat in France. The French ambassador to Rome, Francois de Noailles, who had studied under Galileo at Padua, campaigned for his pardon, marching into Rome in 1633 in lavish display, at the head of a cavalcade of silver-shod horses attended by liverymen in gold-embroidered coats.*

  Churchmen, too, let it be known that Galileo had been wronged, though few protested as boldly as the archbishop of Siena. In Venice, for example, Galileo could still rely on the loyalty of Fra Fulgenzio Micanzio, theologian to the Venetian republic, whom he had met during his years in Padua. Micanzio had weathered previous papal storms, as in 1606, when Pope Paul V imposed the interdict against Venice, virtually suspending the celebration of Catholic life in that territory for a full year as a punishment for the republic’s flouting of his authority. Micanzio had stood by his former superior, Galileo’s good friend Fra Paolo Sarpi, throughout that ordeal and until Sarpi’s death in 1623, when he succeeded him. Similarly, Micanzio would stand by Galileo now.

  The truly noteworthy attentions of Archbishop Piccolomini, meanwhile, reached well beyond the palace where Galileo remained his charge, all the way to Galileo’s daughters at the Convent of San Matteo in Arcetri. The monsignor sent them frequent gifts, including his most excellent wine, which was shared among all the nuns, either by the glass or in their soup. Thanks to the archbishop, Galileo could proffer Suor Maria Celeste treats she had never seen or imagined, such as the creamy white egg-shaped lumps of mozzarella cheese made from water buffalo’s milk.

  “Lord Father, I must inform you that I am a blockhead,” she admitted in response to this promised gift, “indeed the biggest one in this part of Italy, because seeing how you wrote of sending me seven ‘Buffalo eggs,’ I believed them truly to be eggs, and planned to fry a huge omelette, convinced that such eggs would be very grand indeed, and in so doing I made a merry time for Suor Luisa, who laughed long and hard at my foolishness.”

  Here she punned by calling herself a bufala—a word meaning both “blockhead” and “female buffalo.” When she learned in a subsequent letter “that Monsignor Archbishop was well aware of my gaffe regarding the buffalo eggs, I could not help but blush for shame, although on the other hand I am happy to have given you grounds for laughter and gladness, as it is with this motive I so often write to you of foolish things.”

  Ten months into her wearisome separation from her father, she remained his faithful chronicler on all matters of possible interest, even when her headaches and toothaches forced her to be brief. “Signor Rondinelli,” she reported in mid-October, "has not shown his face here for a fortnight, because, from what I hear, he is drowning in the little bit of wine he had put in two kegs that are turning bad and giving him great grief.”

  Although Galileo never left the palace grounds, the archbishop facilitated his affairs, enabling Suor Maria Celeste to request specific items at her whim. “I have always wanted to know how to make those Sienese cakes that everyone raves about; now that All Saints’ Day [November 1] is approaching, you will have the occasion, Sire, to let me see them, I do not say ‘taste’ them so as not to sound gluttonous: you are further obliged (because of the promise you made me) to send me some of that strong reddish linen yarn which I would like to use to start preparing some little Christmas gift for Galileino, whom I adore because Signor Geri tells me that, beyond being the namesake, the boy also has the spirit of his grandfather.”

  She further urged Galileo to write “two lines” to his ever concerned doctor, Giovanni Ronconi, whom she saw frequently in the infirmary these days. Suor Maria Celeste summoned doctor Ronconi or one of his confreres to the convent whenever an illness appeared too grave for her to treat alone.

  Those who are sick may lie on sacks filled with straw and may have feather pillows for their heads, and those who need woolen socks and mattresses may use them, [RULE OF SAINT CLARE, chapter VIII]

  Although the danger of the plague had passed, fevers and persistent malaises now afflicted five of the nuns.

  MOST BELOVED LORD FATHER

  LAST WEDNESDAY a brother of the Priory of San Firenze came to bring me a letter from you along with the little package of russet linen yarn, which, considering the rather thick quality of the thread, seems somewhat expensive; but indeed the color of the dye, being very beautiful, makes the price of six crazie per skein appear more tolerable.

  Suor Luisa stays in bed with only the slightest improvement, and in addition to her, several of the others are also sick, so that if we now faced any suspicion of plague we would be lost. Among the sick is Suor Caterina Angela Anselmi who was formerly our Mother Abbess, a truly venerable and prudent nun, and, after Suor Luisa, the dearest and most intimate friend I have ever had: she is so gravely ill that yesterday morning she received the Extreme Unction, and it appears that she has only a few days to live; and the same must be said for Suor Maria Silvia Boscoli, a young woman of 22 years, and you may recall, Sire, how people once spoke of her as the most beautiful girl to grace the city of Florence for 300 years: this marks the sixth month she has been lying in bed with a continuous fever that the doctors now say has turned to consumption, and she is so wasted as to be unrecognizable; yet with all that she retains a vivacity and energy especially in her speech that astounds us, while from hour to hour we doubt whether that faint spirit (which seems entirely confined to her tongue) will fade away and abandon the already exhausted body: then, too, she is so listless that we can find no nourishment to suit her taste, or to say it better, that her stomach can accept, except a little soup made from broth in which we have boiled some dried wild asparagus, and these are extremely difficult to find at this time of year, wherefore I was thinking that perhaps she could take some soup made from gray partridge, which has no gamy taste. And since these birds abound where you are, Sire, as you say in your letters, you might be able to send me one of them for her and for Suor Luisa, and I doubt you would encounter any difficulty having them reach me in good condition, since our Suor Maria Maddalena Squadrini recently received several fresh, good thrushes that were sent by a brother of hers who is Prior at the Monastery of the Angels, in a part of the diocese very close to Siena. If, without too much trouble, Sire, you could help me make such a gift, now that the idea has whetted my appetite, I would be ever so grateful.

  This time it devolves upon me to play the raven who bears bad tidings, as I must tell you that on the feast day of San Francesco [October 4], Goro, who worked for the Sertinis, died, and left a family in great distress, according to his wife who was here yesterday morning to beseech me that I must convey this news to you, Sire, and furthermore remind you of the promise you made to Goro himself and to Antonia his daughter, to give her a black woolen housedress when she got married: now they are in dire straits, and Sunday, which will be tomorrow, she will say her vows in Church; and because Goro’s wife has spent what little money she had, first on medicaments and then for his funeral, she is hard-pressed, and wants to know if you can do her this kindness: I promised that I would tell her your answer as soon as I heard from you, Sire.

  I would not know how to make you realize the happiness I derive from learning that you continue conserving your health in spite of everything, except to say that I enjoy your good fortune more than my own, not only because I love you more than myself, but also because I can imagine that if I were oppressed by infirmity, or otherwise removed from the world it would matter little or nothing to anyone, since I am good for little or nothing, whereas in your case, Sire, the opposite holds true for a host of reasons, but especially (beyond the fact that you do so much good and are able to help so many others) because the great intellect and knowledge that the Lord God has given you enables you to serve Him and
honor Him far more than I ever could, so that with this consideration I come round to cheer myself and take greater pleasure from your well-being than from mine.

  Signor Rondinelli has allowed himself to be seen again now that his kegs have quieted down; he sends his greetings to you, Sire, and so does Doctor Ronconi.

  I assure you that I am never vexed by boredom, Sire, but sooner by the hunger caused, I believe, if not by all the exercise I perform, then by the coldness of my stomach, which does not get the full complement of sleep it requires, since I have no time. I rely on the oxymel and the papal pills to make up this deficit. I only tell you this to excuse myself for the haphazard appearance of my letter, as I was compelled to put down and then take up my pen again more than once before I could complete it, and on that note I commend you to God.

  FROM SAN MATTEO IN ARCETRI, THE 22ND DAY OF OCTOBER 1633.

  Your most affectionate daughter,

  S.M.Coloste

  The enclosed conforms to the wish you expressed in your previous letter, Sire, that after having written to you I should write also to Her Ladyship the Ambassadress. I suspect that my numerous activities have sapped my energy leaving me little to give her; you will be able to look it over and make corrections, and do let me know if you send her the ivory crucifix.

  I still cling to the hope that this week you will have some resolution regarding your release, and I am burning with desire to share in that news.

  According to medieval and Renaissance medical theory, each of the Earth’s four elements—earth, fire, air, water—had its correspondent humor in the human body: black bile, yellow bile, blood, phlegm. These in turn denoted specific organs—spleen, liver, heart, brain—and conveyed the qualities, respectively, of dry cold, dry heat, moist heat, and moist cold. Suor Maria Celeste spoke in diagnostic terms when she referred to the “coldness” of her stomach, meaning that it behaved sluggishly. Foods, remedies, and common activities could likewise be classified and prescribed by the same four qualities, so that the asparagus offered in broth to the once-lovely Suor Maria Silvia was described by herbalists as warm and moist in the first degree. Partridges, being of moderate warmth, were recommended for convalescents.

  Doctor Ronconi, with a university education in natural philosophy and more options at his disposal, could purge or bleed patients as necessary to restore the body’s balance. Being a physician gave him higher social status than the so-called barber-surgeons, most of whom received vocational training outside the university setting. This same disdain also tainted surgeons from the finest schools. Galileo compared the snobbishness shown by physicians toward surgeons to the groundless prejudice that philosophers lorded over mathematicians. Having befriended and benefited from the ministrations of the famed anatomist Girolamo Fabrici of Acquapendente, Galileo used him to make a point in defense of geometry:

  Sixteenth-century depiction of elements, humors, and organs

  I hear my adversaries shouting in my ears that it is one thing to deal with matters physically, and quite another to do so mathematically, and that geometers should stick to their fantasies and not get entangled in philosophical matters—as if truth could ever be more than one; as if geometry up to our time had prejudiced the acquisition of true philosophy; as if it were impossible to be a geometer as well as a philosopher— and we must infer as a necessary consequence that anyone who knows geometry cannot know physics, and cannot reason about and deal with physical matters physically! Consequences no less foolish than that of a certain physician who, moved by a fit of spleen, said that the great doctor Acquapendente, being a famed anatomist and surgeon, should content himself to remain among his scalpels and ointments without trying to effect cures by medicine—as if knowledge of surgery destroyed and opposed a knowledge of medicine. I replied to him that having many times recovered my health through the supreme excellence of Signor Acquapendente, I could depose and certify that he had never given me to drink any compound of cerates, caustics, threads, bandages, probes, and razors, nor had he ever, instead of feeling my pulse, cauterized me or pulled a tooth from my mouth. Rather, as an excellent physician, he purged me with manna, cassia, or rhubarb, and used other remedies suitable to my ailments.

  Well acquainted with her father’s ailments, Suor Maria Celeste regularly sent him her handmade papal pills, which contained dried rhubarb (a natural laxative), saffron supplied from Siena by Galileo, and aloe that had been washed with rose water no fewer than seven times. Her sluggish digestive system relied on the same medicine, although she took less care in preparing her own pills, leaving out whatever she lacked at the moment and settling for a single rose water washing of the aloe. When caring for Arcangela or another sick sister, however, she asked Galileo’s help in procuring expensive ingredients such as Tettucio water (a superior purgative) and nutmeg oil to control nausea and vomiting. Such substances, cataloged in the official Florentine Farmacopoeia, could be formulated into pills, potions, or powders following the instructions in available medical manuals.

  Suor Maria Celeste probably received her apprenticeship as an apothecary under the nuns and visiting doctors who staffed the convent’s infirmary. Her more basic schooling in letters and Latin, on the other hand, undoubtedly came from her father, in whatever time he could spare during her formative years, for it is clear that no one at San Matteo surpassed her in language skills. Even the abbesses sought her out to write important letters of official business.

  In Galileo’s own scientific correspondence through the autumn of 1633, he circulated among his friends certain proofs relating to the strength of materials. With their permission, and to their delight, he incorporated some of their additions and suggestions into the text for the second day of Two New Sciences.

  Galileo would later judge Two New Sciences “superior to everything else of mine hitherto published,” because its pages “contain results which I consider the most important of all my studies.” By his own reckoning, then, his conclusions on resistance and motion outweighed all the astronomical discoveries that immortalized his name. Surely Galileo prided himself on having been the first to build a proper telescope and point it toward the sky. But he believed his own greater genius lay in his ability to observe the world at hand, to understand the behavior of its parts, and to describe these in terms of mathematical proportions* While he worked on the dialogue for the beginning of Two New Sciences, Galileo also wrote a play. He sent it to Suor Maria Celeste for performance by the nuns—apparently for the anticipated entertainment of Her Ladyship Caterina Niccolini, the wife of the Tuscan ambassador, who was still intent on visiting the convent. Unfortunately, nothing survives of Galileo’s religious drama except his daughter’s mention of it in thanks. “The play, coming from you,” she wrote after reading the first act, “can be nothing if not wonderful.”

  In Rome, Ambassador Niccolini told Urban VIII that Galileo had proved himself to be a model prisoner in Siena by demonstrating obedience to the pope and the Holy Office. Urban weighed this claim against impeachments of archbishop Piccolomini that reached him from clerics in Siena. It seemed that the archbishop quite often invited various scholars to his table, the better to enrich the intellectual repartee so beneficial to Signor Galilei’s peace of mind. In other words, instead of holding Galileo prisoner as a confessed heretic, Piccolomini indulged him as a guest of honor.

  “The Archbishop,” an anonymous hand informed officials in Rome, “has told many that Galileo was unjustly sentenced by this Holy Congregation, that he is the first man in the world that he will live forever in his writings, even if they are prohibited, and that he is followed by all the best modern minds. And since such seeds sown by a prelate might bear pernicious fruit, I hereby report them.”

  PART SIX

  From

  Arcetri

  [XXX]

  My soul and

  its longing

  It rained all across Tuscany through the end of October 1633 and on into November. The dampness aggravated Galileo’s arthritic pains, de
epened Suor Maria Celeste’s lassitude, cast its dreary pall over all their expectations. Suor Caterina Angela, the former mother abbess at San Matteo, died in the wet autumn weather, and the nuns buried her in the convent cemetery in the rain.

  I am the resurrection, I am the life; he who believes in me, even if he die, shall live; and whoever lives and believes in me, shall never die. [Office for the Dead, Canticle of Zechariah]

  The other sick nuns in the infirmary held on. Galileo failed to send the partridge for them, though not through lack of trying. This late in the hunting season, not a single one could be bagged anywhere. Suor Maria Celeste, for her part, had no better luck procuring the tiny ortolan buntings that Galileo craved and could not get in Siena.

  Gray partridge

  “I delayed writing this week,” she apologized, “because I really wanted to send you the ortolans, but in the end none have been found, and I hear they fly away when the thrushes arrive. If only I had known this desire of yours, Sire, several weeks ago, when I was racking my brain trying to think of what I could possibly send you that might please you; but never mind! You have been unlucky in the ortolans, just as I was foiled by the gray partridges, because I lost them to the goshawk falcon.”