Tackling Galileo as astronomer, engineer, and author, David Wootton places him at the center of Renaissance culture. He traces Galileo through his early rebellious years; the beginnings of his scientific career constructing a "new physics"; his move to Florence seeking money, status, and greater freedom to attack intellectual orthodoxies; his trial for heresy and narrow escape from torture; and his house arrest and physical (though not intellectual) decline. Wootton also reveals much that is new-from Galileo's premature Copernicanism to a previously unrecognized illegitimate daughter-and, controversially, rejects the long-established belief that Galileo was a good Catholic.
Absolutely central to Galileo's significance-and to science more broadly-is the telescope, the potential of which Galileo was the first to grasp. Wootton makes clear that it totally revolutionized and galvanized scientific endeavor to discover new and previously unimagined facts. Drawing extensively on Galileo's voluminous letters, many of which were self-censored and sly, this is an original, arresting, and highly readable biography of a difficult, remarkable Renaissance genius.
"In a quiverful of publications, David Wootton has made it his mission to help us view the Renaissance thought-world in new ways, and this elegant biography does not disappoint. The Galileo he portrays is no saint, either Catholic or secular, but is the more fascinating for revealing the great scientist's selfishness, anxiety and political ineptitude, together with all the intellectual blind alley
Diarmaid MacCulloch
"Wootton's Galileo is many things: private unbeliever, reluctant empiricist and impetuous thinker. This brilliant book traces Galileo's difficult negotiations of academic jealousies, court politics and ecclesiastical scrutiny, allows us to imagine the excitement and danger of looking through a telescope in Venice, and gives fresh insights into the mind and the man as father and son. A remarkable a
