Galileo had a daughter? So what? That question may be raised, which is understandable.

The central, defining dramatic turn of events on which Galileo's personal story hangs is left underexplained. What annoyed me was that this volte face by the papacy is dealt with very quickly and superficially - while we get pages and pages of what's growing in the convent garden, or what's happened in Galileo's wine cellar. But apparently the pope needed a scapegoat, or something to make him look strong and distract attention from other political problems, so Galileo was persecuted and imprisoned (mainly as a guest of indulgent and sympathetic dukes and bishops) despite his best efforts. He got everything signed off in triplicate by the church, having schmoozed everyone up to and including the pope, before he published. What I found most interesting was the account of Galileo's meticulous attempts to avoid precisely the fate that eventually befell him. The book takes a long time to get going: it feels like the first half is scene-setting.

The slant you get on Galileo is much less about his skills as a savvy dramatist and self-publicist - see Paul Feyerabend's take - and much more humble and pious, shown particularly through his relationship with his elder daughter (his two other children remain in the background, in Galileo's thoughts and feelings as well as in this account, if Sobel is right). The book took me four months to finish, albeit with a break. I read this on the recommendation of my friend Fred, and because I'm fascinated by the ructions that went on as the heliocentric view of the solar system gathered momentum (I'd recommend John Banville's Doctor Copernicus and Kepler, and Koestler's Sleepwalkers). Galileo’s legendary clash with Catholic doctrine, the bubonic plague, and the Thirty Year’s War in Europe all paled in comparison to one man’s incredible journey to reconcile the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic with the heavens he revealed through his telescope. Sobel masterfully recolors the papal court of Rome and the Florence of the Medicis in the pivotal era when humanity's comfortable opinion of its place in the universe was about to be dramatically flipped upside-down. Galileo's Daughter deftly moves between Maria Celeste’s life as a cloistered nun to Galileo’s life in the public eye, illuminating a person previously lost to history while detailing the famous father who loved her, and his accomplishments. Dava Sobel brings to life the remarkable biography the world needs of the man hailed by the greats as the Father of Modern Physics. Based on independent research supported by the astonishing surviving letters of Galileo’s daughter, Maria Celeste, comes a story fraught with human drama and scientific adventure.

Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel