Letters to Father : Suor Maria Celeste to Galileo, 1623-1633

When she was 13, Virginia Galilei, eldest daughter of the great scientist Galileo, was placed in a convent in Florence. She wrote him continually, as her 124 surviving letters attest. Here, all of these letters are reproduced in English & in their original Italian. The letters span only a decade. In that dramatic period, a pope came to power who battled the Protestant Reformation; the 30 Years' War embroiled all of Europe; the bubonic plague erupted across Italy; & a new philosophy of science, promulgated most forcefully by Galileo himself, threatened to overturn the order of the universe. Maria Celeste's letters touch on all of these situations. Her words provide an indelible chronicle of convent life in the early 17th century.Galilei, Maria Celeste is the author of 'Letters to Father : Suor Maria Celeste to Galileo, 1623-1633', published 2005 under ISBN 9780756797058 and ISBN 0756797055.