Who Was Galileo?

About the Author Patricia Brennan Demuth is the author of Who Was Laura Ingalls Wilder?, Who Is Bill Gates?, What Was Ellis Island?, and What Was Pearl Harbor? Product Description Like Michelangelo, Galileo is another Renaissance great known just by his first name--a name that is synonymous with scientific achievement. Born in Pisa, Italy, in the sixteenth century, Galileo contributed to the era's great rebirth of knowledge. He invented a telescope to observe the heavens. From there, not even the sky was the limit! He turned long-held notions about the universe topsy turvy with his support of a sun-centric solar system. Patricia Brennan Demuth offers a sympathetic portrait of a brilliant man who lived in a time when speaking scientific truth to those in power was still a dangerous proposition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Who Was Galileo? August 1609. Padua, Italy. It was a bright, starry night. A scientist named Galileo walked outside to his back garden. He carried a new telescope that he’d made himself. For weeks, Galileo had been carefully grinding the lenses. Now his telescope could enlarge objects many times their size. Galileo pointed the telescope upward. Dazzling sights leaped into view—sights no one had ever seen. How could they? These sights were not visible to the naked eye. Over the next few weeks, Galileo roamed the heavens with his telescope. What he saw amazed him. Mountains rose up from the moon’s surface! New stars took form from fuzzy patches in the sky! Moons circled Jupiter! Yet Galileo’s discoveries led him into trouble. Terrible trouble. What he saw convinced him that the sun was the center of the universe—not the Earth. In 1609 this was a strange idea. For thousands of years, people thought that the sun and all the planets circled Earth once a day. The Catholic church held this belief as well. When Galileo lived, the church was very powerful in Italy. It had its own court, called the Inquisition. The Inquisition could arrest and try heretics—anyone who spoke against the church’s teachings. Heretics were sometimes tortured, even killed. Galileo was torn. He himself was a faithful Catholic who honored church teachings. Yet his own eyes pointed him to a different truth. This truth would put his life at stake. Chapter 1: Boyhood On February 15, 1564, Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy. His full name had a musical ring: Galileo Galilei (gal-uh-LAY-oh gal-uh-LAY). Yet the great scientist became known by just his first name. Italy honored its most famous citizens that way, including the painter Michelangelo. Even books by Galileo were printed without his last name. And today, encyclopedias list him simply as Galileo. He was born into an exciting age known as the Renaissance. Discovery was in the air. Europe was exploding with a renewed interest in the arts and science. In 1564 the English writer William Shakespeare was born, and Michelangelo died. Both men, along with Galileo, went down in history as geniuses of the Renaissance. The printing press, invented in 1454, allowed books to be mass-produced instead of being copied by hand, one by one. With more books, more people began to read. Artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci created beautiful paintings, sculpture, and architecture. With improved seagoing instruments, explorers bravely set sail for uncharted lands. Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World of the Americas in 1492. Ferdinand Magellan’s crew sailed around the globe, returning in 1522. And in 1607, when Galileo was forty-three, settlers arrived in Jamestown and founded one of the first English settlements in North America. Pisa was a beautiful old city by the River Arno. Its cathedral was already five centuries old when Galileo was born. Pisa’s most famous landmark stood—or rather, tilted—beside the cathedral. It was called the Leaning Tower because it looked ready to topple at any moment. Galileo was the firstborn child. His mother and f