For Athena Hope Demuth, a shining starPBD
For LindaJO
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014045708
Ebook ISBN 9780698198852
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Contents
Who Was
Galileo?
A UGUST 1609. P ADUA , I TALY .
It was a bright, starry night. A scientist named Galileo walked outside to his back garden. He carried a new telescope that hed 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 viewsights 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 moons surface! New stars took form from fuzzy patches in the sky! Moons circled Jupiter!
Yet Galileos discoveries led him into trouble. Terrible trouble. What he saw convinced him that the sun was the center of the universenot 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 hereticsanyone who spoke against the churchs 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.
THE RENAISSANCE
IN ANCIENT TIMES, GREECE AND ROME FOSTERED THE ARTS, SCIENCE, AND PHILOSOPHY. BUT AFTER THE FALL OF ROME AROUND 500 AD, ADVANCES IN EUROPE SLOWED TO A CRAWL. THE PERIOD BECAME KNOWN AS THE DARK AGES.
THEN, HUNDREDS OF YEARS LATER, CAME THE RENAISSANCE. RENAISSANCE COMES FROM A FRENCH WORD MEANING REBIRTH. IT WAS A CULTURAL MOVEMENT THAT STARTED IN ITALY ABOUT 1300, SPREAD THROUGH EUROPE, AND LASTED ABOUT THREE HUNDRED YEARS. LEARNING AND THE ARTS TOOK GREAT LEAPS FORWARD. ARTISTS AND PHILOSOPHERS LOOKED TO ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME FOR INSPIRATION.
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 Magellans 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. Pisas most famous landmark stoodor rather, tilted beside the cathedral. It was called the Leaning Tower because it looked ready to topple at any moment.
THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA
IN 1178 WORKERS STARTED TO BUILD A BEL
L TOWER BEHIND THE CATHEDRAL OF PISA. UNFORTUNATELY, THE TOWER WAS BUILT ON SOFT, SANDY SOIL THAT COULDNT HOLD UP THE TOWERS WEIGHT. EVEN BEFORE THE TOWER WAS FINISHED, IT BEGAN LEANING HEAVILY TO ONE SIDE. TODAY PISA IS KNOWN WORLDWIDE FOR ITS LEANING TOWER.
Galileo was the firstborn child. His mother and father both came from noble Italian families. However, that didnt mean the couple was wealthy. Galileos father, Vincenzio, worked hard as a musician. He sang, played the lute, wrote songs, and taught.
