Galileo's daughter

[jporter@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Julie Porter)]

I just finished the book _Galileo's Daughter_ by Dava Sobel (longitude)
A bit dry reading. The 1630's are much too late for a VMS connection.
What I found interesting, was the process Galileo had to go through to get
his book published.
He was close to his Daughter, iligitimite who took her vows into a
Fransiscian convent.(order of St Clair) He chose his house to be near her.
She may have been his copy editor on the Dialog. (This part of the
corespondence does not survive)
What I did not know, was that the pope was in the midst of the 30 years
war. To complicate things Plauge took 40 percent of the Florenteen
population.
How to get Galileo's manuscript from Florence to the censors in Rome?
Florence was in quarenteen. Books & MSS were suspect plauge carriers. Such
things were sanitized when impounded. Some were burned. The sanitation
process could destroy the ink.
While this does not relate directly. It is interesting to realise how
fragile such things really are. In the end Galileo got a licence to print
in Florence. This in turn caused later problems.
It is hard in this day to understand the suspresson of knowlege. Something
like the VMS would really be suspect.
I still thing the VMS was written by Rosencrantz and Guldersern as a cheat
on caligraphy 101. On the other hand Perhaps Mary and Martha wrote it to
have a good laugh at sister lexographer.
There are samples of Sister Maria Celeste Galileo's hand. It has the long
strokes of the Itainate hand. Small sums could be earned by sisters who
could sell such skills in writing.
-julieP