Includes bibliographical references (pages 258-259) and index.

"The precursor of the Age of Reason, perhaps the most dramatic figure in the history of science and foremost amongst its martyrs, Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa in 1564, of an impoverished aristocratic Florentine family. He was educated at the Jesuit monastery of Vallombrosa and at the university of Pisa. During his twenty-one years as Professor of Mathematics at Pisa and Padua, Galileo discovered the isochronism of the pendulum, disproved the accepted Aristotelian concept of the fall of weights, designed various instruments including a lodestone, an air thermometer and a 'geometric and military' computing compass, constructed and perfected a telescope which was a far more powerful instrument than had hitherto been seen, discovered through it the satellites of Jupiter and wrote several treatises. In 1610, at the invitation of his former pupil, Grand Duke Cosimo II de' Medici, Galileo settled in Florence as chief mathematician and philosopher to the Florentine court. It was not long, however, before his scathing pen and his derisive attacks on the established Aristotelian principle of a geocentric universe earned him the reputation of a dangerous rebel and a number of bitter enemies. Though his astronomical discoveries had roused the interest and support of the Church and, in particular, of Cardinals Roberto Bellamine and Maffeo Barberini, later Pope Urban VIII, his passionate defence of the Copernican system of the universe, coming at a time when the Catholic Church was in the throes of the Counter-Reformation, amounted to nothing less than heresy. Heedless if its warning, he was hounded down, brought to trial before the Inquisition and forced to renounce his views publicly. Though blighted by increasing, and later total, blindness, the last nine years of his life were spent in peaceful and productive exile at Arcetri, in the hills above Florence. A perfect example of the Renaissance man, Galileo could have been an artist, for he drew and painted well and was a master in the art of perspective. He could also, had he wanted to, have been a musician: he was a fine lute player and his music afforded him great pleasure and solace after he became blind. Another facet of this many-talented man was his fluent and eloquent style of writing, characterized by a vitriolic wit. Colin Ronan's absorbing biography of this colossus of the late Renaissance, this rebel philosopher who advocated free thought in a country where individual opinion was anathema, makes compelling reading."--,taken from book jacket flaps.

"Galileo may have had a predilection for the life of an artist, yet he was essentially a man of science. He lived and breathed a new and revolutionary scientific air, and it is not possible to separate the man from his science, to ignore his work and expect to see his character in the round. Nevertheless I have tried, in this book, to keep his science in perspective and yet set him against the backcloth of his age and, above all, to trace the inexorable sequence of events that forced Galileo into his inevitable clash with the Inquisition. To do this I have made use of recent historical research that has shown not only the full extent of his scientific brilliance but, equally significant, has taken a more penetrating look at the background to the trial, the sentence, and Galileo's recantation."--,taken from Introduction, page 9.

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