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Letters to Father
Suor Maria Celeste to Galileo, 1623 - 1633
Dava Sobel

Reviews of Letters to Father

The gentle, intelligent voice of Galileo's daughter speaks across the centuries in 124 remarkable epistles-published for the first time in English-written to her father in the early 17th century.

In 1613, when daughters Virginia and Livia were 13 and 12, respectively, Galileo placed them in Florence's Convent of San Matteo, operated by the religious order called the Poor Clares. (Both Editor Sobel [Galileo's Daughter, 1999, etc] and the publisher are donating all proceeds from this book to the Poor Clare's of New Mexico.) When the girls turned 16, they both took vows and new names. Virginia became Suor Maria Celeste; Livia, sour Arcangela. In one of the fortuitous coincidences of history, the later letters in this collection come from the period when Galileo appeared before the Inquisition and was forced to deny the validity of the Copernican system. Maria Celeste's fear for her father's safety permeates virtually every line of these letters, even when she is writing about such mundane affairs as the health of a mule or the condition of her teeth. ("Recently I pulled a very large molar, which had rotted and was giving me great pain.") Maria Celeste displays enormous veneration for Galileo. She addresses the him as "Most Illustrious Father" and throughout employs the most respectful tone and diction that Italian will allow. (The English translations are accompanied by the original-language versions on facing pages.) Occasionally she chides him very gently for not visiting enough, for failing to write often enough, or for neglecting his health. She warns him about the presence of the plague in Florence, sending "a marvelous defense," a concoction consisting of figs, nuts, rue, salt and honey. Like any other child away from home, she asks for money, sympathy, care packages, and respect.

Lively and lovely. Making these available to the English-speaking world is a great public service.
- Kirkus Reviews [*starred review*]

Collected and translated by the author of Galileo's Daughter this book offers 124 letters to Galileo from his older, illegitimate daughter Virginia (later Suor Maria Celeste), documenting her life from the time she entered the Convent of San Matteo in 1613 at the age of 13 with her sister Livia. The hardship of their living conditions with the Poor Clares and resulant poor health is obvious from the earliest letters and continues throughout but is accepted almost matter-of-factly. Occasionally, when conditions deteriorate too drastically or when a sick sister would benefit from something "special," Maria Celeste would ask her father for assistance. The references to the plague that swept the area in the 1630s and her father's trial for heresy are touched on gently and sometimes indirectly but certainly indicate that Maria Celeste knew what was happening in the "outside" world. Maria Celeste died in 1634, shortly after Galileo's release, and the letters conclude before his return. Both the original Italian and English translation with annotations are included. The book will appeal to the general reader, particularly those who enjoyed Sobel's previous book. Recommended.
-Library Journal

In 1600, the year Galileo's first daughter was born, the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for heresy, having suggested, among much else, that the universe was infinite and that the Earth traveled around the sun. More than half a century earlier, Polish mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus had reached the conclusion that the Earth and other planets revolved around the sun. But Copernicus did not publish his findings until 1543, when he was 70 and on his deathbed. When Italian scientist Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) found himself coming to the same conclusions, it was not long before he was summoned to Rome to answer Inquisitorial questions. Although it could be said he got off relatively lightly, he was tortured, forced to retract his views and confined to house arrest for the rest of his days.

Looking back on the conflicts between these pioneers of modern science and the Roman Catholic Church, we tend to see them as conflicts between science and religion, rationalism and faith. One of the central themes of Dava Sobel's prize-winning history "Galileo's Daughter" was that Galileo was a sincere Catholic who did not consider his scientific discoveries to be irreligious.

Certainly, in the letters written to him by his older daughter, a devout nun, there is no sense of a conflict between faith and science, only shared love and shared values. Although Galileo's side of the correspondence seems to have been destroyed, 124 letters written by his daughter have survived. Sobel included 21 of them in "Galileo's Daughter" and has now given us the complete set. "Letters to Father: Suor Maria Celeste to Galileo, 1623-1633" is a finely produced book with Sobel's English renditions on facing pages to the texts in the original Italian. It's clearly a labor of love, with proceeds from its sales going to help Suor Maria Celeste's order, the Poor Clares.

Maria Celeste was born "Virginia," the first of three out-of-wedlock children that Galileo had with a woman of a lower social class, who later married someone else. Galileo managed to legitimize the third child, a boy. But Virginia and her younger sister Livia, like many Italian girls whose marital prospects were not good, were placed in a convent. (The stigma of illegitimacy and lack of substantial dowries gave them little chance of finding suitable husbands.) Livia, who took the name "Suor Arcangela," remains a silent, shadowy figure, known to us mainly through the words of her older sister.

Articulate and thoughtful, Suor Maria Celeste was a devoted daughter, a good sister and a valued member of her order, where she often served as its apothecary. In the years these letters were written, Europe was embroiled in religious wars and ravaged by outbreaks of bubonic plague. Maria Celeste only glancingly touches upon the former but is much concerned with the latter and indeed with all the many ailments and diseases that threaten the lives of those she loves. She constantly advises her father to look after his health, often sends him pills she has made and just as often asks him to send special food or herbal ingredients to make medicines for other members of her order.

Indeed, perhaps the most powerful impression that one gets from her accounts of daily existence is simply how very difficult life was back then. Food was scarce, clothing expensive, illness common and money hard to earn. And life was even more straitened in the convent, where nuns like Maria Celeste often had to ask their families for financial help to buy supplies and pay the rent on their cells. "I had wanted to make you some rosemary flower jam, Sire, but I am waiting for you to return one of my glass jars, because I have nothing to hold the jam..." she explains.

Galileo was clearly a devoted father who did his best to fulfill all her requests. Despite the formality of the style in which she addresses her "Most Illustrious Lord Father," there's no mistaking the trust and closeness in the relationship. "So as not to transgress against your commandment for a full account of our health," she writes, "I tell you that I am following the doctor's orders by not observing Lent, and that, being already mostly toothless at my age, I will be very pleased if you can send me some fatty mutton, for surely I can manage to eat that." She was only 27 when she wrote this. Six years later, she died.

The reader will feel the shock of her loss, for Maria Celeste's quick intelligence and steadfast courage are as evident as her piety and modesty. She had no doubt of her father's innocence. Nor did she detect anything heretical in his scientific findings. The disposition of his case was a shock to her: "so intensely did it pierce my soul with pain to hear the judgment that has finally been passed, denouncing your person as well as your book." She felt certain he would be vindicated as, in the long run, more than 31/2 centuries later, he was.
-Los Angeles Times

LETTERS TO FATHER presents the letters in both the original Italian and in English, with the two versions appearing on facing pages. While this might be helpful to scholars (or to those seeking an interesting, but fairly limited, way to learn some Italian), it is unnecessarily distracting to the lay reader, who really only needs the pages that appear on the right side of the book. Sobel's annotations, however, are quite helpful, filling in historical and personal information without becoming intrusive or long-winded.

The clarity and brevity of the notes allows the focus to remain on the letters themselves, and they are wholly fascinating. While many of them mention the plague and various remedies and precautions to battle the scourge, and many more deal with Galileo's trial and subsequent house arrest, even the letters that touch on nothing more than everyday matters --- the need for more citrons to make treats for Galileo, the state of the wine in Galileo's casks, the health of the nuns --- are absorbing because they serve to humanize one of the great mythic figures of history.

LETTERS TO FATHER reveals Galileo as more than a brilliant scientist at odds with the Church. He was a father, a gardener, a generous giver to those in need, a person with bills to pay and a man who tended to drink more than his daughter felt was good for him. While he is revered today for his contributions to science, in his own day he was highly esteemed by many who could scarcely fathom his theories and discoveries but who were touched by his kindness. Indeed, one of the most interesting things about the letters is the revelation that Suor Marie Celeste's fellow nuns and others associated with the Church continued to honor and pray for Galileo long after his sentence had been handed down by Church officials.

Revealing Galileo's character in a way no biography could approach, LETTERS TO FATHER is an important work, and Sobel's efforts to bring it to the English-speaking world are to be commended.

-Rob Cline of Bookreporter.com

About Dava Sobel