Galileo’s Dream. Kim Stanley Robinson
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Galileo Galilei.
The book was published in March of 1610. The first printing sold out within the month. Copies circulated throughout Europe. Indeed its fame was worldwide: within five years word came that it was being discussed at the Chinese court.
Despite this literary and scientific success, the Galilean household was still running at a loss, with the master’s time also massively over-committed. He wrote to his friend Sagredo, I’m always at the service of this or that person. I have to eat up many hours of the day-often the best ones-in the service of others. I need a Prince.
On 7th May of 1610 he wrote again to Vinta. He did not beat around the bush, but made it an explicit letter of application, a real piece of rhetoric. He requested a salary of a thousand florins a year, and sufficient free time to bring to completion certain works he had in progress. Glancing up at the dusty workbooks on the shelf to make sure he forgot nothing, he made a list of what he hoped to publish if he were given the time:
Two books on the system and constitution of the universe, an overarching conception full of philosophy, astronomy, and geometry; three books on local motion, an entirely new science, as no one else ancient or modern has discovered the many amazing properties that I demonstrate to exist in natural and forced motions, which is why I may call this a new science discovered by me from its first principles; three books on mechanics, two pertaining to principles and foundations, one on its problems-and though others have written on this same material, what has been written to date is not one-quarter of what I will write, either in quantity or otherwise. I have also various little works on physical subjects, such as On Sound and Voice, On Vision and Colours, On the Tides, On the Composition of the Continuum, On the Motion of Animals, and still more. I will also write on military science, giving not only a model of what a soldier ought to be, but also mathematical treatises on fortification, the movement of troops, sieges, surveying, estimating distances and artillery power, and a fuller description of my military compass,
-which is in fact my greatest invention, a single device that allows one to make all of the military calculations I have already mentioned plus also the division of lines, the solution of the Rule of Three, the equalization of money, the calculation of interest, proportional reduction of figures and solids, extraction of square and cube roots, identification of the mean proportionals, transformation of parallelepipeds into cubes, determination of proportional weights of metals and other substances, description of polygons and division of circumferences into equal parts, squaring of the circle or any other regular figures, taking the batter of scarps on walls-in short, an omni-calculator, able to make any computation you could want, despite which hardly anyone has noticed its existence, and even fewer bought one, so stupid is the common run of humanity!
-he did not add, and so moved on to his conclusion:
Finally, as to the title and the scope of my duties, I wish in
addition to the name of Mathematician that His Highness adjoin that of Philosopher. Whether I can and should have this title I shall be able to show Their Highnesses whenever it is their pleasure to give me a chance to deal with this in their presence with the most esteemed men of that profession,
-such as they are, being for the most part grossly overpaid Peripatetic idiots!
-he did not add.
Reading over the final flourishes, it seemed to him that the opportunities being offered to any potential patron were too brilliant to decline. What a great application! What prince could say no to such a thing?
And, in fact, on 24th May, 1610, a reply from Vinta came to the house behind the church of Santa Giustina, the house on Via Vignali where they had all lived and worked together for eighteen years. Grand Duke Cosimo, Vinta wrote, accepts your services.
Galileo wrote to accept the acceptance on 28th May. On 5th June Vinta wrote back, confirming that his title would be ‘Chief Mathematician of the University of Pisa and Philosopher to the Grand Duke’.
Galileo wrote back in turn, asking that his title be revised to ‘Mathematician and Philosopher to the Grand Duke’.
He also requested that he be absolved of any further obligation to his two brothers-in-law arising from defaults on dowry payments for his sisters. That would allow him to go home without the inconvenience of embarrassing lawsuits from those disgusting chisellers, or the possibility of arrest. He would go up to them in the streets and say to them, ‘I am mathematician and philosopher to the Grand Duke, go fuck yourselves.’
And all this was agreed to in his formal appointment of 10th July of 1610. The new service to Cosimo was to begin in October. It was understood to be a lifetime appointment.
He had a prince.
With the prospect of Galileo’s move to Florence, what had never been more than controlled chaos at Hostel Galileo now fell apart into utter chaos. Aside from the practical tasks, Galileo had to deal with a lot of hard feelings in Padua and Venice. Many of the Venetian pregadi were outraged to hear he was walking out on his acceptance of their recent offer, calling it gross ingratitude and worse. The procurator Antonio Priuli was particularly bitter: ‘I hope I never lay eyes on that ingrate again in my life!’ he was said to have shouted, and of course this was quickly reported to Galileo. And it wasn’t just Priuli; the anger was widespread. It was obvious Venice would never offer him employment again.
Galileo gritted his teeth and forged on with the chores of the move. This reaction was to be expected, it was just part of the price he had to pay to get patronage. It was a sign that the Venetians had valued him and yet taken advantage of him, and knew it and felt guilty about it, and as people would always rather feel angry than guilty, the transmutation of the one to the other had been easy. It had to be his fault.
He focused on practical matters. Merely boxing up the contents of the big house took weeks, and just at a time when his astronomical work was at a crucial point. Happily that was night work, so that no matter the loud and dusty tumble of days, he could always wake up after an evening meal and a nap, settle down on his stool, and make his observations through the long cool nights. This meant foregoing sleep, but as he had never been much of a sleeper anyway, often existing for months at a time on mere snatches, it did not really matter. And it was all too interesting to stop. ‘What must be done can be done,’ he would say hoarsely to Mazzoleni as he flogged them through the afternoons. ‘We can sleep when we’re dead.’ In the meantime he slept whenever it was cloudy.
The household therefore avoided him in the morning, when he was often abusive, and even at the best of times a bit befuddled and melancholy. He would throw things at anyone foolish enough to bother him in the couple of hours it took to pull himself together, and out of what looked like deep sleep he could kick with vicious accuracy.
Once up, groaning and yawning on his bed, he broke his fast on leftovers, then took a walk in his garden. Pulled a few weeds, plucked a lemon or a cluster of grapes, then went back in to face the day: the move, the correspondence, the students, the accounts, eating as he worked, wolfing down sugared ravioli or pork pies, washing it down with wine and cinnamon. At night everyone else would collapse into bed, while he went out to the terrazzo alone and made his observations, using spyglasses they had constructed back in the spring; there would be no more improvements made in them until he was settled in Florence.
And of course there was Marina to attend to. Ever since she had gotten pregnant, Galileo had provided her with the funds to rent and keep a little house on the Ponte Corvo, around the corner from his place, so that he could sometimes drop off the girls on the way to his lectures at Il Bo. Now Virginia was ten, Livia nine, and Vincenzio four. They had spent their whole lives between the two houses, the girls mostly in Galileo’s big place, being taken care of by the servants. Now decisions had to be made.
Galileo stumped down to the Ponte Corvo unhappily, readying himself for the inevitable tongue-lashing. He was a barrel of a man with a red beard and wild hair, but now he looked small. At moments like these he could not help remembering his poor father. Vincenzio Galilei had been the most hen-pecked pussywhipped pancake of a husband in the history of mankind; he had felt the lash daily, Galileo had seen