Title page of Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius, published in Venice
in 1610. The book instantly made Galileo a European celebrity,
and earned him, in July 1610,
the position of chief mathematician and philosopher
mathematician
to the Grand Duke of Tucsany, Cosimo de Medici II, in Florence.
Reproduced from the introductory essay in A. van Helden's 1989 translation.
The book described Galileo's groundbreaking telescopic discoveries,
including his
lunar observations,
observations of faint stars invisible
to the naked eye, and
discovery of Jupiter's four larger Moons.
Originally greeted with a good measure of scepticism, Galileo's
telescopic discoveries benefited from an enthusiastic endorsement by
Kepler, and shortly thereafter by the
Christoph Clavius and other Jesuit astronomers
at the Roman College.
Bibliography:
Galileo, D. 1601, Sidereus Nuncius, trans. A. van Helden 1989,
The University of Chicago Press.
Galileo
Kepler
Harriot
Clavius
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