Conversations with Galileo

This format provides an informative and accessible introduction to Galileo's life along with a series of fictional dialogues based on biographical facts. Appropriately, the author is Galileo Professor of the History of Science at the University of Padua, and has written several books about Galileo and the scientific revolution. The first part is a brief life, followed by well-informed and plausible dialogues where readers learn not only about Galileo's science but also about his inheritance of family debt (his older daughter was a nun), his love of wine and women, the nature of his teaching assignments and the fact that he was also an astrologer and played the lute. Interestingly, in view of the current crisis, there is a dialogue on the 1630s plague where 50,000 people died in Venice alone. He himself was quarantined for 18 days.