The materials for the sketch of this astonishing man are sufficiently
abundant. We make special use in this place of those charming
letters which his daughter wrote to him from her convent home. More
than a hundred of these have been preserved, and it may well be
doubted whether any more beautiful and touching series of letters
addressed to a parent by a dearly loved child have ever been
written. An admirable account of this correspondence is contained in
a little book entitled "The Private Life of Galileo," published
anonymously by Messrs. Macmillan in 1870, and I have been much
indebted to the author of that volume for many of the facts contained
in this chapter.
Galileo was born at Pisa, on 18th February, 1564. He was the eldest
son of Vincenzo de' Bonajuti de' Galilei, a Florentine noble.
Notwithstanding his illustrious birth and descent, it would seem that
the home in which the great philosopher's childhood was spent was an
impoverished one. It was obvious at least that the young Galileo
would have to be provided with some profession by which he might earn
a livelihood. From his father he derived both by inheritance and by
precept a keen taste for music, and it appears that he became an
excellent performer on the lute.
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