"Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love" by Dava Sobel (Repost)

This book presents a stunning portrait of a person hitherto lost to history, described by her father as "a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me." Galileo's Daughter dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishment of a mythic figure whose seventeenth-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion.

Inspired by a long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of Galileo's daughter, a cloistered nun, Dava Sobel has written a biography unlike any other of the man Albert Einstein called "the father of modern physics- indeed of modern science altogether.
Moving between Galileo's grand public life and Maria Celeste's sequestered world, Sobel illuminates the Florence of the Medicis and the papal court in Rome during the pivotal era when humanity's perception of its place in the cosmos was about to be overturned.

Contents
PART ONE. TO FLORENCE
I She who was so precious to you
II This grand book the universe
III Bright stars speak of your virtues
IV To have the truth seen and recognized
V In the very face of the sun
VI Observant executrix of God’s commands
VII The malice of my persecutors
VIII Conjecture here among shadows
PART TWO. ON BELLOSGUARDO
IX How our father is favored
X To busy myself in your service
XI What we require above all else
XII Because of our zeal
XIII Through my memory of their eloquence
XIV A small and trifling body
XV On the right path, by the grace of God
XVI The tempest of our many torments
PART THREE. IN ROME
XVII While seeking to immortalize your fame
XVIII Since the Lord chastises us with these whips
XIX The hope of having you always near
XX That I should be begged to publish such a work
PART FOUR. IN CARE OF THE TUSCAN EMBASSY, VILLA MEDICI, ROME
XXI How anxiously I live, awaiting word from you
XXII In the chambers of the Holy Office of the Inquisition
XXIII Vainglorious ambition, pure ignorance, and inadvertence
XXIV Faith vested in the miraculous Madonna of Impruneta
XXV Judgment passed on your book and your person
PART FIVE. AT SIENA
XXVI Not knowing how to refuse him the keys
XXVII Terrible destruction on the feast of San Lorenzo
XXVIII Recitation of the penitential psalms
XXIX The book of life, or, A prophet accepted in his own land
PART SIX. FROM ARCETRI
XXX My soul and its longing
XXXI Until I have this from your lips
XXXII As I struggle to understand
XXXIII The memory of the sweetnesses
In Galileo’s Time
Florentine Weights, Measures, Currency
Bibliography
Notes
Appreciation