Galileo was born in Pisa (then part of the Duchy of Florence), Italy, on 15 February 1564, the first of six children of Vincenzo Galilei, a lutenist, composer, and music theorist, and Giulia Ammannati, who had married in 1562. Galileo

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Although Galileo seriously considered the priesthood as a young man, at his father's urging he instead enrolled in 1580 at the University of Pisa for a medical degree. He was influenced by the lectures of Girolamo Borroand Francesco Buonamici of Florence. In 1581, when he

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Galileo continued to receive visitors until 1642, when, after suffering fever and heart palpitations, he died on 8 January 1642, aged 77. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II,

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Later Church reassessments
The Galileo affair was largely forgotten after Galileo's death, and the controversy subsided. The Inquisition's

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Galileo's early works describing scientific instruments include the 1586 tract entitled The Little Balance (La Billancetta) describing an accurate

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• Catholic Church and science
• Seconds pendulum
• Tribune of Galileo
• Villa Il Gioiello

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Scientific methods
Galileo made original contributions to the science of motion through an innovative combination of experiment and mathematics. More typical of science at the time were the qualitative studies of William Gilbert,

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