28

The new professor at Padua supported his family by giving extra tuition - mainly in practical mathematics

Galileo moves to Padua

In 1591 his father died, and Galileo found himself burdened with the
duties of head of the family. His salary hardly matched this responsibility, being about one-thirtieth that of the professor of medicine.
Besides, Galileo had made enemies in the faculty by writing a satirical
poem poking fun at the academic gown, which university staff were
expected to wear at all times.
In 1592 he obtained the better post he needed, teaching mathematics at the University of Padua, at three times his previous salary.
He also added to his income by taking in students, and giving extra
tuition. They mainly wanted mathematics for military engineering or
navigation, and for them Galileo designed a new type of instrument,
his "geometric and military compass".
Padua was then the premier university of Italy, and one of the best
in Europe. There Galileo made friends with some of the leading
minds of Italy. Although he never married, he entered into a relationship with a woman named Marina Gamba, from which three children
were born. They parted when he left Padua in 1610, the children
eventually joining him when their mother wed. The eldest, Virginia,
the most perceptive of the three, was very close to him. In later years
he leased a house to be near her nunnery in Arcetri, outside Florence,

~ Galileo tests the Ulaw

of fallM by rolling a metal
ball down an inclined
groove. This 19th-century
reconstruction includes
Pisan landmarks, but
Galileo had been in Padua
for some time when the
experiment was conducted
in 1603-1604.
T The scientific
Renaissance which
flowered in the
revolutionary theories of
Copernicus, Galileo and
others was built at least in
part on the earlier
rediscovery of writings by
giants of Classical Greek
science. Raphael's MSchool
of AthensM (1509), which
typifies Italian High
Renaissance painting,
includes Plato and Aristotle
(center of painting),
Socrates, Pythagoras,
Euclid and Archimedes. /