accounted for the “very severe pains and twinges” his biographer said he sustained “in various parts of his body.” Gout also causes painful kidney stones (when the excess uric acid in the blood, typical of this disease, gets deposited as crystals in the kidneys as well as in the joint spaces), and Galileo complained more than once of prolonged kidney trouble. The quantities of red wine he produced and drank would only have exacerbated the condition (by raising his uric acid level). Even at a time when wine was generally considered the safer alternative to water, doctors recognized the causal connection between alcohol and attacks of gout. Galileo’s daughter, who made many of his pills and tonics in the convent apothecary shop, frequently counseled him in her letters to limit “the drinking that is so hurtful to you” because of the “great risk of getting sick.”
Other symptoms Galileo sometimes singled out for specific mention included chest pain, a hernia for which he wore a heavy iron truss, insomnia, and various problems with his eyes— particularly unfortunate for an astronomical observer. “As a result of a certain affliction I began to see a luminous halo more than two feet in diameter around the flame of a candle,” Galileo wrote of one such condition to a colleague, “capable of concealing from me all objects which lay behind it. As my malady diminished, so did the size and density of this halo, though more of it has remained with me than is seen by perfect eyes.” His frequent telescope demonstrations may have predisposed him also to ocular infections, easily communicated by sharing an eyepiece.
After Galileo moved to Florence in 1610, poor health and long periods of recuperation frequently drove him out of the city into the surrounding hills. “I shall have to become an inhabitant of the mountains,” Galileo vowed while he and his mother and the two little girls still resided on a city street, “otherwise I shall soon dwell among the graves.”
For several ensuing years he relied gratefully on the hospitality of his friend and follower Filippo Salviati, who rescued Galileo from the foul city air. At Salviati’s Villa delle Selve in the hills of Signa, fifteen miles west of Florence, Galileo spent enough time to write the better part of two books— Bodies in Water and Sunspot Letters —while convalescing from his typical ills. When his ready access to this retreat ended in 1614 with Salviati’s death, Galileo pressed the search for his own year-round haven.
In April of 1617, he took a fine villa atop the hill called Bellosguardo (beautiful sight) on the south side of the River Arno, offsetting the high annual rent of one hundred scudi by selling the grain and broad beans grown on the property. From his new aerie, Galileo enjoyed an unobstructed panorama of the heavens, with a downward vista that swept the russet roofs, domed churches, and city walls of Florence. To the east he could see the olive green hillside of Arcetri, where his daughters lived inside the walled Convent of San Matteo. It took him three-quarters of an hour on foot or by mule—when he was up to the trip—to visit them.
Despite the salubrious atmosphere at Bellosguardo, however, another serious illness struck Galileo toward the end of 1617 and held him in its grip until spring came. In May 1618, thankful to be freed from his sickbed at last, he set out on a pilgrimage across the Apennine Mountains to the Adriatic coast, where he visited the “Casa Santa"—the House of the Virgin Mary in Loreto. This former residence of the Blessed Virgin, according to local legend, had abruptly uprooted itself from the Holy Land in the year 1294 and flown on the wings of angels to the laurel grove (loreto in Italian) that gave the present town its name. Galileo had first talked of worshiping at the popular shrine in 1616, after he escaped unscathed from the Copernican uproar in Rome, but events and maladies had kept him from
Other symptoms Galileo sometimes singled out for specific mention included chest pain, a hernia for which he wore a heavy iron truss, insomnia, and various problems with his eyes— particularly unfortunate for an astronomical observer. “As a result of a certain affliction I began to see a luminous halo more than two feet in diameter around the flame of a candle,” Galileo wrote of one such condition to a colleague, “capable of concealing from me all objects which lay behind it. As my malady diminished, so did the size and density of this halo, though more of it has remained with me than is seen by perfect eyes.” His frequent telescope demonstrations may have predisposed him also to ocular infections, easily communicated by sharing an eyepiece.
After Galileo moved to Florence in 1610, poor health and long periods of recuperation frequently drove him out of the city into the surrounding hills. “I shall have to become an inhabitant of the mountains,” Galileo vowed while he and his mother and the two little girls still resided on a city street, “otherwise I shall soon dwell among the graves.”
For several ensuing years he relied gratefully on the hospitality of his friend and follower Filippo Salviati, who rescued Galileo from the foul city air. At Salviati’s Villa delle Selve in the hills of Signa, fifteen miles west of Florence, Galileo spent enough time to write the better part of two books— Bodies in Water and Sunspot Letters —while convalescing from his typical ills. When his ready access to this retreat ended in 1614 with Salviati’s death, Galileo pressed the search for his own year-round haven.
In April of 1617, he took a fine villa atop the hill called Bellosguardo (beautiful sight) on the south side of the River Arno, offsetting the high annual rent of one hundred scudi by selling the grain and broad beans grown on the property. From his new aerie, Galileo enjoyed an unobstructed panorama of the heavens, with a downward vista that swept the russet roofs, domed churches, and city walls of Florence. To the east he could see the olive green hillside of Arcetri, where his daughters lived inside the walled Convent of San Matteo. It took him three-quarters of an hour on foot or by mule—when he was up to the trip—to visit them.
Despite the salubrious atmosphere at Bellosguardo, however, another serious illness struck Galileo toward the end of 1617 and held him in its grip until spring came. In May 1618, thankful to be freed from his sickbed at last, he set out on a pilgrimage across the Apennine Mountains to the Adriatic coast, where he visited the “Casa Santa"—the House of the Virgin Mary in Loreto. This former residence of the Blessed Virgin, according to local legend, had abruptly uprooted itself from the Holy Land in the year 1294 and flown on the wings of angels to the laurel grove (loreto in Italian) that gave the present town its name. Galileo had first talked of worshiping at the popular shrine in 1616, after he escaped unscathed from the Copernican uproar in Rome, but events and maladies had kept him from
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