“If women had wives to keep house for them, to stay home with vomiting children, to get the car fixed, fight with the painters, run to the supermarket, reconcile bank statements, listen to everyone’s problems, cater the dinner parties, and nourish the spirit each night, just imagine the possibilities for expansion- the number of books that would be written, companies started, professorships filled, political offices that would be held, by women.”

                The response was “nuns”. This individual thought that nuns were a succinct example of why women would not accomplish anything even if they had everything done for them. I could not articulate it at the time, but I knew that nuns were not taken care of in convents in the manner that Sheehy was writing about—in fact when we look at Suor Maria Celeste we see that she was still performing many of these duties (at least those that fit in the period she lived). I knew, also, that many convents were not cloistered, and the holy women within spent much of their time doing charitable work, and it seems that even being cloistered as she was, Suor Maria did as much work as possible for the outside world, especially her father. In her letters to her father—Galileo Galilei—Suor Maria’s depictions of her duties as well as her bequests for money affirmed my want to do more research on the subject. Even if that research is essentially for my want to win an argument that I never had, retrospectively.

                Primarily, I would like to assess the position that Virginia Galilei found herself in as a woman during the 17^th century. As I have discussed previously (in class and in my first-half journal) the very idea of a woman of able mind being able to fulfill the fullest form of her destiny was unlikely in the time of Suor Maria. This is evident in that even though Galileo saw his daughter’s intelligence and potential, describing her as “a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me” he still saw her as an unfit bride having been born outside of wedlock. His son, however, also born outside of marriage, was not given the same negative association. Virginia’s (and her sister’s) unmarriageable status was what led them to the church. The girls were placed in the convent by Galileo in their youth, this cloistered residence left the girls both permanently poor, often with little food, and often ill. As Mark Covington and Amit Mistry write on the status of women during the time of Galileo “A woman alone was perceived as weak, distrustful, and uncaring towards her children. In general, women were often characterized as temptresses who were more likely to sin. In Florentine society, the two main options for unmarried women of respectable families were either to enter a convent or to marry.” And so the sisters had to stay in convent and they would both take the veil, Virginia taking the name Suor Maria Celeste, after the Virgin mother and her father’s love of the stars, and her sister as Suor Arcangela. Suor Maria also seems to be permanently aware of this lowly status in her letters to her father; the tone of the letters is quite self depreciating, often treating her father with excessive reverence, which would have been due to him by societal rules, but still seems that she was ready for her father to deny her every wish, no matter how small, no matter if they were for his own good—despite Galileo’s acquiescence of her requests whenever possible. Suor Maria also often asks of Galileo to write her often, perhaps a significance of her want for the something more that her intellect could have granted her. This want can also be seen in the multitude of work that she takes on while in the convent.

                Among these facts about the life of Suor Maria, it is necessary to give due respect to Galileo; his choice at cloistering his daughter could very well have been a necessity of money. The cost of a dowry for a bastard daughter would have been more than he could afford, let alone for two. Galileo is also known to have helped around the convent as much as he could, repairing windows and the great clock. He even moved so as to be closer to her and the convent at one point. His love for his daughter was certain, and her situation was not due to his neglect.

                Suor Arcangela, perhaps, represents the other possibility of a child thrust in to convent; where Sour Maria found herself in God and her holy work, Suor Arcangela was melancholy and became suicidal. Not as much is known about Suor Arcangela, as she did not write to her father, or if she did she did not write often.

                The convent life was not easy, and so it is not surprising that women like Suor Arcangela were not pleased by it. The days in convents were strictly structured and involved a lot of prayer, and unlike what my classmate may have thought, not a lot of free time, as work was holy and leisure was sinful. Being that the convents were places that largely housed the unwed daughters of nobility, widows, and reformed prostitutes, however, they can not all be placed in the same strict rules, but from the letters of Suor Maria we can see that her convent was not one of the rebels, as it would have been hard to have been with their empty coffers and bellies. We can, however, catch a glimpse of this rebelliousness in Suor Maria herself when she helps Galileo an his companions to remove evidence of heresy from his home while he is away, as well as in Suor Maria’s own reactions to the church’s convictions of Galileo.

                Petty arguments about nuns aside, more than anything, having the ability to learn the story of Galileo Galilei through his relationship with his daughter gave me a better understanding of Galileo as a person. The endearment of Suor Maria Celeste is what saves Galileo from becoming simply a symbol rather than a person in the story of his life as the father of science. It is very easy to reduce a person to their feats and ignore the reasons and feelings behind those feats, Dava successfully circumvents that, not by adding their own spin to the book, but by letting the reader see Galileo through the letters of his daughter, who loved him.

Sources:

Covington, Mark and Amit Mistry. “The Status of Women in Galileo’s Time”. The Galileo Project. 1995. http://galileo.rice.edu/fam/status_women.html (Accessed November 14, 2016). Web.

Museo Galileo. “Livia Galilei (Sister Arcangela)”. Galileo Portal. Institute and Museum of the History of Science. 2010. http://portalegalileo.museogalileo.it/egjr.asp?c=31076. (Accessed November 14, 2016). Web.

Sobel, Dava. “Maria Celeste (Virginia) Galilei (1600-1634)”. The Galileo Project. 1995. http://galileo.rice .edu/fam/maria.html (Accessed November 14, 2016). Web.