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The Book Of The Courtier By Galileo Galilei

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Galileo Galilei was an Italian philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who lived during the 1500’s and 1600’s. Galileo was born on February 15th, 1564, in Pisa, Italy, and was the oldest son of the revered musician, Vincenzo Galilei, a major contributor to music theory and the practice of music. Throughout his life, Galileo made contributions to the sciences of motion, astronomy, and the classification of materials based on strength. He also accepted the Copernican heliocentric system as well as converted natural philosophy from a more verbal account to a more mathematical one based on experimentation and critical thinking. Galileo meets some of the criteria mentioned in Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier, however he does not satisfy …show more content…

Galileo was greatly influenced by Aristotle and Archimedes, both of whom are considered as some of the most brilliant ancient Greek men that ever lived. According to Albert Van Helden, the Italian engineer proved Aristotle’s theory that the speed at which an object falls is not proportional to its weight by dropping various objects off of the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. With a closer look at Galileo’s book on the topic, titled De Motu, Galileo appears to have been taking an Archimedean approach to the problem, which made him unpopular with his colleagues (Van Helden). The brilliant scientist would not have been able to test his ideas and write his novel on the law of falling bodies of it were not for his reading of Aristotle and Archimedes’ works. This high regard for the works of these two men led Galileo to write many books about his observations and philosophies throughout his life. However, due to this being the only one of Castiglione's criteria met by Galileo, he should not be considered as a Renaissance person, as a true courtier should possess all of the traits listed in The Book of the …show more content…

His reasoning was based on the fact that the ancient Greeks highly prized music in their everyday lives, and those who couldn’t were regarded as less than men who could. Galileo was not a musician, which was rather ironic as his father was one of the most well known musicians of the time period. During his early life, instead of focusing on music and the arts, the young Galileo attended the University of Pisa to study medicine, but dropped out after finding that his real passion was mathematics. The mathematician ended up making arithmetic and philosophy his career, which his father protested. Although Galileo did not study music as a child, he still found ways to express himself, discovering new and different ideas in astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy. Because Galileo does not fulfill this part of Castiglione’s ideal courtier, Galileo should not be regarded as a Renaissance person, even though he contributed much to the scientific

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