Amid all the art and culture in Florence, it’s important to remember that the city also has a special place in the history of science, most notably as the home of Galileo. This episode begins with a biography, including his links to the Medici family, his early successes, such as the design of a ‘state of the art’ telescope, his main work and his controversial dispute with the catholic church, whose doctrine was in direct opposition to Galileo’s teaching, the latter insisting, whatever his Holiness thought, that the earth moved round the sun. Hear about the resulting trial and sentence, and find out about the places in Florence today where Galileo is remembered, notably at his tomb in Santa Croce and at the Science Museum named after him.
MORE INFORMATION COMING SOON
More information about Florence coming soon.
Listen to the POdcast
Links & Reading
3 useful websites for tourists
Feel Florence
Visit Florence
Destination Florence
4 guidebooks on Florence
Pocket Rough Guide to Florence
Time Out Florence City Guide
Blue Guide Florence by Alta Macadam
Strolling through Florence by Mario Erasmo
2 more guidebooks on Florence and Tuscany
Lonely Planet Guide to Florence and Tuscany
Eyewitness Travel Guide to Florence and Tuscany by Christopher Catling
3 history books and a guide to art and architecture
Florence, the Biography of a City by Christopher Hibbert
The Medici by Paul Strathern
The Medici by Mary Hollingsworth
Art and Architecture in Florence by Rolf C Wirtz
3 anthologies
Florence: A Traveller’s Reader by Edward Cheney
Florence Stories Everyman’s Library Pocket Classics
A Literary Companion to Florence by Frances King
2 memoirs of Florence
Florence: A Delicate Case by David Leavitt
A Florence Diary by Diana Athill
4 novels set in Florence
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone (Biographical novel about Michelangelo)
A Room with a View by E M Forster
Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel
