GALILEI, VIRGINIA. - Natural daughter of Galileo and Marina Gamba, b. in Padua on 13 Aug. 1600, d. in Arcetri on 2 Apr. 1634. Entrusted at the age of 14, together with her sister Livia, to the nuns of the monastery of S. Matteo in Arcetri, two years later, on 4 Oct. 1616, she pronounced her solemn vows under the name of Sister Celeste, followed on 28 Oct. 1617 by her sister, who took the name of Sister Angelica. Galileo favored his firstborn daughter ("a woman of exquisite intellect, singular goodness and most devoted to me") and more than once also assisted, with money and provisions, the very poor community.

There remain from Sister Celeste 124 Letters, written to her father from 10 May 1623 to 16 Dec. 1633, in which, alongside her anxiety for the family and for the history of the trial (after Galileo's condemnation, "persuaded that prayer accompanied by that title of obeying Holy Church is most efficacious," she wished to recite for her father once a week the seven penitential psalms), there alternate the clear reflections of an austere and more cloistral life.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: C. Arduini, La primogenita di G. G., Florence 1864; A. Favaro, G. G. e suor Maria Celeste, ibid. 1891, 2nd ed. ibid. 1935; I. De Blasi, Le scrittrici italiane dalle origini al 1800, I, ibid. 1930, pp. 195-207; F. Sarri, Suor Maria Celeste, Milan 1934.

Giovanni Pallani

@incollection{ec5_galilei_virginia, author = {Fallani, Giovanni}, title = {Galilei, virginia}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {V}, pages = {1881}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/galilei-virginia} }

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Galilei, Virginia

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