GALILEI, VIRGINIA. - Natural daughter of Galileo and Marina Gamba, born in Padova on 13 Aug. 1600, died at Arcetri on 2 Apr. 1634. Entrusted at the age of fourteen, together with her sister Livia, to the nuns of the monastery of S. Matteo at Arcetri, two years later, on 4 Oct. 1616, she took solemn vows under the name of Sister Celeste; she was followed on 28 Oct. 1617 by her sister, who took the name of Sister Angelica. Galileo was especially fond of his eldest daughter (“a woman of exquisite intelligence, singular goodness, and most devoted to me”) and on several occasions also assisted the very poor community with money and provisions.
There remain 124 Letters of Sister Celeste, written to her father from 10 May 1623 to 16 Dec. 1633, in which concern for the family and for the history of the trial is interwoven with clear reflections of an austere and devout cloistered life (after Galileo’s condemnation, “persuaded that prayer accompanied by that vow of obedience to Holy Church is highly efficacious,” she wished to recite for her father the seven penitential psalms once a week).