The Galileo Project > Chronology > Galileo Timeline

Galileo Timeline

This timeline provides a detailed chronology of Galileo's life. Within the text, there are links to longer texts and related resources. Years are linked to the European Timeline, which provides a broad overview of concurrent events in Europe.

Note: Dates before October 1582 are Julian; all others are on the Gregorian Calendar.


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1562 July 5 Vincenzo Galilei of Florence marries Giulia degli Ammannati of Pescia. They live in Pisa.
1564 February 15 Galileo, their first child, is born.
  February 19 Galileo is baptized in the baptistry of the cathedral of Pisa.
1573 May 8 Virginia Galilei is born.
1574   Vincenzo Galilei and his family move to Florence.
1575 December 18 Michelangelo Galilei is born.
1578 October 7 Livia Galilei is born.
1579   Galileo is at the monastery of Santa Maria di Vallombrosa, where he considers joining the order.
  July Galileo returns to his family in Florence.
1581 September 5 Galileo matriculates as a students of the "Arts" at the University of Pisa. His father's wish is that he study medicine.
1583   According to Vincenzo Viviani, Galileo's first biographer, during his student days at Pisa Galileo formulated the isochronism of the pendulum while watching the oscillations of a lamp in the cathedral of Pisa.
    Galileo first studies Euclid's Elements--not at the university, but in Florence under the court mathematician Ostilio Ricci.
1585   He completes the fourth year of his studies and returns to Florence without a degree.
1586   Galileo begins to work on certain problems in physics, following Archimedes rather than Aristotle. He invents a hydrostatic balance(bilancetta).
1585-89   Gives private lessons in mathematics in Florence and Siena.
1587   First voyage to Rome; meets Christoph Clavius.
    Applies for a lectureship of mathematics at the University of Siena.
    Finds certain propositions about centers of gravity which go beyond the work of Archimedes.
1588 (?)   Vincenzo Galilei performs experiments on the relationship between the tension and pitch of strings. His son, Galileo, may have helped him with these and surely was aware of them.
    Galileo gives two public lectures at the Accademia Fiorentina (Florentine Academy) about the shape, location, and dimensions of hell as described in Dante's Inferno.
    Tries to obtain teaching positions at the universities of Pisa, Siena, Padua, and Bologna, and a lectureship in Florence. He obtains a lectureship of mathematics at the university of Pisa.
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1589-92   Teaches mathematical subjects at the University of Pisa (salary 160 scudi per year). Some tracts--lecture notes--written during this period have survived. In On Motion Galileo uses the Archimedian approach to motion: the speed of falling bodies is proportional to their density, not their weight as Aristotle had maintained.
    According to Vincenzo Viviani Galileo demonstrated his conclusions by dropping weights from the leaning tower of Pisa. This report has been doubted by historians.
1591   Vincenzo Galilei dies, leaving Galileo, his oldest son, as the head of the family. He was responsible to meet the terms of a large endowment bestowed by his father on Virginia, his sister, who had just been married to Luca Landucci.
1592   Galileo obtains the chair of mathematics at the university of Padua in the Venetian Republic (salary 160 ducats per year), where he remains until 1610. His initial contract is for four years, renewable for two further years. His inaugural lecture is on 7 December, and his first regular lecture on 13 December. His duties are to lecture on geometry and astronomy. He gives private lessons on Euclid, arithmetic, fortification, surveying, cosmography, optics, and the use of the sector.
1593   Puts together treatises on fortifications and mechanics for his private students.
    Invents a machine for raising water, a pump driven by horses. In 1594 he receives a patent on this design from the Venetian Senate.
1595   Develops his explanation of the tides which invokes the annual and diurnal motion of the Earth. It appears that his preference for the Copernican theory dates from this year.
1597   Invents a "geometric and military compass," a sector ("a mathematical instrument consisting of two rulers connected at one end by a joint and marked with several scales"). It was used to solve practical mathematical problems. He taught its use to his private students and wrote an instruction manual, later published.
    For the use of his students, he prepares a Treatise on the Sphere, or Cosmographia.
1599   Enters a relationship with Marina Gamba.
    Employs a craftsman, Marc'Antonio Mazzoleni, to make scientific instruments and produce the sector of Galileo's invention, which are sold to wealthy students along with his treatise explaining its use.
    He obtains a new, six-year contract, retroactive to December 1598, with a salary of 320 ducats.
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1600   Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake in Rome.
  August 13 Marina Gamba gives birth to a daughter who is baptized Virginia, who later takes the name Maria Celeste.
1601 January Marriage of Galileo's sister, Livia, to Taddeo Galetti. Galileo has promised a dowry of 1800 ducats--800 right away and 200 per year for five years. His brother Michelangelo is to pay half. Galileo borrows 600 ducats.
  August 18 Marina Gamba gives birth to a second daughter who is baptized Livia, who later takes the name Arcangela.
1602   Galileo experiments with the pendulum in connection with natural accelerated motion. His friend, the physician Santorio Santorio uses the pendulum principle to invent a pulsilogium, a hand-held pendulum with which to take the pulse.
1603   He begins employing an amanuensis to copy manuscript treatises which he sells to his private students.
1604   Visits Mantua in an effort to obtain patronage from the Duke of Mantua. The effort does not bear fruit.
    Experiments for the first time with uniformly accelerated motion on a gently sloping inclined plane, judging a ball's positions after equal time intervals. These experiments lead to the law of falling bodies, although it takes Galileo three more years to arrive at a mathematical demonstration of this law.
  September His machine to lift water is tried in the garden of the Contarini house in Padua.
  October 10 The new star (supernova) is first observed in Padua.
  December 24 Galileo observes the new star for the first time.
1605 January Delivers three lectures on the new star at the university of Padua. His argument is that parallax measurements show that the new star is beyond the Moon. It is therefore in the heavens and thus change must be admitted in the heavens.
  March Publishes Dialogue of Cecco di Ronchitti da Bruzene with regard to the New Star, in Padua. A second edition was published in Verona that same summer.
  July The operations of the geometric and military compass is printed. It is dedicated to Cosimo II de' Medici.
1606 Summer Galileo publishes Considerations of Alimberto Mauri on Some Places in the Discourse of Lodovico Delle Colombe about the Star which appeared in 1604.
1606/7   Invents the thermoscope, a primative thermometer.
    Writes a treatise on hydrostatics.
1607 April Balthasar Capra publishes The use and construction of the proportional compass in Padua. This is a plagiarism of Galileo's book on the sector. Galileo institues a legal process that ended with the expulsion of Capra from the university and the confiscation of all unsold copies of the book. A German mathematician named Simon Marius, Capra's tutor until 1605, was implicated in the affair.
  Summer Galileo first investigates hydrostatics and the strength of materials.
1607/8   Further studies on motion. Discovery of the parabolic path of projectiles.
1608   Galileo arms a lodestone belonging to his friend, Sagredo and arranges for it to be bought by Grand Duke Ferdinand I de' Medici. The 56-ounce armed lodestone could lift 132 ounces of iron.
  Summer Galileo is in Florence at the insistence of the Grand Duchess Christina. Marriage of Cosimo de' Medici. Galileo proposes the lodestone as a device, or symbol marking Cosimo's character and power.
  October In The Hague, Hans Lipperhey requests a patent on a spyglass.
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1608/9   Galileo constructs a hydrostatic balance.
    Further studies of accelerated motion.
1609   Cosimo II de' Medici becomes Grand Duke of Tuscany, following his father's death.
    Johannes Kepler publishes his New Astronomy, which contains his first two laws of planetary motion.
  May Galileo hears about the invention of devices for seeing faraway things as though nearby (telescope) in the Netherlands.
  June Galileo duplicates the invention and makes a three-powered telescope.
  August Thomas Harriot, observing near London, makes a drawing of the Moon as seen through a 6- powered telescope.
    Through the connections of his friend Paolo Sarpi, Galileo presents an eight-powered telescope to the Venetian Senate. He is rewarded by a doubling of his salary and life- tenure at the University of Padua. He is disappointed by the fine print.
  Fall Continues his improvement of the telescope and begins to make celestial observations with the instrument.
  December Makes a series of observations of the Moon, from 30 November to 19 December.
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1610 January On 7 January Galileo observes three bright little stars near Jupiter; by 15 January he has figured out that there are four satellites of Jupiter.
  February While continuing his other observations, Galileo maps some star formations.
  March Sidereus Nuncius, dedicated to Cosimo II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, comes off the press in Venice. The satellites of Jupiter are here called the Medicean Stars, in honor of the house of his prospective patron.
  April Johannes Kepler sends a letter in support of Galileo's discoveries. The letter is published in Prauge as Conversation with the Sidereal Messenger. It is reprinted in Florence a few months later.
    Galileo travels to Pisa where he shows the satellites of Jupiter to Grand Duke Cosimo II de' Medici.
  June Martin Horky publishes A very short excursion against the Sidereal Messenger.
  July Following negotiations, Galileo is appointed "Chief Mathematician of the University of Pisa and Philosopher and Mathematician to the Grand Duke" of Tuscany. The appointment is for life.
    Galileo first observes the strange appearances of Saturn.
  September Galileo moves from Padua to Florence.
    Kepler verifies the existence of the satellites of Jupiter (and publishes a tract on them the next year).
  November John Wedderburn, a student of Galileo, publishes, in Padua, a reply to Martin Horky's tract.
    The satellites of Jupiter are observed in England by Thomas Harriot, in Provence by Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc and Joseph Gaultier de la Valette, and in Rome by Christopher Clavius and the other Jesuit mathematicians at the Collegio Romano.
  December Galileo verifies that Venus goes through phases like the Moon. The phases of Venus falsify the Ptolemaic System and prove that Venus goes around the Sun, in conformance with the Copernican System.
    Thomas Harriot makes his first record of an observation of sunspots.
1610/11   Lodovico delle Colombe publishes Against the Earth's Motion against Galileo's celestial discoveries.
1611   Francesco Sizzi publishes Dianoia Astronomica, Optica, Physica against Galileo's celestial discoveries.
  March Galileo arrives in Rome on 29 March.
    Johannes Fabricius and his father, the astronomer David Fabricius, begin their observations of sunspots in Osteel in northwestern Germany.
  March or April Christoph Scheiner, S.J. and his student Johann Baptist Cysat, S.J., see spots on the Sun but don't pursue the observation.
  April Upon the request of Cardinal Bellarmine, the Jesuit mathematicians of the Collegio Romano certify Galileo's celestial discoveries, although they do not necessarily agree with Galileo's interpretation of these discoveries.
    Galileo is inducted into the Lincean Academy, at a banquet given by the academy's founder and patron, Federico Cesi. At this occasion the name telescope is first used.
  May The Inquisition decides to check to see if Galileo is mentioned in the proceedings against the Aristotelian philosopher Cesare Cremonini, Galileo's colleague and friendly opponent at the University of Padua.
    The mathematicians at the Collegio Romano honor Galileo at a banquet. Odo van Maelcote delivers a lecture on Galileo's discoveries.
    While in Rome, Galileo shows sunspots to some of his friends.
  June In Germany, Johannes Fabricius publishes the first book on sunspots, Narration on spots observed on the Sun and their apparent rotation with the Sun (Wittenberg, 1611).
  August Back in Florence, Galileo is drawn into a dispute concerning the behavior of bodies in water, taking the Archimedean position and arguing against the position of Aristotle.
  September Kepler's Dioptrice published in Augsburg.
  October At a debate during a state dinner for two visiting cardinals, Galileo repeats the Archimedean arguments abouts bodies in water. He is supported by Cardinal Maffeo Barberini (later Pope Urban VIII), who became one of Galileo's patrons at this time.
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1612 January A tract on sunspots, entitled Three letters on solar spots, written by Christoph Scheiner, is published in Augsburg under the pseudonym "Apelles hiding behind the painting."
  May Galileo's first letter on sunspots.
  August Galileo's second letter on sunspots.
  September Christoph Scheiner's second sunspot tract, A more accurate discussion of sunspots and the stars which move around Jupiter, again under the pseudonym of Apelles.
  Fall The Lincean Academy decides to publish Galileo's letters on sunspots to Marc Welser.
  December Galileo's third letter on sunspots.
1613 March History and Demonstrations about Sunspots and their Properties, containing the three letters by Galileo is published by the Lincean Academy in Rome. In about half the copies the two tracts by Scheiner are reprinted.
  December Benedetto Castelli, professor of Mathematics as the University of Pisa, and a student of Galileo, defends the Copernican theory to the Grand Duchess Dowager Christina of Lorraine. Upon hearing about this event, Galileo composes a long letter to Castelli on his views about the relationship between science and Scriptures.
1614 December Tommaso Caccini, a Dominican friar preaches a sermon in Florence against Galileo and mathematicians who subscribe to the Copernican view which, Caccini avers, is heretical.
1615 January Caccini's superior apologizes to Galileo in writing.
  February A Dominican friar Niccolo Lorini, who had earlier criticized Galileo's view in private conversations, files a written complaint with the Inquisition against Galileo's Copernican views. He encloses a copy of Galileo's letter to Castelli.
  March The Carmelite Friar Paolo Antonio Foscarini published Letter on the Pythagorean and Copernican Opinion of the Earth's Motion and Sun's Rest and on the New Pythagorean World System, in which are harmonized and reconciled those passages of the Holy Scripture and those theological propositions which could ever be adduced against this opinion (Naples, 1615). In this book, Foscarini argues that the Copernican theory is compatible with Scripture.
    Caccini gives a deposition to the Roman Inquisition.
    Galileo writes a long letter defending his views to Monsignor Piero Dini, a well connected official in the Vatican.
  April Cardinal Bellarmine writes to Foscarini, cautioning him to treat the Copernican theory as a hypothesis only and includes Galileo in his comments.
  Summer Galileo writes his "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina," which is not printed but circulates widely. (A Latin version is published in the Netherlands in 1636.) This is an enlarged version of his letter to Castelli of Dec. 1613.
  December Galileo goes to Rome to defend his Copernican ideas.
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1616 January Writes up his theory about the tides which, he argues, proves that the earth moves. He addresses this treatise to Cardinal Alessandro Orsini.
  February A committee of consultants declares to the Inquisition that the proposition that the Sun is the center of the universe is absurd in philosophy and formally heretical and that the proposition that the Earth has an annual motion is absurd in philosophy and at least erroneous in theology.
    On orders of the Pope Paul V, Cardinal Bellarmine calls Galileo to his residence and administers a warning not to hold or defend the Copernican theory. An unsigned transcript in the Inquisition file, discovered in 1633, states that Galileo is also forbidden to discuss the theory orally or in writing.
  March The Congregation of the Index suspends Copernicus's On the Revolutions until corrected and bans Foscarini's book entirely, Galileo is not mentioned in the decree.
    Galileo has an audience with Pope Paul V, and is assured by the Pope.
  May Cardinal Bellarmine writes a letter to Galileo certifying that Galileo had not been on trial or condemned by the Inquisition.
  June Galileo attacks the problem of determining longitude at sea by means of eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter.
    After an oral dispute between Galileo and Francesco Ingoli, it is agreed that Ingoli will write out his argument and Galileo will then reply in writing. Ingoli's tract, Disputation on the place and stability of the Earth, against the system of Copernicus, in which he uses scriptural arguments against Copernicus, is not printed. Because of the decision by the Inquisition, Galileo does not reply at this time.
1618   In October and November three different comets appear, the third one very bright. Orazio Grassi, a professor professor of mathematics at the Collegio Romano, delivers a public lecture on comets. A manuscript copy of this lecture was sent to Galileo. The lecture itself was published early in 1619 under the title On the Three Comets of the Year MDCXVIII. An Astronomical Disputation Presented Publicly in the Collegio Romano of the Society of Jesus by one of the Fathers of that same Society. At stake is the location of these comets.
1619 January/February Galileo's views on comets are requested by many, among them Archduke Leopold of Austria. He begins drafting a critique of the lecture published by the Jesuit father at the Collegio Romano.
  June Mario Guiducci, a pupil of Galileo's, delivers a lecture on the comets in which he argues against the Jesuit interpretation of these bodies. The lecture, written largely by Galileo, is published under the title Discourse on the Comets. By Mario Guiducci. Delivered at the Florentine Academy during his Term as Consul.
  October Under the pseudonym Lothario Sarsi, Orazio Grassi counters with a tract entitled The Astronomical Balance, on which the Opinions of Galileo Galilei regarding Comets are weighed, as well as those presented in the Florentine Academy by Mario Guiducci and recently published.
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1620 May The Congregation of the Index issued the corrections that must be made in Copernicus's On the Revolutions before it can be read.
  June Mario Guiducci publishes a letter in which he replies to Orazio Grassi's Astronomical Balance.
  August Cardinal Maffeo Barberini sends Galileo a poem entitled Adulatio Perniciosa, composed by him in honor of Galileo.
1621 January Galileo is elected Consul of the Accademia Fiorentina.
    Pope Paul V dies. He is succeeded by Gregory XV, who dies in July 1623.
  February Death of Grand Duke Cosimo II de' Medici. He is succeeded by Ferdinand II (11 years old), who will reign under the regency of his grandmother, Christina of Lorraine, and his mother, Marie Madeleine of Austria.
1622 October Galileo sends the manuscript of The Assayer, his reply to Grassi's Astronomical Balance, to the Lincean Academy in Rome.
1623   Publication of Tommaso Campanella's Defense of Galileo in Frankfurt.
  February The Roman censors give permission for The Assayer to be printed.
  August Upon the death of Pope Gregory XV, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, a friend and patron of Galileo, is elected Pope and takes the name Urban VIII.
  October The Assayer, now dedicated to Pope Urban VIII, is published in Rome under the auspices of the Lincean Academy.
1624 April Galileo goes to Rome where he has six audiences with the Pope Urban VIII and also has audience with a number of cardinals. The Pope assured him that he could write about the Copernican theory as long as he treated it as a mathematical hypothesis.
    In Rome, Galileo shows a compound microscope to members of the Lincean Academy. Observations of a bee made with this instrument by Francesco Stelluti were published in 1630. Galileo then presented this instrument to Cardinal Zollern for the Duke of Bavaria.
  June Galileo returns to Florence.
  September Galileo writes his "Letter to Ingoli," in which he refutes Ingoli's Disputation of 1616. The letter is not printed but circulates in manuscript.
    Galileo begins revising his treatise on tides (see 1616), which eventually results in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632).
1624/25   A complaint against Galileo's Assayer is lodged by a person unknown to us. The complaint charges that the atomism espoused in the book cannot be squared with the official church doctrine regarding the Eucharist, in which bread and wine are "transubstantiated" into Christ's flesh and blood. After an investigation by the Inquisition, Galileo is cleared.
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1626   Horatio Grassi publishes his reply to The Assayer, a book entitled Ratio Ponderum Librae ac Simbellae, in Paris.
1627 March Urban VIII bestows a pension of 60 scudi per year on Vincenzio, the son of Galileo.
1629 November Galileo once again takes up contact with Spanish authorities about the determination of longitude at sea by means of the satellites of Jupiter.
  December Galileo becomes a grandfather, when Sestilia Bocchineri, his son Vincenzio's wife since the previous year, gives birth to a boy who is given the name Galileo.
1630   Publication of Christoph Scheiner's Rosa Ursina, the definitive work on sunspots for over a century.
    Death of Johannes Kepler.
  February Urban VIII bestows a pension of 40 scudi per year on Galileo.
  April Galileo finishes his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.
  May/June Galileo is in Rome to clear his Dialogue with the censors and make arrangements to have it printed by the Lincean Academy. He obtains conditional permission from the Secretary of the Vatican
  Summer An outbreak of the plague begins to disrupt commerce and travel between cities.
  August Federico Cesi, the founder and patron of the Lincean Academy, dies. This is the end of his academy.
  Fall Galileo sends the preface and ending of his Dialogue to the Secretary of the Vatican for corrections. He has now decided to print the book in Florence.
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1631 Spring Through Grand Duke Ferdinand II and his ambassador in Rome, Galileo negotiates with the Secretary of the Vatican about the printing of the Dialogue. The final result is that the preface and ending would be approved in Rome while the remainder of the book would be checked and approved by the Inquisition in Florence.
1632 February Printing of the Dialogue is completed.
  Summer Further distribution of the Dialogo is prohibited by Pope Urban VIII and a special commission is appointed to examine the book.
  September Based on the report by the special commission, Urban VIII refers the case to the Inquisition. The Pope himself presides over a meeting of the Inquisition in which the decision is made to summon Galileo to Rome.
  October Galileo is notified of the summons by the Inquisitor in Florence. He promises to obey but requests that the trial be moved to Florence.
  November At a meeting of the Inquisition presided over by Urban VIII, Galileo's request is refused. If necessary he will be forced to obey the Inquisition's order.
  December The Florentine Inquisitor notifies Rome that he had visited Galileo, who was ill in bed, and that three physicians had signed a statement that Galileo was too ill to undertake the journey to Rome.
    At a meeting again presided over by Urban VIII himself, the Inquisition rejects Galileo's excuse as a subterfuge and sends him notification that if he does not come to Rome voluntarily he will be arrested and brought to Rome in chains.
1633 January Galileo leaves Florence on 20 January and, after two weeks quarantine (because of the plague) just outside Rome, he arrives there on 13 February. As a special favor to Grand Duke Ferdinand II de' Medici, the Pope allowes Galileo to stay at the residence of the Tuscan ambassador. Galileo is forbidden social contacts.
  April Galileo is formally interrogated by the Inquisition. From 12 to 30 April he is detained in the building of the Inquisition but in a comfortable apartment.
    The consultants called in to examine Galileo's Dialogue, file their reports.
    A plea bargain is arranged whereby Galileo will be allowed to plead guilty to lesser charges and will receive a lenient sentence.
    On 30 April Galileo confesses that he may have made the Copernican case in the Dialogue too strong and offers to refute it in his next book.
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  June Urban VIII decides that Galileo will be imprisoned for an indefinte period.
    With a formal threat of torture, Galileo is examined by the Inquisition. The next day he is sentenced to prison at the pleasure of the Inqusition and to religious penances. The sentence is signed by only seven of the ten cardinal-inquisitors.
    In a formal ceremony at a the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Galileo abjures his errors.
    First Galileo is allowed to be under house arrest at the residence of the Tuscan ambassador, and then at the residence of the archbishop of Siena in that Tuscan city.
  July Galileo arrives in Siena. Here he begins putting together his Discourse on Two New Sciences.
  December He is allowed to return to his villa in Arcetri, near Florence, where he is under house arrest for the remainder of his life.
1634 Winter Suffers from a painful hernia. He requests permission from Rome to consult physicians in Florence. The request is denied, and he is given to know that further requests such as this will result in imprisonment.
  April Galileo's daughter, Maria Celeste, who has lived in a convent near Arcetri for many years, dies.
  Summer A treatise on machines, entitled Mechanics, completed by Galileo in 1602, has been translated into French and is published in France by Marin Mersenne.
1635   A Latin translation of the Dialogue is published in Strassburg by Matthias Bernegger.
1636   Publication of Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina in both Italian and Latin.
  May Louis Elsevier, a Dutch publisher, visits Galileo in Arcetri and agrees to publish the Discourse on Two New Sciences in Leiden.
  August Galileo sends a proposal to the States General of the Netherlands for determining longitude at sea using eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter.
  November The States General appoint a committee to examine Galileo's proposal.
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1637 April The States General award Galileo a gold chain worth 500 florins in recognition of his longitude effort. His proposal was deemed not to be practical.
  July Galileo writes to Elia Diodati that he has lost all vision in his right eye.
  November Announces he has discovered a new libration of the Moon, different from the optical libration.
1638 January Has lost vision in his left eye and is now totally blind. He petitions the Inquisition to be freed. The petition is denied. He is, however, allowed to transfer to his house in Florence in order to be closer to his physicians. In March he obtains permission to attend church on religious holidays, provided that he have no contact with others.
  July The Discourse on Two New Sciences comes off the press in Leiden in the Netherlands.
  August When the gold chain from the Dutch States General is presented to Galileo, he refuses it. For this he is commended by Pope Urban VIII.
    During a serious illness, Galileo prepares his last will and testament.
  September John Milton visits Galileo in Arcetri.
1641   Galileo conceives of the application of the pendulum to clocks.
1642 January Galileo dies in Arcetri on 8 January.
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