by great artists.[1] He played the lute himself with the skill of a master. He also highly appreciated poetry. His later essays on Dante, Orlando Furioso, and Gerusalemme Liberata, as well as the fragment of a play, bear witness to his lively interest in belles lettres. But from his earliest youth he showed the greatest preference for mechanics. He made little machines with an ingenuity and skill which evinced a really unusual talent for such things.[2]
With these abilities his father must soon have arrived at the conclusion that his son was born for something better than for distributing wool among the people, and resolved to devote him to science; only it was necessary that the branch of it to which he turned his attention should offer a prospect of profit. Medicine was decided on as the most likely to be lucrative, although it may not seem the one most suited to his abilities.
On 5th November, 1581, Galileo, then just seventeen, entered the University of Pisa.[3] Even here the young medical student's independent ideas and aims made way for themselves. At that time any original ideas and philosophical views not derived from the dogmas of Aristotle were unheard of. All the theories of natural science and philosophy had hitherto been referred to theology. It had been held to be the Alpha and Omega of all human knowledge. But now the period was far advanced in which it was felt to be necessary to cast off the narrow garments fashioned by religion, though at first the will to do so exceeded the power. A stir and ferment agitated men's minds. A period of storm and stress had begun for the study of nature and the philosophical speculation so closely connected with it. Men did not as yet possess energy and ability for direct advance, so they turned with real fanaticism to ancient learning, which, being
- ↑ Op. xv. (Viviani), p. 330; and Op. vi. p. 18.
- ↑ Op. xv. (Viviani), p. 328.
- ↑ The correctness of this date is indisputable, as according to Nelli, vol. i. p. 29, it was found in the university registers. It is a pity that Alberi, editor of the "Opere complete di Galileo Galilei," Florence, 1842-1856, relied for the date on Viviani, who is often wrong.
