Marina Gamba
During one of his frequent trips to Venice, Galileo met a young woman named Marina di Andrea
Gamba, with whom he entered into a relationship. Marina Gamba moved into Galileo's house in
Padua and bore him three children, Virginia (1600), later Sister
Maria Celeste, Livia (1601), later Sister Arcangela, and Vincenzio (1606). In none
of the three baptismal records is Galileo named as the father. In the case of Virginia, she
was described as "daughter by fornication of Marina of Venice," with no mention of the
father; on Livia's baptismal record the name of the father was left blank; and on Vinzenzio's
baptismal record "father uncertain."[1] The domestic situation was,
apparently, a happy one, except when Galileo's mother, Giulia, visited.
When Galileo left Padua for good to take up his position at the
Medici court in
Florence, in 1610,
he took the two daughters with him but left Marina Gamba behind with Vincenzio, who was then
only four years old. Vincenzio joined Galileo in Florence a few years later. In 1613 Marina
Gamba married Giovanni Bartoluzzi. It appears that Galileo kept cordial relations with
Gamba and Bartoluzzi.
Galileo put his two daughters in a convent. He managed to have Vincenzio legitimated by the
Grand Duke of Tuscany. The reason for this unequal treatment is probably that Galileo would
not be able to provide sufficiently large doweries for his daughters to allow them to make
marriages appropriate to his stature at the Medici court. He would have no such financial
obligation to his son.
Notes
[1]Le Opere di Galileo Galilei,, vol XIX,
pp. 218-220.
galileo@rice.edu