Maria Celeste as any woman of that time had almost non-power or influence in society and definitely she did not considered herself as someone as wais as she was ”. 2 excuse my gross ignorance and many other defects that find expression in my character”. 3 Maria Celeste as their letter told us she demonstrated a curiosity for life and for writing and reading and become an educated person, she knew how to read and write and she understood her father’s work .5 The majority of the society and the church considered Galileo and heretic although he was confidence about his theories. The support of his daughter was very important to Galileo. First of all she was a member of the church and the church persecuted Galileo. Their letters showed that she was still interested in her father’s work and approved of him and with the same intensity she was interested in her father personal life.3 This interest represents a great support for him. She was so cautious with her words towards her father to ask about everything that we can clearly observe the respect that Maria Celeste felt for his father.
The necessity of food cold and dearth that Maria Celeste felt in the convent also was in my opinion a factor that helps to the communication between daughter and father.4, 7 Maria Celeste although she loved his father and theirs no doubt of that a lot have times the letters were written in order to ask him for something she needs in this aspect we saw the normal relation in which daughters ask to her father for advices or material things. The fact that Maria Celeste never got married led Galileo to be the only man that she ever met, and because the verity that they were living in a patriarchal society Maria Celeste was totally and absolutely dependent of her father in every way in economic and affective perspectives. 2
Devotion is the principal aspect that we observed in Maria Celeste toward his father we see it just after three years of being in the San Matteo’s convent she chose her religious name as” Maria Celeste”; Celeste means something related with the sky and stars. We can deduce that she choose this name because of her father work and theories to the sky. 5
In her letters we perceived a lot of acts of devotion from Maria Celeste to her father but we saw almost at the end of Galileo’s life when he had to confront the inquisition, after the printing of his book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo was called to Rome in 1633 and was founded guilty and condemned to leaved his last days in house arrest and obligated to pray g-d for his redeemed. Maria Celeste’s proved her devotion when she in prayed for her father in every sense talking she prayed for her health for his redeeming to g-d and for his well being although she was not physically with her father she clearly was with him in each one of her prays.” God, whom I pray, Sire, to grant you His holy grace”. 8
Maria Celeste’s effort fulfill her fathers necessities was an incredible act of love and admiration. Maria Celeste as I mentioned was in a state of extremely poorness in which she hardly had food or any resource to have a dignity life. She took the time the effort and the sources that she hardly had to make her father lived the best time. In her letter we saw how she neglected her illness by setting as a priority her father ‘s presents that her illbes that cause her dead later. ” Suffice it to say that you recall, Sire, how much we are longing to see you again, when time will allow a visit; meanwhile I send you several little treats that were given to me. I pulled a tooth of mine that had been causing me tremendous suffering, so that now by the grace of the Lord I am free of the pain that has tormented me the last two months, although I still have the remnants of my headache”. 6
Maria Celeste represented for Galileo three types of woman that a woman can represent for a man; Maria Celesta was the mother that takes care of that worried and always is trying to give the best. She also is the friend in which both share secrets and anecdotes of theirs life the friend in which one can you relief yourself and your problems. Maria Celeste also was the daughter asking for her father’s advices and depending on him in every sense.5
The relationship between Galileo’s and her oldest daughter Maria Celeste cannot be described easily; this relationship was based on mutual confidence and loyalty. Galileo and her daughter developed a “special” relationship and I refer to special because this type of relationship was not common in that time, and still not common right now. This type of relationship has to be feed by acts of loyalty and honesty. 5
I admire Maria Celeste’s sacrifice and concerned about her father, I think she was a smart exceptional woman capable of maintain a close relation with his father and capable to have interest to his fathers genius works. But especially I respect both of them for taking the father⎯daughter relation in to some think higher, into something deep that we last forever as an example.
REFERENCES;
1- Ellen Hickman, “The Convent of San Matteo”, The Galileo Project. . November 7,2002
2- Mark Covington and Amit Mistry, “The Status of a Woman.” The Galileo Project. . November 7,2002
3-Letters of Maria Celeste to Galileo -No.2 on 10 August 1623. http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/MariaCeleste/
4- No. 50 on 10 September 1630.October 31, 2002
5- Letters of Maria Celeste to Galileo -General idea that I obtain from 13 letters read from Maria Celeste to Galileo in “Galileo’s Project Web Site.”
6- No.23 on March 18 1623.October 29,2002
7-No 58 on .October 29,2002
8- NO. 101.on 8 October 1633.October 29,2002
