When the plague was raging in the neighbourhood, the loving daughter’s solicitude is thus shown:—­

“I send you two pots of electuary as a preventive against the plague.  The one without the label consists of dried figs, walnuts, rue, and salt, mixed together with honey.  A piece of the size of a walnut to be taken in the morning, fasting, with a little Greek wine.”

The plague increasing still more, Sister Maria Celeste obtained with much difficulty, a small quantity of a renowned liqueur, made by Abbess Ursula, an exceptionally saintly nun.  This she sends to her father with the words:—­

“I pray your lordship to have faith in this remedy.  For if you have so much faith in my poor miserable prayers, much more may you have in those of such a holy person; indeed, through her merits you may feel sure of escaping all danger from the plague.”

Whether Galileo took the remedy we do not know, but at all events he escaped the plague.

[Plate:  The Villa Arcetri.  Galileo’s residence, where Milton visited him.]

From Galileo’s new home in Florence the telescope was again directed to the skies, and again did astounding discoveries reward the astronomer’s labours.  The great success which he had met with in studying Jupiter naturally led Galileo to look at Saturn.  Here he saw a spectacle which was sufficiently amazing, though he failed to interpret it accurately.  It was quite manifest that Saturn did not exhibit a simple circular disc like Jupiter, or like Mars.  It seemed to Galileo as if the planet consisted of three bodies, a large globe in the centre, and a smaller one on each side.  The enigmatical nature of the discovery led Galileo to announce it in an enigmatical manner.  He published a string of letters which, when duly transposed, made up a sentence which affirmed that the planet Saturn was threefold.  Of course we now know that this remarkable appearance of the planet was due to the two projecting portions of the ring.  With the feeble power of Galileo’s telescope, these seemed merely like small globes or appendages to the large central body.

The last Of Galileo’s great astronomical discoveries related to the libration of the moon.  I think that the detection of this phenomenon shows his acuteness of observation more remarkably than does any one of his other achievements with the telescope.  It is well known that the moon constantly keeps the same face turned towards the earth.  When, however, careful measurements have been made with regard to the spots and marks on the lunar surface, it is found that there is a slight periodic variation which permits us to see now a little to the east or to the west, now a little to the north or to the south of the average lunar disc.

But the circumstances which make the career of Galileo so especially interesting from the biographer’s point of view, are hardly so much the triumphs that he won as the sufferings that he endured.  The sufferings and the triumphs were, however, closely connected, and it is fitting that we should give due consideration to what was perhaps the greatest drama in the history of science.