That he was wrong in the correction of his elders, he would not for a moment admit; and he was even guilty of saying, "Antiquity can not sanctify that which is wrong in reason and false in principle." Soon after he committed another forepaugh by showing that a wonderful boat invented by Giovanni de Medici for the purpose of fighting hostile ships, would not work, since there were no men on board to guide it, and its automatic steering apparatus would as likely run its nose into land, as into the hull of the enemy.
He also decorated his argument with a few subtle touches as to the beauty of fighting battles without going to war and risking life and limb.
Men who are not kind to the faults of royalty can hope for small favor in a monarchy, though the monarchy be a republic. Galileo was cut off the Standard Oil payroll, and forced to apply to a teachers' agency, that he might find employment.
He did not wait long; the rival University of Padua tendered him a position on a silver platter; and the Paduans made much dole about how unfortunate it was that men could not teach Truth in Italy, save at Padua—alas! The Governing Board of Padua made a great stroke in securing Galileo, and Pisa fell back on her Leaning Tower as her chief attraction.
From a position of mediocrity, the University of Padua gradually rose to one of worldwide celebrity. Galileo remained at Padua from Fifteen Hundred Ninety-two to Sixteen Hundred Ten, which years are famous not alone through the wonderful inventions of Galileo, but because in that same interval of time, at least thirty of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays were written. Surely, God was smiling on the planet Earth!
Galileo's salary was raised every year, starting at two hundred florins, until it reached over one thousand florins, not to mention the numerous gifts from grateful pupils, old and young. Students came to Padua from all over the world to hear Galileo's lectures.
Starting with only a common classroom, the audience increased so fast that a special auditorium was required that would seat two thousand persons. It was during this time that Galileo invented the proportional compasses, an instrument now in use everywhere, without the slightest change having been made in it.
He also invented the thermometer; but greatest, best and most wonderful of all, he produced an instrument through which he could view the stars, and see them much magnified. With this instrument, he saw heavenly bodies that had never been seen before; he beheld that Jupiter had satellites which moved in orbits, and that Venus revolved, showing different sides at different times, thus proving that which Copernicus declared was true, but which, for lack of apparatus, he could not prove.
Galileo Galilei was getting to be more than a professor of mathematics—he was becoming a power in the world.