[198] History has assigned the merit of this valuable discovery to Zacharias Jansen, a spectacle maker of Middelburg, from whose workshop the first microscope went forth near the end of the 16th century, probably in 1590.
[199] Rezzi, pp. 8-10 and 36-40.
[200] Op. vi. p. 297; ix. p. 64.
[201] Galileo was never married, but he had a son who was legitimised in 1619 by Cosmo II., and two daughters, by Marina Gamba, of Venice. His daughters took the veil in the Convent of S. Matteo, at Arcetri. The mother of his children afterwards married a certain Bartolucci, with whom Galileo subsequently entered into friendly correspondence, which was quite in accordance with the state of morals and manners in Italy at that period. The pension of sixty dollars was granted in 1627, but owing to the religious exercises attached as a condition, Galileo’s son did not accept it. It was then transferred to a nephew, but, as he proved unworthy of it, to Galileo himself, with an increase of forty dollars, but with the condition, as it was derived from two ecclesiastical benefices, that he should adopt the tonsure, to which he consented. He drew the pension which thus irregularly accrued to him as long as he lived.
[202] Op. vi. p. 295.
[203] Op. ix. pp. 60, 61; Pieralisi, pp. 75, 76.
[204] This work was placed upon the Index of prohibited books by a decree of 10th March, 1619.
[205] Op. ii. pp. 64-115.
[206] See Guiducci’s letter to Galileo from Rome, 18th April, 1625. (Op. ix. pp. 78-80.)
[207] Op. ix. pp. 65-71; Suppl. pp. 162-164.