• Illustrations of the moon from the second pirated edition of Galileo’s The Starry Messenger.
  • Frontispiece to Galileo’s Dialogue (1632)
  • Engraving of Galileo by Francesco Villamena (1564–24)
  • Portrait of Maffeo Barberini, Urban VIII
  • Titlepage of Galileo's On Sunspots (1613).
  • Illustration from Galileo’s Two New Sciences (1638).
  • Frontispiece of Niccolò Tartaglia’s New Science (1537).
  • The Ptolemaic universe from the Sphere of Sacrobosco, Mattei Mauro (1550).
  • Image from the title page of Galileo’s Assayer (1623).
  • Illustration from Galileo’s Two New Sciences (1638).
  • Title page of Melchior Inchofer’s Summary Treatise (1633).
  • Illustration from Galileo’s Two New Sciences (1638).
Galileo Watcher of the skies cover

Welcome to watcheroftheskies.org, the website associated with a new book by Professor David Wootton, published in September 2010 by Yale University Press.

To explore the site please click on the tabs above.

Click here to take a look inside the book!

Click here to listen to the podcast.

NEW: Andrew Brown discusses Galileo on BBC Radio 3. Click here for more.

Click here to hear David speak at an LSE event: Galileo and the Infinite Universe: science, heresy, and the Inquisition.

Find out more/ purchase the book : UK, Europe, Australia
Find out more/ purchase the book : USA and ROW


Michelagnolo Galilei by Paul Beier