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study of botany, which “seems in itself to attest the influence of the Tuscan scientist and to legitimize the definition of Cesi as a pioneer of quantitative botany” (423). Did Cesi have any influence on Galileo? According to Galluzzi, Cesi tried to get Galileo to tone down his criticisms of the Catholic Church, and of the Jesuits in particular. As we all know, that ended in failure. Galluzzi maintains Galileo “had to fight that battle in the name of the supreme value of truth and of his personal dignity”; he perceives in Galileo “the courage of truth and of confidence in the final triumph over the errors of pseudophilosophy” (166). From Cesi’s perspective that attitude was dangerous. Though Cesi, too, sought “freedom of thought in natural philosophy,” he tried to reach that goal by establishing “a reserved and protected space, the Lincean Academy, where, sheltered from the suspicions or censure of political and religious authorities, debates and research could be freely conducted” (341). Galileo’s fight with the church threatened that protected space. Galluzzi places Cesi “one step behind” Galileo in the advance of science (125), but while showing Cesi to be a man of the Renaissance, he presents Galileo as a man of the future. Hewrites about Galileo’s relationship to astrology as if drawing up horoscopes was merely for his own “material benefits” (69), ignoring that Galileo also drew up horoscopes for himself and his family. He notes that Cesi pointed out the compatibility of Kepler’s elliptical orbits with Galileo’s requirement that nature’s principles “appear elegant, simple and rational to our intellect” (119);Galileo insisted on circular orbits because he maintained that the natural motion of a sphere was circular, even if it required inelegant, complex, and irrational epicycles and eccentrics. Galluzzi also does not point out that Galileo’s telescopic discoveries did not prove the Copernican system; they were equally compatible with Tycho’s geo-heliocentric system. Moreover, while Galluzzi writes extensively about Galileo and tides, he is silent on Galileo’s rejection of the influence of the moon on the tides. Galileo thought he could prove the earth’s motion by the tides. He could not, but the “revolutionary principles of his new science ofmotion” (302) allowed others to disclose what Galileo failed to prove.