The Galileo Project is a “hypertext source of information on the life and work of Galileo Galilei (1564‐1642) and the science of his time.” The author, Albert Van Helden, is the Lynette Autrey Professor of History at Rice University, and has written several volumes on this history of science, as well as a multitude of book reviews on the subject.
There is no installation required for this resource, as the only requirement is a web browser. The size and number of images on this site should be taken into consideration, however, because they could easily bog down lower‐end machines or slow connections. The author has provided slimmed‐down pages for text‐based browsers, but because of the dependence on graphics and layout in the graphics‐intensive version, a great deal of effect and usability are lost.
The site is divided into 5 sections: Introduction, Galileo’s Villa, Resources, Maps of Galileo’s World, Timeline of Galileo’s Life and Era, and Student Work. The Introduction section contains author information, a brief history of the project, and the usual copyright disclaimer, as well as a space for comments and questions. The ambitious scope note, “to provide hypertextual information about Galileo and the science of his time to viewers of all ages and levels of expertise,” to be used in “primary and secondary” schools, sets the user up for a spectacle that the site cannot provide, citing the ubiquitous excuse for unfinished web pages: “Under Construction.” Perhaps an updated progress report, or other indications that updates are being done would improve this section.
Van Helden makes clever use of a click map with Galileo’s Villa, the digitized floor plan of a 16th century Florentine villa. Clicking on any labeled room will take the user to a web page containing related information. The Villa is an effective tool that allows for easy subject navigation.
Within the Villa is a Portrait Gallery, which is filled with images relating to the site, despite the text warning that the Gallery is not yet available. Most of the images appearing in the Gallery appear elsewhere in the site. It would be useful, though not necessary, to know where these images came from, how they were created, and by whom. This information would presumably appear in the Image Citations link in the Resources section, but this link results in a “404 Not Found” error from Rice’s server.
The Resources section contains a Table of Contents, Glossary, links to other Internet Resources, the bibliography used in creating the site, and the Catalog of the Scientific Community of the 16th and 17th Centuries, created by former Indiana University Professor Richard S. Westfall. These 631 biographies are made available within the Galileo Project because a Project member marked them up and created the search engine. The forms‐based search pages are easy to use, the only limitation being the unavailability of “and” searches. This is the only searchable section of the Project. Linked off the project’s Selected Internet Resources page are several web sites that fill in information that the Galileo Project has not covered. Also absent from the “Webs About Galileo” section are several web sites found with a simple web search. The Maps of Galileo’s World page contains large GIF images of period maps of Europe, Italy, and Florence, with the promise that more of these and modern maps will be added. The maps are clickable, though the server gives the user no indication of the destination, only coordinates. This is a server‐dependent feature, but still an annoyance with large maps such as those featured here.
The Timeline is where most of the information about Galileo himself is found. While the timeline format is useful for contextual reasons, the information would better serve the Project in a manner consistent with the rest of the Project’s material, in concise prose, with images and relative links.
The Student Work section links to home pages created by Van Helden’s students. These pages are the products of group projects on Astronomy, Galileo’s Experiments, Trial, and the culture of his time. This product makes a fun, informative, and flexible addition to undergraduate history of science classes or high school classes that touch on the subject. The most notable offering this site makes to the already‐prolific genre of the history of science is its use of hypertext. Users looking for more in depth treatment should try Michael Sharrat’s Galileo for biographical information or Richard J. Blackwell’s Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible for an account of Galileo’s conflict with the Catholic Church.
This resource is recommend with reservations. Should the project be better fleshed out, with links updated and promises of more images and information fulfilled, this will be an excellent supplemental resource.
