---
title: "Patronage in astronomy"
chunk: 3/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage_in_astronomy"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:37:06.257744+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Mario Biagioli ===
In his book, Galileo Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism, Mario Biagioli looks to shed light on the ways in which a society characterized by patronage relationships affected one of astronomy's, and modern science's, greatest heroes: Galileo Galilei. Biagioli looks to uncover aspects of Galileo's life by “vividly [presenting] the pioneer physicist to us through the active social relations he experienced with persons in the different courts with which he was connected.”   The book reveals how Galileo “used patronage to obtain his teaching position in Pisa… [and] maneuvered his transfer from Padua to the “home court” of the Medicis... used contacts with Prince Cesi and other well-placed persons in Roman circles to become an Academian, and a person of influence, and how all of this turned to dust for Galileo, when he lost the patronage of Urban VIII, one of his two most special patrons”. In a review of Biagioli's work, Larry Wolff noted Biagioli as demonstrating Galileo's legitimacy as a direct consequence of “his ‘career strategies’” and not just “his ‘cognitive attitudes’” and that Galileo is shown to be a master of attaining power and a seventeenth-century career in science  The book acknowledges that “gifts within the logic of patronage [explain] the role of spectacular scientific production in Galileo’s career… [in that he] needed to produce or discover things that could be used as gifts for his patrons”  Jardine adds, as Biagioli has shown, Galileo's gift to Cosimo II of his discovery of the satellites of Jupiter, transformed into emblems of Medici dynastic power, was a spectacularly successful instance. Through exchange of gifts, highly ritualized and often highly competitive, princes and nobles achieved social distinction, maintaining their honour and mutual recognition.

=== Robert Westman ===
Westman has observed “how in the preface to his De revolutionibus Copernicus appealed to Pope Paul III in a courtly, or rather curial, humanist language of clerical reform- promoting his new ordering of the planets as a restoration of lost order and harmony, and as a basis for the repair of the derelict calendar.”  Westman's “reading is strongly confirmed by the dedication to Paul III of another new ordering of the planetary motions, Fracastoro’s Homocentrica, in which the strategies of appeal to the humanist Pope are closely similar.” 

=== Richard S. Westfall ===

Westfall notes that, in the early modern period, the “word 'friend' carries special connotations within a context of patronage; authorities on patronage distinguish what they call instrumental friendship from emotional friendship… [for] [example] Galileo's "friends" in Venice appear to have understood that the "friendship" entailed the use of their connections and influence on his behalf. In all of Galileo's attempts to rise up the ladder of Patronage, one of his connections, Sagredo, would write him words that Westfall considers “[o]ne would be hard pressed to find a better example of the language of patronage.” Westfall writes, “Sagredo, who was clearly tiring of the exercise, wanted to be sure that Galileo understood he had fulfilled his duty as a patron [in] [writing] ‘Since I have already satisfied abundantly enough the friendship I hold for you, the obligations to you which I acknowledge, and the favor and help that true gentlemen try to extend to the qualified who deserve it,’ he thought he might now honorably desist.”  Westfall also provides fantastic evidence directly from the mouth of Galileo as to the importance of Patronage to himself
and his scientific endeavors:

"Having labored now twenty years, the best ones of my life, in dispensing at retail, as the saying goes, at the demand of everyone, that little talent in my profession that God and my own efforts have given me, my desires would truly be to obtain enough leisure and quiet as would enable me before I die to complete three great works that I have in hand in order to be able to publish them, perhaps with some praise for me and for whoever has helped me in the business. ... It is not possible to receive a salary from a Republic, however splendid and generous, without serving the public, because to get something from the public one must satisfy it and not just one particular person; and while I remain able to teach and to serve, no one can exempt me from the burden while leaving me the income; and in sum I cannot hope for such a benefit from anyone but an absolute prince."

Westfall describes that Galileo, upon discovering Jupiter’s moons, made sure to tantalize the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the position now held by Cosimo of the Medici family, with the honour of being attributed the award of such a discovery by means of them being named after him. As Westfall describes, “Galileo was sure he had found what he wanted, a ticket to Florence.”  
Westfall describes that “[i]n a word, Galileo had raised himself with one inspired blow from the level of an obscure professor of mathematics at the University of Padua to the status of the most desirable client in Italy.”  Following the discovery of the Jupiter's moons, Galileo would then look to discover their periods; due to ensuing competition and even some minimizing the importance of only discovering the moons without knowledge of their period, Galileo's “acknowledged position as the messenger from the heavens was threatened”. Westfall also contends that evidence of Galileo's patterns of observing the sky suggest that “at the time Galileo began his celestial observations, he had not formulated a program of systematic observations designed to settle the Copernican issue.”  Rather, Westfall asserts: