Book and Manuscript Identification

This page provides an overview of the data that supports the visualizations and analytics in Galileo’s Library: Data, Methods, and the Humanities (Oxford UP, 2026). There are several sources for identifying the books and manuscripts that were in the Galilei households:

  • Books annotated by Galileo (see the list, with comments on misattributions and forgeries, periodically updated: Galileo’s Marginalia)
  • Books cited by Galileo
  • Letters in which Galileo, family members, friends, colleagues, and fans discuss sending books
  • An inventory of books in the Galilei home at the death of his son in 1649 (see Appendix 2)
  • An inventory of books in the Galilei home at the death of his daughter-in-law in 1669 (see Appendix 3)
  • The 232-page list of books owned by Galileo’s final student in 1702 (transcription link)
  • The late 19th-century research completed by the editor of the national edition of Galileo’s works
  • Michele Camerota’s review of the letters that discuss manuscripts specifically
  • My earlier work to revisit these sources
  • Other modern scholars who have identified connections between Galileo and other authors

The complete data set used for Galileo’s Library can be found in Bowdoin’s Digital Commons: https://digitalcollections.bowdoin.edu/view/61213. Note: all column headings are explained in the landing document. Data was last updated in April 2025.

Subsets of the data for different chapters can be recreated using the following steps:

  • Introduction:
    • Figure 0.1 Books by Galileo: see the tab in the data set “BooksByGalileo” (see also Appendix 1)
    • Census of extant copies of books authored by Galileo: see the tab in the data set “GGBookCensus”
  • Chapter 1: in the tab “AllBooksMssDataApril2025” use filters in the “CnxnToGG” column for “SentBy” and “SentTo”
  • Chapter 2: in the tab “AllBooksMssDataApril2025” use filters in the “CnxnToGG” column for “CitedBy,” “Requested,” and “Annotated”
  • Chapter 3: in the tab “AllBooksMssDataApril2025” remove blank rows from the “ArchivioTitle” column
  • Chapter 4: in the tab “AllBooksMssDataApril2025” remove blank rows from the “MSGal308Title” column
  • Chapter 6:
    • see the tab “Favs537” for the data for figures 6.2 through 6.8
    • see the tab “Berni” for the data for figure 6.9
  • Chapter 7: see the tab “Isotopes” for possible editions of many of the titles in the library
  • Chapter 8: see the tab “AllComedyData” for the data used in figures 8.2 and 8.3