Chapter I. 1

Peculiar interest attached to his Life--His Birth--His early studies--His passion for Mathematics--His work on the Hydrostatic Balance--Appointed Lecturer on Mathematics at Pisa--His antipathy to the Philosophy of Aristotle--His contentions with the Aristotelians--Chosen Professor of Mathematics in Padua--Adopts the Copernican system, but still teaches the Ptolemaic doctrine--His alarming illness--He observes the new Star in 1604--His Magnetical experiments,