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Marina Gamba ofVenice (c. 1570 in Venice – 21 August 1612 in Padua)[1] was the mother ofGalileo Galilei'sillegitimate children.
During one of his frequent trips to Venice, Galileo met a young woman named Marina, daughter of Andrea Gamba, and started a relationship with her. She moved into his house inPadua and bore him three children: Virginia (16 August 1600 – 1634), later SisterMaria Celeste; Livia (1601–1659), later Sister Arcangela; andVincenzo (1606–1649). In none of the three baptismal records is Galileo named as the father. Virginia was described as "daughter byfornication of Marina of Venice," with no mention of the father; on Livia's baptismal record the name of the father was left blank; Vincenzo's baptismal record announced "father uncertain" (Galileo's Daughter 24, Dava Sobel, 1999). Galileo's position as a professor and his many friendships among the Venetian nobility probably made it unwise for him to figure officially as the children's father.
When Galileo leftPadua for good in 1610 to take up his position at the Medici court inFlorence, he took the two daughters with him but left their mother behind with 4 year-oldVincenzo, who joined his father inFlorence a few years later.
With Marina no longer in the family, Galileo put his two daughters in a convent and managed to have Vincenzo legitimated by theGrand Duke of Tuscany. In his 1619 request for this, Galileo declared that at the time of his cohabitation with Marina, she "had never been married" and was "already dead" at the drawing up of the act.Vincenzo studied law and later became alutenist like hisnamesake grandfather. He died in 1649.[2]
Marina Gamba is often confused with Marina Bartoluzzi, who looked after Vincenzo while Galileo was settling in Florence, resorting to the sale of a lute to pay for her services. She was long believed to have remarried to a certain Giovanni Bartoluzzi, but it has been proven that they were two different persons.