Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa (then part of the Duchy of Florence), Italy, on 15 February 1564, the first of six children of Vincenzo Galilei, a famous lutenist, composer, and music theorist, and Giulia (née Ammannati), who had married in 1562. Galileo became an accomplished lutenist himself and would have learned early from his father a scepticism for established authority, the value of well-measured or quantified experimentation, an appreciation for a periodic or musical measure of time or rhythm, as well as the results expected from a combination of mathematics and experiment. Three of Galileo's five siblings survived infancy. The youngest,
Galileo Galilei references such as Psalm , , and 1 Chronicles which include text stating that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." In the same manner, says, "the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Further, Ecclesiastes states that "And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place." Galileo defended heliocentrism based on his astronomical observations of 1609 ("Sidereus Nuncius" 1610). In December 1613, the Grand Duchess Christina of Florence confronted one of Galileo's friends and followers, Benedetto Castelli, with biblical objections to the motion of the earth. According to Maurice Finocchiaro,