I was the first to investigate them, who can rightly blame me if I give them a name, and call them the Medicean Stars, hoping that as much consideration may accrue to these stars from this title, as other stars have brought to other heroes? For not to speak of your most serene ancestors, to whose everlasting glory the monuments of all history bear witness, your virtue alone, most mighty sire, can confer on those stars an immortal name; for who can doubt that you will not only maintain and preserve the expectations, high though they be, about yourself, which you have aroused by the very happy beginning of your government, but that you will also far surpass them, so that when you have conquered others like yourself, you may still vie with yourself, and become day by day greater than yourself and your greatness?
Accept, then, most clement Prince, this addition to the glory of your family, reserved by the stars for you; and may you enjoy for many years those good blessings, which are sent to you not so much from the stars as from God, the Maker and Governor of the stars.
Your Highness's most devoted servant,
Galileo Galilei.
Padua, March 12, 1610.
