Like Blake and Beethoven, Galileo Galilei (February 15, 1564–January 8, 1642) lived a life animated by the tragic genius of outsiderdom. It was only by standing apart from his society that he was able to cast dogma and convention aside, oppose the core beliefs of his era, and peer into the very fabric of eternity from his lonesome-making lookout.

If anyone in his world made him feel less alone and misunderstood, it was Virginia — the eldest of his three children, with whom he identified and connected most closely. In a letter to a colleague, he once extolled her as "a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to [him]." 

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Source: https://www.brainpickings.org/