Galileo was then sixty-nine years old and the most venerated scientist in Italy. Although subscribing to an anti-literalist view of the Bible, as per Saint Augustine, Galileo considered himself a believing Catholic Playing to his own strengths a deep knowledge of Italy, a longstanding interest in Renaissance and Baroque lore Dan Hofstadter explains this apparent paradox and limns this historic moment in the widest cultural context, portraying Galileo as both humanist and scientist, deeply versed in philosophy and poetry, on easy terms with musicians, writers, and painters. "