 Galileo was born in Pisa ( then part of the Duchy of Florence ) , Italy , in 1564 , the first of six children of Vincenzo Galilei , a famous lutenist , composer , and music theorist , and Giulia Ammannati . 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 . 
