A few more observations on Galileo

I'm about 40% of the way through this biography. A few things I hadn't realized before:
1) Galileo wasn't actually working for Cosimo Medici when he discovered the moons of Jupiter and dedicated his article to them. He just wanted to work for them, because they could give him a job as Court Mathematician that would be 100% research, zero teaching. Some things never change.

2) I knew that Galileo did not invent the telescope, and that he based his work on that of Lippershey in the Netherlands. What I didn't realize is just how many people besides Galileo and Lippershey were making telescopes, and even pointing them at the moon.

3) Galileo made telescope eyepieces for the Republic of Venice (he was a professor in Padua) and signed an agreement not to disclose his secrets to anyone else.  Then he turned around and gave some eyepieces to the Medicis.  He really wanted to work for them

4) This makes perfect sense now that I've read it, but making telescope objective lenses was not the hard part, because those lenses have long focal lengths and hence small curvatures (large radii of curvature). The eyepieces were the tricky part because of the short radii of curvature.

5) The Republic of Venice was independent of Vatican authority and willing to protect his academic freedom. The Medicis?  Not so much. Had he realized the implications of this fact, I'm sure that he would have stayed in Padua.