Marina Gamba of Venice (c. 1570[1] – 21 August 1612[citation needed]) was the mother of Galileo Galilei's illegitimate children.
During one of his frequent trips to Venice, Galileo met a young woman named Marina, daughter of Andrea Gamba, and started a relationship with her.
Galileo's position as a professor and his many friendships among the Venetian nobility probably made it unwise for him to figure officially as the children's father.
With Marina no longer in the family, Galileo put his two daughters in a convent and managed to have Vincenzo legitimated by the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
In his 1619 request for this, Galileo declared that at the time of his cohabitation with Marina, she "had never been married" and was "already dead" at the drawing up of the act.