Galileo depended on the generosity of rulers to support his research so he would sometimes make gifts of his inventions to the leading patrons of the time but his patrons usually paid him with gifts, not cash. This made for a life of constant insecurity and dependence.

He hit on a new strategy, when he discovered the moons of Jupiter. Instead of dividing the discovery among his patrons, as he had done in the past, he decided to focus exclusively on the Medicis.

He chose the Medicis because they had made Jupiter, the mightiest of the gods, the Medici symbol—a symbol of a power that went beyond politics and banking.

Galileo announced that "the moons of Jupiter offered themselves in the heavens” to his telescope at the same time as Cosimo II’s enthronement. He said that the four moons harmonized with the number of the Medicis.

After he dedicated the discovery to the Medicis, Galileo commissioned an emblem representing Jupiter sitting on a cloud with the four stars circling about him, and presented this to Cosimo II as a symbol of his link to the stars.

Cosimo II made Galileo his official court philosopher and mathematician, with a full salary.

For a scientist this was the shit. The days of begging for patronage were over.