According to one of Galileo's first biographers, Niccolò Gherardini, he began studying Archimedes at an early age under Ostilio Ricci, a teacher at the Academy of Drawing in Florence. Indeed, a few years before his death, Galileo described Archimedes as "my master" and his influence is clear from Galileo's first studies. These refer to and further explore themes clearly inspired by Archimedes, whose work was a constant point of reference and provided sample applications of rigorous demonstrations. His treatises On Floating Bodies and On Plane Equilibria were the most appreciated by Galileo and their study helped inspire a new mathematical approach to the explanation of physical phenomena.