The Trial of Galileo –

In 1661, immediately after making his great astronomical discoveries, Galileo went to Rome. He carried with him several copies of his famous telescope.

They all wanted to look at the darling, and the learned mathematician was showered with honors; he was made a member of the Academia dei Lincei, honored at the college of the Jesuits, some of whose teachers were his friends. Invited by cardinals, one of whom wrote to the Duke of Tuscany: “I sincerely believe that if we lived in the ancient Roman Republic a column of the Capitol.”

Portrait of Galileo Galilei, by Justus Sustermans, 17th century (Wikipedia)

The first discordant voices would come from Florence, where Galileo it didn’t take long to create enemies with their teasing and cutting ways. In circles close to the duke, the disagreement between the Bible and the system of Copernicus. One day a Dominican preaching on Joshua violently denounced Copernican ideas and the mathematicians who propagated them from the pulpit.

Galileo responded to these attacks with a letter to a learned Benedictine from Florence, Father Castelli, a letter that he developed a few years later, this time addressing it to the Duchess Christina. In it, he clearly pointed out what should be the relationship between the Holy Scriptures and science: “The Bible it was not written to teach us astronomy.” And he added this phrase that he attributed to Cardinal Baronio: “The intention of the Holy Spirit was not to show us what the darlingbut how do you go to it.” Galileo it claimed, therefore, the freedom of the scientist to follow his own method independently of the theologians.

Bringing the discussion to this ground, Galileo he thought he was defending himself, but he only aggravated his case. What he had warned the Inquisition it was, above all, the intrusion of a mathematician into the religious field. Yes Galileo I would have done as Copernicuswhich only spoke of the earth’s rotation as a hypothesisa not necessarily real model useful for understanding the movement of the stars, would never have awakened the sensitivity of Christians.

But this was not a solution to please Galileo Galilei. He was sure the Land really turned, and realized that Copernicus had been too. when he went to Rome in 1616, he did so to openly confirm his knowledge, and to put an end to the “revealed truth” proposed by his opponents. The Tuscan ambassador described his passion by saying: “He immediately loses his head when they touch his ideas; he has a very character passionate and he lacks patience and prudence to control himself. This irritability makes the atmosphere of Rome very dangerous for him.”

And sure enough, in February 1616, the Inquisition issued a decree against the Copernican systemafter which Cardinal Bellarmine was commissioned to pray to Galileo that he “abandon the opinion he had hitherto held about the Sun as the center of the universe and on the movement of the Land.” Galileo not only did he not give in, but he published criticism against his opponents.

Galileo Before the Holy Office, by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury, 19th century (Wikipedia)

In 1632, he triggered the scandal with his Dialogue on the two major world systemswritten in Italian, and accessible to a wide group of readers thanks to the informative way in which he knew how to write it. Anyone could easily follow the discussion between the three characters: simplexthe scholastic, Salviatithe determined Copernican, and Sagredothe mediator.

The Inquisition The Romans got going again with a more aggressive machine. Pope Urban VIIIwho had once supported Galileo, abandoned him.

On June 22, 1633, after a process 20 days, a court of seven cardinals declared that “holding that the Sunmotionless and without local motion, occupies the center of the world, is a false proposition and hereticalsince it contradicts the testimony of the scriptures. That’s it absurd and false from the philosophical point of view to say that the Land it is not motionless in the center of the world.”

Galileo he was then forced to sign an abjuration formula. He was sentenced to confine himself to his house arcetriwhere he died in 1642, blind, but not subdued.

Some articles that may interest you about the sky watching:

  • all about the telescopes
  • daytime sky observation
  • Observation of the night sky

Sources:

  • Venard, M.: The Beginnings of the Modern World, The World and its History, vols. V and VI, Argos, 1970.
  • Levinas, M.: The Images of the Universe, Economic Culture Fund, 1996.