Information about galileo telescope10/7/2023 One member, the Jesuit Melchior Inchofer, stated that Galileo was “vehemently suspected of firmly adhering” to the Copernican opinion, and “indeed that he holds it.” When asked what instructions he had received in 1616, Galileo said, “Lord Cardinal Bellarmino told me that since Copernicus’s opinion, taken absolutely was contrary to Holy Scripture, it could neither be held or defended, but it could be taken and used suppositionally.” Galileo even produced a copy of the letter given to him by Bellarmino, which stated as much.įrom a purely legal perspective, this brought the evidence incriminating and vindicating Galileo practically to a draw, since, while the injunction document spoke of “not to hold, teach, or defend in any way, either verbally or in writing,” Bellarmino’s letter used the much weaker language of “not to hold or defend Copernicanism.”īut a special commission appointed to examine Galileo’s Dialogue and to determine whether he violated the prohibition to hold, teach or defend Copernicanism in any way, issued a report concluding that in writing the book, Galileo had disobeyed the injunction. READ MORE: Long-Lost Letter Reveals How Galileo Tried to Trick the Inquisition This document was significant, since in his book (published in 1632), Galileo presented arguments favoring the Copernicus model, even though he added a preface and a coda which appeared to imply that one couldn’t conclude which of the two models was correct. In the first session, prosecutor Maculano introduced a warning issued against Galileo 17 years earlier, in which Galileo was ordered by the Church’s Commissary General to abandon his Copernican ideas and not to defend or teach them in any way. The trial of Galileo, a man described by Albert Einstein as “the father of modern science,” took place in three sessions, on April 12, April 30 and May 10 in 1633. On April 12, 1633, chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo Maculano, appointed by Pope Urban VIII, launched an inquisition of Galileo and ordered the astronomer to appear in the Holy Office to begin trial. Galileo, however, went on to publish his book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, in which he derided those who refused to accept the Copernican system. Galileo Galilei before members of the Holy Office in the Vatican in 1633. WATCH: How the Earth Was Made on HISTORY Vault Inquisition of Galileo Is Launched Under Pope The deniers cited, for example, the book of Joshua, in which, at Joshua’s request, God commanded the sun, and not the Earth, to stand still over the ancient Canaanite city of Gibeon. Theologians concluded that a moving Earth and a stationary sun were in conflict with literal interpretations of scripture, and with the Ptolemaic geocentric model, which had been adopted as the Catholic Church’s orthodoxy. The only defense remaining to those refusing to accept the conclusions first proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus, a Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer, and bolstered by accumulating facts and scientific reasoning, was to reject the interpretation of the results. Four centuries ago, the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei put his liberty and life on the line to convince the religious establishment that the Copernican model of the solar system-in which the Earth and the other planets revolved around the sun-represented physical reality.įollowing his own observations and the findings by other astronomers, no one could really argue anymore that what one saw through the telescope was an optical illusion, and not a faithful reproduction of the world.
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