While Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe,
and Johannes Kepler avoided major confrontations with the church, Galileo
Galilei found himself in a serious struggle with the Vatican as a result of his
research. By 1609, when Galileo published his first work based upon his
observations with the telescope, Europe had enjoyed nearly 100 years of
Protestantism. Perhaps enjoy isn't quite the right word for it for in reaction
to Protestantism came the Inquisition. It is with that force that Galileo,
unlike his predecessors, had to contend.
Early Years
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| Fig.
1: Galileo Galilei circa 1636. |
Born in 1564 in Pisa, Italy, Galileo's
father was a musician and his mother quite educated for a woman of her time and
class. Galileo's father, in addition to a talent for math, was mistrustful of
authority; characteristics he passed on to his son. Galileo received his early
education from local monks; however, when his father learned that his son was
considering joining the local monastery he immediately withdrew Galileo and
sent him off to the University of Pisa School of Medicine. Here, Galileo
conducted experiments with a pendulum that helped him form ideas that
eventually led to his law of falling bodies (McMullin 52-53).
In the early years of his career in
Pisa, Galileo lectured and wrote on mathematics and mechanics while criticizing
Aristotle's science. Galileo also imprudently criticized an engineering
proposal by one of the members of the Medici ruling family, which led to his
departure to Padua in 1592. There, Galileo served as chair of the mathematics
department at the University of Padua until 1610 and it was here that he became
acquainted with an instrument that would literally open the eyes of astronomers
everywhere, the telescope (McMullin 54-55).
Galileo had long been aware of the
inaccuracies of Aristotelian science. For example, he could not help noticing
that large and small hailstones hit the ground at the same time, contradicting
Aristotle's teaching that heavy objects fall faster than light objects
(McMullin 54). Galileo's famous "experiment" from the top of the
Leaning Tower of Pisa (circa 1590) did not take place as reported. He instead
demonstrated his point by rolling balls down an incline. Similar experiments
though had been previously documented. Benedetti Giambattista published his
results in 1553, followed by Flemish engineer Simon Stevin who published his
findings in 1586 (Hawking 16, 55). Galileo may have been challenged by the
conservative academic climate of Pisa to conduct his own experiments.
The Starry Messenger
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| Fig. 2: Galileo's telescope |
 |
| Fig.
3: On left - Drawing of the Moon by Galileo. On right - Photograph of the Moon from the same angle. |
Kepler read Sidereus Nuncius and endorsed its findings before ever seeing a
telescope. That he accepted Galileo's observations, even though he lacked the
instrumentation to duplicate the results, is a testament to the influence of Sidereus Nuncius. Kepler wrote a long
letter to Galileo discussing his impressions and even wrote the Duke of
Tuscany, Giuliano de' Medici, to praise his most noted resident's work (Kepler
3, 9). This letter, published in Prague in 1610, lent crucial support to
Galileo's findings in the secular world. Predictably, the Catholic Church had a
different opinion on the matter.
On Floating Bodies and Sunspots
In 1612, Galileo was once again on the
attack against Aristotelian science. His Discourses
on Floating Bodies discussed what causes an object to float as well as the
physical nature of ice. In the book Galileo also provides a number of simple
experiments that contradict the Aristotelian position on the nature of
buoyancy. Galileo would defend this work against numerous academic attacks
(McMullin 59-60).
Also in 1612, a German Jesuit priest
published observations of sunspots and explained them as small planets orbiting
the sun. Although this is in keeping with the church's view that the sun was
perfect and therefore free of such imperfections as a blemish on its surface,
the Jesuit was nonetheless compelled to publish under a pseudonym in order to
protect himself from prosecution. Galileo, who had observed sunspots sometime
prior to 1612, published his own conclusions in a series of letters in 1613.
Not only did Galileo correctly assert that sunspots were an ever-changing
manifestation of the Sun itself, but he also signed his name, giving those who
opposed any challenge to the Church a target. In 1614, he was denounced from
the pulpit in Florence and the Inquisition soon took up the matter on referral
from a Dominican priest (McMullin 59-60).
Inquisition
In 1615 the Church begins its counterattack
against the Copernican Revolution. Pope Paul V declared the Sun and Earth did
not move and Galileo was ordered to cease espousing views to the contrary
(Ollney 89). Additionally, the pope effectively banned Copernicus' De Revolutionibus by suspending it “pending
correction.” Galileo, in Rome to answer his accusers, defended his views only
to be commanded by the pope to remain silent. Recalled to Florence, Galileo
entered a period of scientific inactivity for the next two years (McMullin 61).
The Dialogue
It was not until Pope Urban VIII
succeeded Pope Paul V in 1624 that was Galileo able to resume public discourse
of his ideas on cosmology. The new pope gave Galileo permission to discuss his
ideas in a hypothetical context. The result was Dialogue on the Two Great World Systems (1632) (Dialogue on the Two xviii). Rather than
a text of observations, calculations, diagrams and maps, Galileo presents the
discussion of the difference between the two competing world systems as a
discourse between three "interlocutors," Salviatus, Sagredus and
Simplicius (Dialogue Concerning 6).
Salviatus is a proponent of the
Copernican system. Sagredus and Simplicius argue for the Aristotelian view.
Over the course of four days various issues with both systems are discussed.
Salviatus is imbued with Galileo's persuasive prowess. Sagredus has a mind open
to civilized conjecture while Simplicius, on the other hand, is obnoxious and
rude (Dialogue Concerning 7).
Although the book ends with affirmations of the glory of God, it led to a
serious encounter with the Inquisition. Naming the defender of the Aristotelian
worldview "Simple" probably didn't earn Galileo any favor with the inquisitors.
Later Years
In 1633, almost seventy, Galileo went
to Rome to stand trial. The case centered around the injunction originally
filed against Galileo in 1616 after his last trial. The inquisitors had an
unsigned memorandum from the Church's records suggesting that Galileo did
indeed exceed the injunction's commands. Galileo, however, produced a signed
letter from the original trial that his prosecutors did not know existed. This
letter, from the Cardinal in charge of the 1616 trial, left room for doubt
regarding Galileo's guilt (McMullin 63).
Sentenced to life in prison and
prohibited from writing about Copernicanism, Galileo was allowed to return to
his home near Florence under the close scrutiny of the Inquisition. All of
Galileo's works, published and unpublished, were banned. To their credit, it
should be noted that three of the ten cardinal-judges conducting the trial
refused to sign the decree of sentence (Langford 153).
The Two New Sciences
Despite the ban on the publication of
his works Dialogue Concerning the Two
Chief World Systems was published in Strasbourg in 1635 out of reach of the
Vatican's control (Langford 157). Galileo did not cease writing in the face of
the Inquisition. Using the same characters from Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo finished
work on The Two New Sciences in 1636.
In it, he establishes laws of accelerated motion and of falling bodies as well
as basic theorems regarding projectile motion — ballistics (McMullin 64).
Similar in format to the Dialogue of 1632, it also uses the same
interlocutors Salviatus, Sagredus, and Simplicius. Galileo presents his theory
regarding ballistics, which deals with resistance, cohesion, and acceleration
in bodies in motion as well as proof of parabolic trajectories in projectiles.
This theory was in opposition to Aristotelian science which taught that projectiles
went straight out, then straight down (Dibner and Drake 37).
Galileo's sight continues to fail
until he finally goes blind in 1637, just after finishing The Two New Sciences. The following year, in 1638, The Two New Sciences is published in
Leyden, Holland. Galileo got around the ban on publication by reporting that
the book was published without his permission. He spent his final years
dictating new chapters for The Two New
Sciences and occasionally teaching and lecturing until passing away in
1642, the same year Isaac Newton was born (Langford 158).
The Catholic Church, by the way, never
got around to officially forgiving Galileo until 1981 (Ross 21).
Related Content
Works Cited
Dibner, Bern and Stillman Drake. A Letter from Galileo. Norwalk:
Burndy Library, 1967. Print.
Galilei, Galileo. Dialogue
Concerning the Two Chief World
Systems-Ptolemaic
and Copernican. Trans. Stillman
Drake. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1967. Print.
---. Dialogue on the Two
Great World Systems. Ed. Giorgio de
Santillana. Chicago, Toronto and London:
The Universityof Chicago, 1955. Print.
Hawking, Stephen W. A Brief
History of Time. New York, Toronto
and London: Bantam Books, 1988. Print.
Kepler, Johannes. Kepler's
Conversation with Galileo's Sideral
Messenger. Trans. Edward Rosen. New York and
London: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1965. Print.
Langford, Jerome, J. Galileo, Science and the Church. New York:
Desclee Company, 1966. Print.
McMullin, Ernan, ed. Galileo:
Man of Science. New York and
London: Basic Books, Inc., 1967. Print.
Ollney, Allan. The Private
Life of Galileo. London: MacMillian &
Co., 1870. Print.
Co., 1870. Print.
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