3/30/2023 0 Comments And yet it moves galieloGalileo Galilei before the Holy Office in the Vatican. New charges were raised against the astronomer, not just for the contents of his book challenging the church’s authority, but because he had gone back on his word. Though it got by church censors, it deeply offended Pope Urban VIII and the Jesuit priests advising him. The Dialogue, Galileo argued, was on safe ground because he had written in hypothetical terms he convinced himself that he didn’t explicitly “defend” Copernicus in the book because he made certain to include both sides of the debate. In 1632, after several meetings with the pope, Galileo published his “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems,” a long discussion between three characters comparing Copernican theory with older models. The astronomer believed he could finally speak his piece. But in 1623, the Cardinal Maffeo Barberini was elected pontiff, and the new Pope Urban VIII was an admirer of Galileo’s. Galileo managed to continue his work and keep quiet for almost a decade. The same decree banned Catholics from reading Copernicus’s book. In March of 1616, the Catholic Church’s “Index of Prohibited Books” published a statement (but without naming or charging Galileo) declaring that any theory suggesting the Earth revolved around the sun was false and, worse, such notions contradicted the ultimate source, the Holy Scriptures. READ MORE: Meet Rosalind Franklin, a sidelined figure in the history of DNA science His intellectual arguments, mathematical models and telescopic data failed to impress the Catholic authorities, and in February of 1616, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine took him aside and privately warned him to comply with the orders of the Church and stop writing or discussing his ideas-or else. These letters were so incendiary, at least to the churchmen, that Galileo went to Rome in December of 1615 to defend his ideas. He wrote letters laying out his arguments to his student, Benedetto Castelli, in December of 1613 and to the Grand Duchess Dowager Christina in the spring of 1615. Galileo argued vociferously against the biblical claims refuting the Copernican model. They accused Galileo, who was an observant Catholic, of being a heretic who contradicted the veracity of the Holy Scriptures - an uncomfortable situation to find oneself, especially in Italy during the second decade of the 17th century. The clerics, backed by a gaggle of natural philosophers, insisted that our world was at the center of the universe, and that the sun, planets and even distant stars revolved around a stationary Earth. Here’s the rub: Copernicus’s theory and, eventually, Galileo’s telescopic proof ran counter to the teachings of the most important authority of his era, the Catholic Church. In this 1543 book, Copernicus became the first explorer of the skies to posit a concept called heliocentrism, in which the Earth rotates on its own axis each day and, like all the planets in our solar system, revolves around the sun. They accused Galileo, an observant Catholic, of being a heretic who contradicted the veracity of the Holy Scriptures.įrom his copious reading, Galileo became a great admirer of the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, whose “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres” is a landmark study in the history of astronomy.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |