Pueblo Community College

Galileo
Life after punishment

Joe Davalos
History 102
Western Civilization II
Mr. Richard L. Rollins
May 1, 2014

Joseph Davalos
Mr. Richard Rollins
History 102 Western Civilization II
April 10, 2014

Galileo: life after punishment Galileo Galilei, born February 15, 1564 was a mathematics professor a scientist, astronomer and physisist. He attended the University of Pisa to study medicine in 1583. He was fascinated with many subjects, particularly mathematics and physics. During his studies at Pisa he was exposed to the Aristotelian view. In 1585, due to financial difficulties Galileo left the university before earning his degree. Galileo continued to study mathematics, supporting himself with minor teaching positions. He began a two-decade study on objects in motion and published The Little Balance in 1586. This work earned him some fame and gained him a teaching position at the .his fabled experiments with falling objects and produced his manuscript Du Motu (On Motion), this was a departure from Aristotelian views about motion and falling objects and thus left him isolated among his colleagues and in 1592 his contract with the University of Pisa was not renewed. Galileo quickly found a new position teaching geometry mechanics and astronomy at the University of Padua. In 1604, controversial findings begin to surface as Galileo published The Operations of the Geometrical and Military Compass. This work revealed Galileo’s skiills with experiments and practical technological applications and he also constructed a hydrostatic balance for measuring small object. Due to these developments Galileo received additional income and more recognition and during the same year, he refined his theories on motion and falling objects, he also developed the universal law of acceleration, which all objects in the universe obeyed. It was at this time, Galileo began to express openly his support of the Copernican theory that the earth and planets revolved around the sun and this was a direct challenge to the doctrine of Aristotle and the established order set by the Catholic Church.

In July of 1609 Galileo learned that a Dutch optician, named Lippershey, had produced an instrument by which the apparent size of remote objects was magnified, Galileo at once realized the principle of how such a result could alone be attained, and, after a single night devoted to consideration of the laws of refraction, he succeeded in constructing an instrument capable of magnifying an object by three times. In August of 1609, he demonstrated this instrument to some Venetian merchants, who saw its value for spotting ships and offered Galileo a salary to manufacture several of them. Galileo’s ambition pushed him to go further, he created an instrument that could magnify objects twenty times and then thirty two times, and then he made the fateful decision to turn his instrument up towards the heavens. These discoveries, which have made Galileo famous, were bond at once to follow, though undoubtedly he was qick to grasp their full significance. In March 1610, Galileo published a small booklet, The Starry Messenger, revealing his discoveries that the moon was not flat and smooth, but a sphere with mountains and craters. He also found Venus had phases like the moon, proving it rotated around the sun. Galileo also discovered Jupiter had revolving moons, which didn’t revolve around the earth. These discoveries led Galileo to lay aside all reserve and come forward as the strenuous champion of Copernicanism, and appealing as these discoveries did to the evidence of sensible phenomena, this gave Galileo the credit of being the greatest astronomer of his age. They were also the cause of his lamentable controversy with church leadership. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Galileo’s beliefs were based mostly on his telescopic discoveries and not physical evidence to support his ideas. He neglected discoveries far more fundamental than his own, made by Kepler. He failed to convince such men as Tycho Brahe (who did not live to see the telescope) and Lord Bacon who to the end remained an unbeliever. However, Galileo did begin to mount a body of evidence that supported Copernican theory and contradicted Aristotle and Church doctrine. In 1612, he published his Discourse on Bodies in Water, this refuted the Aristotelian explanation of why objects float in water, he said it wasn’t because of their flat shape but the weight of the object in relation to the water it displaced. In 1613 He published his observations of sunspots, which further refuted Aristotelian doctrine that the sun was perfect. According to biography.com, this same year, Galileo wrote a letter o a student to explain how Copernican theory did not contradict Biblical passages, stating that scripture was written from an earthly perspective and implied that science provided a different, more accurate perspective. The letter was made public and Church Inquisition consultants pronounced Copernican theory heretical.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, hearing that some had denounced his doctrine as anti-Scriptural, Galileo presented himself at Rome in December, 1615, and was courteously received. He was presently interrogated before the Inquisition, which after consultation declared the system he upheld to be scientifically false, and anti-Scriptural or heretical, and that he must renounce it. This he obediently did, promising to teach it no more. Then followed a decree of the Congregation of the Index dated 5 March 1616, prohibiting various heretical works to which were added any advocating the Copernican system. According to the Heythrop Journal, Galileo had little choice but to defend himself, and did so with withering sarcasm, demolishing the arguments of the Aristotleian philosophers with undisguised relish. Unable to defeat Galileo by scientific arguments, they attacked him by saying that his heliocentric theory is contrary to the Bible. In 1623, a friend of Galileo, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, was selected as Pope Urban VIII, he allowed Galileo to continue to pursue his work on astronomy and even encouraged him to publish it, on condition it be objective and not advocate Copernican theory, according to Biography.com. In 1632, Galileo published the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, a discussion among three people: one who supports Copernicus’ heliocentric theory of the universe, one who argues against it, and one who is impartial. Though Galileo claimed Dialogues was neutral, it was clear the advocate of Aristotelian belief comes across as the simpleton, getting caught in his own arguments. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, this book clearly a Ptolemist being routed and confounded by two Copernicans and was plainly inconsistent with his former promise and was taken by the Roman authorities as a direct challenge.

Church reaction against the book was very swift and Galileo was again summoned to Rome. The Inquisition proceedings lasted from September 1632 to July 1633. During most of this time he was treated with respect and never imprisoned. However, in a final attempt to break him, Galileo was threatened with torture, and he finally admitted he had supported Copernican theory, but privately held that his statements were correct. He was convicted of heresy and spent his remaining years under house arrest. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he was also ordered to recite the Seven Penitential Psalms once a week for three years. Even though he was ordered not to have any visitors nor have any of his works printed outside of Italy, he ignored both. In 1634, a French translation of his study of forces and their effects on matter was published, and a year later, copies of the Dialogue were published in Holland. While under house arrest, Galileo wrote Two New Sciences, a summary of his life’s work on the science of motion and strength of materials. It was printed in Holland in 1638. By this time,, he had become blind an in ill health. Although confined to house arrest, due to his poor health, Galileo was allowed to leave his house to be treated for his illnesses. There is no evidence of further punishment due to his writings and publishes while under house arrest.

According to the Heythrop Journal, the Galileo affair is usually considered to be an example of a brave scientist defending his discoveries against an intransigent church. It is increasingly realized the this is a complete distortion of the truth, which is that Galileo, as a devout Catholic, was anxiously trying to prevent the Church from condemning a scientific theory that would eventually be shown to be true, and was unwillingly drawn into a theological controversy.

Galileo died in Arcetri, near Florence, Italy, on January 8, 1642, after suffering from a fever and heart palpitations, he was 78. In time the Church could not deny the truth in science and in 1758, it lifted the ban on most works supporting Copernican theory, and by 1935 dropped its opposition to heliocentrism altogether. In 1981, Pope John Paul II constituted the so-called Galileo Commission as an enquiry into the Church’s treatment of Galileo, in the hope that theologians, scholars and historians would study the case in depth in order to dispel the mistrust between science and faith. The commission’s last meeting took place toward the end of 1983 but it was not until 1992, after long periods of inactivity, that the work was formally brought to an end. Historians deemed the final report disappointing. Although it admitted tha the Church had been wrong in its condemnation of Copernican astronomy, it not mention, nor did it pronounce judgment on, Galileo’s trial. The final conclusion seemed to be that the treatment Galileo had receved from the church had merely been due to a tragic mutual incomprehension.

Bibliography
Cantor, Geoffrey. "Galileo and the Church: Then and Now." review. 2006.
Gerard, John. Galileo Galilei: The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 6. New York: Appleton Company, 1909.
Hodgson, P. E. "The Church and Science: A Changing Relationship." he Heythrop Journal (2008): 633-647. 8 April 2014.
The biography.com website. 29 April 2014. 29 April 20144.

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[ 1 ]. (The biography.com website)
[ 2 ]. (The biography.com website)
[ 3 ]. (Gerard)
[ 4 ]. (Gerard)
[ 5 ]. (Hodgson)
[ 6 ]. (Gerard)
[ 7 ]. (Hodgson)