Harken then to this great and new wonder. The first discover of the solar spots, as also of all other celestial novelties, was our Lincean academician and he discovered them in the year 1610, wrote Galileo about himself in his Dialogue on the Great World Systems.
No biography can be complete without dates, can it? Here is a chronological summary of Galileo’s 78 years:
1564 Born in Pisa, Italy in the month of February, 15th day.
1581 Began his studies at the University of Pisa
1588 Treatise written regarding gravity
1591 Leaves University of Pisa & goes to University of Padua
1597 Confesses to Kepler in a letter that he believes the Copernican theory
1600 Oldest daughter of 3 children is born. Galileo never marries his children’s mother.
1608 Telescope invented
1611 Convinces Jesuit astronomers of his theories
1612 Publishes paper on sunspots
1615 Tries to convince Rome that the new theories are in accord with Scripture. Cardinal Bellarmine warns him to keep his Copernican theory hypothetical, not factual until proven.
1616 Problems with Rome continues Galileo insists his astronomy is fact even though he has been warned to find more proof. Decree of Congregation of the Index prohibits Copernicus’ De revolutionibus until it is corrected, making it more hypothetical.
1618 Three comets appear
1619 Galileo writes his Discourse on Comets but publishes it under Mario Guiducci.
1620 Congregation of the Index corrects Copernicus’ work thus allowing anyone to read it.
1623 The new Pope is a friend of Galileo’s Maffeo Cardinal Barberini, taking the name of Urban VIII.
1624 Galileo tries to get the Copernican prohibition reversed in Rome. Pope Urban encouraged him to write up his theories, but keep it as hypothetical.
1625 Galileo does as Pope Urban tells him, commencing his Dialogue on the Two Great World Systems.
1626-1629 Galileo is much too ill to work on his above paper.
1630 Completes the above paper in January, taking it to Rome for publishing by Father Riccardi
1631 Galileo asks Rome to print the above paper in Florence.
1632 Dialogue is published, but by August further publication is halted by the Pope and Galileo is ordered to Rome in October.
1633 Galileo arrives in Rome after a leisurely trip, allowed by Pope Urban. By April, twice several priests and cardinals, who hope to deal leniently with Galileo, have questioned him. Galileo defends his writings, but the report sent to Pope Urban was probably written by the faction who wanted Galileo severely punished, thus misleading the Pope on the exact facts of the 4 months of proceedings. This report angered Pope Urban, who had always favored Galileo & his theories. He forced Galileo to abjure his opinions, thus prohibiting his book. By June, Galileo adjures, being released into the custody of the Archbishop of Siena. In December, Galileo is released to return to his villa near Florence.
1637 Sight in lost in both of Galileo’s eyes, forcing him to move into the City of Florence to write his new book, which he dictates to helpers.
1628 The Discourses on Two New Sciences is printed.
1642 Galileo dies on January 8th.
Untruths abound in the story of Galileo and the Church. Most publications tell us the Church did not believe Galileo, essentially censuring him because of his theories; however, that is much too simplistic of an answer.
Galileo had many admirers, who not only believed his Copernican theories, but also completely agreed with him, particularly the Jesuit astronomers. They were ready to back him, until he did one thing. That one thing changed all the rules in his fight with Rome. Galileo insisted his theories to be actual fact, in spite of one little problem he couldn’t prove them! The telescope was a new invention that assisted Galileo in understanding how the universe actually worked, but it wasn’t far enough advanced to do much good beyond a basic level. His mathematic skill took him another couple steps closer to the truth, but still the theory of a heliocentric universe couldn’t quite be proven. What Galileo knew in his gut to be true, was true, and proved centuries later, but Rome insisted that certain passages in Scripture seemed to prove that the sun revolved around the universe.
However, Rome did not take the advice of either St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas, who both insisted that Scripture wasn’t a proof for science, only a proof of theology.
Where Galileo messed up in his fight with Rome was he insisted all his studies were fact. All Rome asked him to do was to present his teachings as hypothetical until he could prove them beyond a shadow of a doubt. Apparently, Galileo was either too stubborn or too proud to acquiesce to that request. He just kept pushing the Popes’ buttons. His other problems set in when a few detractors, who thought him completely wrong, violating Scripture’s teaching, were hell bent on making sure he paid for his errors. This group was not in the Church’s hierarchy. They had no authority to punish Galileo; however, they did manage to send Pope Urban VIII a false report in 1633. The Pope himself never read Galileo’s Dialogue. Some writers state that Pope Urban felt used by Galileo because he had encouraged Galileo to write the book. The false report, along with Pope Urban not reading Galileo’s writings, led to his forcing of Galileo’s adjuration.
Another huge misunderstanding among most biographers of Galileo is they state that the Church condemned Galileo’s theories as heresy. This is an untrue statement. The only person who could condemn Galileo’s theories as heresy would be the Pope. In order to do that the Pope would have had to speak ex cathedra on the matter, but the Pope does this only in the areas of faith and morals, neither of which covered Galileo’s scientific theories, thus the Pope had no reason to speak ex cathedra on the subject. This is where the confusion sets in. According the Dominican theologian, Dominic Banez, the pope cannot delegate the power of defining infallibly in matter of faith. In other words, other ruling powers of Galileo’s time disagreed with his theory, but they couldn’t completely condemn them as heresy without the Pope’s agreement. There was never any special endorsement by the Holy Father in the 1616 Congregation of the Index prohibition. After the publication of the Dialogue in 1632, Galileo still wasn’t censured because of his theory, he was censured for not following Rome’s instructions to stop pushing his Copernican ideas until he could further prove them, at which time Rome would gladly support him.
In the end, as most stories so state, the Church never imprisoned Galileo, and his sentence was essentially commuted, allowing him to live another nine years in his home city of Florence.
Much of Galileo’s distresses were brought on himself. He was so insistent he was correct in his heliocentric theory that he just had to continue to write and speak of it as total, complete fact, in spite of the Church’s request that he present it simply as another astronomic theory, when, in reality, he could not prove it with the equipment available in the early 17th century. A little less pride and a bit more commonsense would have served Galileo well. He loved the Church, but Galileo wouldn’t play by their rules. Still he is the father of modern astronomy, but he left his beloved Church with a bad reputation by making them look as though they still held to Aristotle’s ideas of the earth being the center of the universe because he himself could not prove the opposite.
You may also like to read: What is Difference between Heliocentric and Geocentric
