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Hello, and welcome to Western SIV, episode two hundred and eighty Galileo's Trial

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and the fallout. Now that we
have covered how this thing that we call

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the Inquisition came into being and how
it functions structurally, we can return to

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our Galileo story. It would be
Galileo's work Dialogue that would get him into

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hot water with the Inquisition specifically and
the Church in general. The question was

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was the dialogue Copernican or did it
merely suggest Copernicanism as one possibility amongst many.

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As you might recall, the Pope
was fine with the former, but

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not the latter. Today we find
out that the Pope would not at all

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be pleased with Galileo's publication, leading
to something quite unusual kind of a trial,

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kind of before the Inquisition. The
publication of Galileo's book was completed on

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February the twenty first, sixteen thirty
two. However, the Bubonic plague was

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raging at the time, and as
a result, it took until May before

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two copies of the Dialogue made its
way to Rome. Within days, authorities

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were trying to seize every copy in
Rome, and the book had been referred

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to a special commission of theologians,
who were to decide if there were grounds

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for bringing it before the inquisition.
The word in Rome was that opposition was

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coming from two quarters, the Jesuits. One copy had in fact been given

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to a Jesuit, and from the
Pope himself. The Pope's complaint was that

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Galileo had failed to conclude, at
the end of his book the argument that

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he had insisted upon that one cannot
prove the truth of Copernicanism because God's power

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is such that he can achieve any
natural effect by numerous different means, many

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of them beyond our comprehension. Galleo
had made only a cursory reference to this

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argument, mocking the Pope by giving
it to Simplicio, who, in the

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dialogue, is always wrong. There
was also criticism of the fact that the

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preface, the text of which had
been established through prolonged negotiations, had been

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printed in italics, thus distinguishing it
from the rest of the book. The

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Pope, for his part, was
furious, for, at least from his

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perspective, being caught off guard suddenly. It seems that he felt Galleo should

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have provided him with a copy prior
to publication. Though that was not in

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the original agreement. The Florentine government
immediately sprang to Galleo's defense. Galleo was

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a government employee, the book was
dedicated to the Grand Duke, and of

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course the Grand Duke himself was already
implicated, having pressed hard for the book's

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publication. But it was clear from
the beginning that the Pope was not going

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to be satisfied with having the book
prohibited. He wanted to see Galleo tried

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for heresy, and was thought unwise
to discuss the case with him because he

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was Galileo's most difficult opponent. Indeed, the Pope became literally enraged whenever the

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matter was raised. In early September, there were hopes that the matter would

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be resolved if the book was withdrawn
and corrected, though the ambassador, having

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felt the full force of the Pope's
fury, was predicting disaster. But matters

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took a turn for the worse when
the records of the inquisition relating to the

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condemnation of Copernicanism in sixteen sixteen were
reviewed, and there they found that Galileo

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had been forbidden to enter into any
discussion of Copernicanism in the future. Also

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rediscovered was the old charge that Galileo
had been, and perhaps still was,

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teaching heretical doctrines to his students in
Florence. Moreover, the Committee of Theologians

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had now met and ruled that the
dialogue amounted to a defense of Copernicanism.

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On this there was general agreement,
and as Francisco Babarini pointed out, Galileo

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himself expressed so brilliantly that he could
hardly defend himself by claiming not at to

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full command of his own language.
The Special Commission reported in mid September,

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and the decision was taken to summon
Galileo to Rome for trial. Galileo was

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left with no choice but to write
to Francesco Babardini in October, pleading that

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in view of his age and his
illness, he be spared from the journey

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to Rome. But the Pope was
adamant Galileo must come to Rome sickness or

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health. A delay due to weather
or even the ongoing plague would not be

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permitted. In the end, Rome
was willing to concede a month's delay,

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but not a moment more, and
so Galileo left Florence on January the twentieth,

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sixteen thirty three, and arrived in
Rome twenty five days later. He

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was not imprisoned, but the Pope
made it clear that Galileo's liberty was only

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a concession to the Florentine Duke.
Galileo reported to the Inquisition on the twelfth

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of April and was held there until
his release on April thirtieth. He was

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now completely isolated and alone, and
at night he cried out in pain.

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At first, he held to his
line that although he had discussed Copernicanism in

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the dialogue, he had not defended
a claim that the Inquisition thought was simply

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untrue. Moreover, he denied any
knowledge of the injunction read to him in

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sixteen sixteen. But this didn't work
either, especially with the Inquisition, who

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had the document in their hands,
and so on the twenty seventh of April,

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Vincenzo Maculano, the Inquisition's Commisar General
or prosecutor as you might think,

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held an informal meeting with Galileo to
discuss the path to move forward. We

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know that Maculano threatened Galileo with quote
greater rigor end quote in the proceedings,

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and that Galileo was concerned to reach
a deal, and actually so was Makulano,

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presumably in order not to damage relations
between Rome and Florence. Makulano had

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apparently devised a strategy that impressed the
cardinals in charge and that simply did not

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rely on engaging in a debate with
Galleo. But what was this strategy.

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Historians can't be sure, but he
probably explained to Galileo that if he continued

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to deny the charge, he might
be tortured. This was standard procedure in

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a case where it was important to
establish the suspect's private views. Although Galleo

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might have been able to claim an
exemption on the grounds of age and infirmity,

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He probably advised Galleo that if he
cooperated, he could avoid both torture

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and incarceration. In one of the
inquisition's dungeons, he may have encouraged him

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to hope that even if the book
was going to be banned, he himself

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need suffer no punishment. Certainly,
Galileo kept this hope alive. Presumably Galleo,

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for his part, insisted that the
book had been approved by the censors

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and that he had this part of
the Florentine government, pointing out that the

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special treatment that he was receiving was
evidence enough that the inquisition did not suspect

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him of any serious heresy. Back
and forth, back and forth the arguments

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must have gone, Galileo still protesting
his innocence, and his inquisitor emphasizing the

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consequences of sticking to his position.
In the end, it seems Galileo gave

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in. But why the obvious arguments
that Maculano could produce were all the ones

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that would have occurred to Galleo already, which is precisely why the cardinals had

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initially been skeptical when Makolano proposed that
he'd be given permission to meet informally with

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Galileo. There's really only one possible
explanation that I've read, and that is

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that Makolano must have threatened Galleo with
more charges. But what charges could those

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have been? The old charges that
he had encouraged his pupils to think of

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God as material and to deny miracles
had been rediscovered when the file on Galileo

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had been brought out of storage,
But these were really old, and given

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the fact that most of the witnesses
were gone, and many of them deceased,

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it would have been almost impossible to
proceed with them. So here we

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have a puzzle. Unfortunately, a
couple of historians have done some more recent

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work on Galileo and have found a
potential solution in the Vatican documents. In

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the papers of the Congregation of the
Index, there's actually an anonymous, undated

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report surveying the evidence that Galleo was
guilty when he wrote the Essayer because he

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had denied transubstantiation. This was a
report that actually didn't come out in our

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time until the year two thousand and
one. From the handwriting, we can

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tell that the author of this anonymous
report was none other than Melchior INChO Fair,

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a Jesuit who had been appointed to
the Special Commission to review Galleo's Dialogue

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in July of sixteen thirty two.
He was also one of the theologians who

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reported to the Holy Office on its
content. These reports, it seemed,

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had been submitted on the twenty second
of April sixteen thirty three, after Galileo's

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condemnation, INChO Fair was to publish
a semi official attack on Copernicanism called the

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Summary Treatise. This was ready for
publication by the end of July sixteen thirty

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three, and so work on it
must have been ongoing when Galileo's trial was

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in progress. And remember from our
discussions of the inquisition, a trial wasn't

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a one day affair with a jury
like we imagine in the movies today.

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A trial could be a series of
days over a long period of time for

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inquisitors met with Galileo. Arguments could
be had, evidence might be exchanged.

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So when you use the word trial, that's what I'm talking about. Now.

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It seems that this INChO Fair had
been engaging in a research project on

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Galileo for nearly a year, and
now is time for the proverbial chickens to

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come to roost. Our best guess
is that Makulano brought INChO fairs denunciation when

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he met informally with Galileo in April. He told Galileo that if he refused

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to cooperate, they would now act
on INChO Fair's denunciation. This would mean,

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at the very least, further investigations, a prolonged imprisonment, and a

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lengthy trial. It might well result
in conviction on a charge whose seriousness no

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one could doubt transubstantiation, being an
absolutely fundamental doctrine distinguishing Catholics from Protestants,

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and something that the Catholic Church was
now clinging to like a life raft.

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Leo and Makulano reached a deal.
Galileo would cooperate and injo Fare's denunciation of

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the Assayer would be left to simply
sit in the files, and that is

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where it sat, in fact,
until it was rediscovered in two thousand and

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one. The deal that they reached
was actually highly favorable to Galleo. Proceeding

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with a charge against the Assayer would
have been difficult. The book had been

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licensed and actually even praised by the
second in command of the Pope, Riccardi.

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It bore the papal arms on its
front piece, and had been read

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aloud to the Pope during meal times. In order to get Makulana to drop

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this charge, Galleo didn't have to
concede very much. He agreed only that

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anybody reading the dialogue could easily form
the impression that it had been written in

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defense of Copernicanism. He did not
concede that this was his actual intention.

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In fact, he agreed to plead
guilty, not to defending comperticanism, but

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to a lesser charge of appearing to
do so. Galileo was he now admitted

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guilty of carelessness, he supposed,
and he was prepared to confess this to

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the court. He asked only a
little time to work out how best to

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frame his confession in order to minimize
his guilt. Makulano, for his part,

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had achieved exactly what he went in
for. He had made no binding

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commitment as to the punishment Galleo was
to receive, but he had set things

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up so Galleo could be released without
undermining the authority of the tribunal. Makulano

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drew up Galleo's confession three days later. In it, Galleo said that well,

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upon rereading his dialogue, he was
surprised at what he found there.

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While that might sound bizarre to us, given that you know well he wrote

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it clearly at this point Galileo is
simply backtracking as little as possible to try

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to save himself. Galleo now claimed
he had been led astray by intellectual ambition

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and had come to make the weaker
arguments seemed the stronger. For my part,

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I think this is Makulano pretty much
just putting words in Galileo's mouth.

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Will never know, as I mentioned
before, what Galileo and Maculano specifically agreed

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to in their informal meeting, Given
that it was informal, and so no

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one took notes, at least none
that we have. So it was that

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on April thirtieth, sixteen thirty three, Galileo was released back into the care

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of the Florentine ambassador. The Pope
was now poised to condemn not merely the

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Dialogue, but Galleo himself. That
being said, said Ambassador. Nicolini withheld

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this final piece of information from Galileo
for fear that if he heard it it

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might cause a relapse in his health. Finally, on the twenty first of

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June, Galleo was required to report
to the Inquisition. There he was once

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more interrogated. He denied ever having
been committed to Copernicanism, although he said

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that before sixteen sixteen that he had
thought that either Copernicus or Ptolemy might be

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right. He insisted that the Dialogue
should not be read as a defense of

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Copernicanism. Then the Inquisition switched tex
and decided to threaten him with torture.

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That he would be held in the
prison overnight. The next day things changed.

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Galleo appeared, this time dressed in
the white robes of a penitent.

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He showed up before the Congregation of
the Inquisition at a local monastery. There

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he was declared guilty of having given
grounds for vehement suspicion of having held Copernican

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doctrines, and thus Galileo was guilty
of heresy now giving grounds for quote vehement

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suspicion end quote was a perfectly normal
charge in Renaissance law. It was used

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in cases where the evidence fell short
of being conclusive. In this case,

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Galileo had confessed not to being a
Copernican, but to having presented arguments in

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favor of Copernicanism with insufficient care.
His sentence was read to him and he

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was required to abjer Copernicanism. A
copy of his book, now banned,

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was burnt in front of him.
He was sentenced to the prisons of the

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Holy Office at the pleasure of the
Pope, but on the friday he was

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transferred to the Via Medici, where
he stayed. In sixteen sixteen, in

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which he had been visiting to take
exercise the Florentine ambassador Nicolini traveled with him

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and found him forlorn and despondent.
He had not foreseen any punishment beyond the

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banning of his book. Two weeks
later, Galileo was still profoundly shocked and

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dismayed, stepping back for a moment
and looking at a macro level. It

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wasn't long thereafter that inquisitors throughout Italy
were summoning local professors together to read aloud

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Galileo's condemnation. This served two purposes. First, it put everyone on notice

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that could Ernichanism was officially condemned,
so don't try it, and Galileo's book

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was banned. You were no longer
legally allowed to read it, or possess

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it, or, worst of all, teach it. Second, of course,

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this helped to intimidate others. Fear, after all, only works to

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control people if they know what to
be afraid of. Abroad, papal nuncios

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were instructed to make the same announcements. Galileo had to remain in Siena until

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the plague receded and it was safe
to travel. This did not happen until

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December sixteen thirty three. That did
not happen until December sixteen thirty three,

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Then the Pope gave him permission to
return to his villa outside Florence. His

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movements were to be restricted, not
that it mattered, Galileo would scarcely ever

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leave his home again. Moreover,
he was also to be restricted to one

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or two visitors at a time,
no more, but the first person to

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come to see him was the Grand
Duke, somewhat of a show of solidarity.

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Eventually Galleo was given permission to travel
to Florence to consult his doctors,

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but until the end of his life
he was to remain officially at least a

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prisoner to the Inquisition, perhaps their
most high ranking, high profile prisoner in

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history. In sixteen thirty six,
Galleo arranged for his works to be translated

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into Latin and published for a European
wide audience, except the Dialogue, of

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course. Then, in sixteen thirty
eight, when he only had three years

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left to live, he was told
that if he ever discussed Copernicanism again,

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he would spend the rest of his
life behind bars, as if he needed

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reminding. Within a few weeks of
Galleo's arrival in Siena, work began on

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a Latin translation of the Dialogue,
which was eventually publish in Strasburg in sixteen

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thirty five. The project originated with
Eli di'otti, a French Protestant who had

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long been a friend of Galileo's,
and he recruited Matthias Berenger, a German

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Protestant who had earlier translated Galileo's book
on the Sector into Latin. Barringer repeatedly

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claimed that he had been invited by
Galleo himself to undertake the translation, and

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it used to be argued that Galileo
had contacted di'adatti as soon as he arrived

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in Siena to ask him to ensure
publication an interpretation of the facts, which

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implied, I don't think it really
implied, but indicated that Galileo was blatantly

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and instantly in breach of the recantation
in which he had promised never to do

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anything that might imply support for Copernicanism. Now, fortunately, it seems that

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this story, though attractive when we
look back on Galileo, must be wrong,

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as the Adade began to organize the
translation before hearing news of Galleo's condemnation.

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But Berringer he was so convinced that
he was acting on Galleo's request.

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That we must assume that Deodatde misled
him, just as he failed to warn

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him in advance that the book he
was about to translate was not a short

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pamphlet but a substantial volume. But
whether or not Galileo asked the Adatte to

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arrange the translation, whether or not
he specifically asked for Bearinger to carry out

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the work, he certainly collaborated in
the project, as he is the only

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possible source of a correction which appears
in the Latin edition, one that we

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know he wanted to introduce into any
future edition. Galleo also thanked his Protestant

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allies for their work. It thus
seems fair to say that he was more

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or less immediately in breach of the
recantation. We can be sure that as

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soon as he reached Siena, Galleo
got back to work on the book he

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had been promising to write since at
least sixteen oh nine. The Two Sciences

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not published until sixteen thirty eight.
Although this text makes no reference to Copernicanism,

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the second of the New Sciences,
the science of local motion, was

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central to the Dialogue's refutation of the
standard arguments against Copernicanism. We've already seen

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the galleos first intellectual innovation was to
imagine a ball sliding forever across a perfectly

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smooth sheet of ice. On the
basis of this conceptual model, he reached

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the conclusion that movement would continue indefinitely
in the absence of any countervailing force.

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Since fifteen ninety or so, he
had begun working on his new science of

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movement, which he would not publish
until sixteen thirty eight. The new science

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was concerned with the acceleration of falling
bodies, the isynchronity of the pendulum,

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the parabolic path of the projectile.
All of these discoveries, which constitute,

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frankly the foundation of modern physics,
contained both an experimental and theoretical or deductive

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component. In the published work,
theory is made as far as possible to

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predominate over experiment. The book involves
the construction of models, both theoretical and

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working, which are idealized in exactly
the same weight as his first model of

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unimpeded motion. In fact, it
seems like Galleo's first great innovation was to

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treat nature as if it was an
artificial object. When Galleo says that the

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book of Nature is written in the
language of math. He means it.

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He means that real nature embodies principles
derived from idealized nature. Here he's writing,

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quote, what happens in the concrete
happens in the same way in the

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abstract. It would be novel.
Indeed, if computations and ratios made in

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abstract numbers should not thereafter correspond to
concrete gold and silver, coins, and

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merchandise. Just as the computer who
wants his calculations to deal with sugar,

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silk, and wool must discount the
boxes, bales and other packings, so

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the mathematical scientist, when he wants
to recognize in the concrete the effects which

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he has proven in the abstract,
must deduct the material hinderances. And if

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he's able to do so, I
assure you there are things that are in

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no less agreement than arithmetical computations.
The errors then lie not in the abstractness

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or concreteness, not in the geometry
or physics, but in a calculator who

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does not know how to make a
true accounting end quote. Yaleo's study of

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motion is the study of an idealized
nature. It is the study of a

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theoretical universe. He does this to
eliminate pesky things like friction and resistance,

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and in this way he reduces our
real world to mathematical purity. Yaleo never

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set out to become the founder of
a new physics or a new astronomy.

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He did both because he discovered a
new way of thinking that he loved.

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He simply looked at the world differently. For example, when Galileo was considering

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problems such as how far can you
extend a beam before it breaks under its

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own weight, he started to invent
a new abstract science of materials. Real

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beams in Galileo's world are made of
wood in marble. They have cracks,

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fissures, imperfections, and flaws.
But Galleo's beams, when he does these

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mathematical computations, are imaginary. They're
perfect, uniform through and through the core

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of galleos thinking is that weight increases
with volume, and resistance increases with the

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surface area. Hence, an object
which is twice as big in every direction

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generates four times as much friction falling
through the air, but is eight times

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heavier. He writes quote for who
does not see that a horse falling from

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a height of three or four brochi
will break its bones, while a dog

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falling from that same height, or
a cat from eight or ten or even

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more, will suffer no harm.
Thus a cricket might fall without damage from

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a tower, or an ant from
the moon. Small children remain unhurt in

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falls that would break the legs or
heads of their elders. And just as

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smaller animals are proportionately stronger or more
robust than larger ones, so smaller plants

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would sustain themselves better. I think
you both know that if an oak were

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two hundred feet high, it could
not support branches spread out similarly to an

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oak of average size. Only by
a miracle could nature form a horse the

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size of twenty horses, or a
giant ten times the height of man,

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unless she greatly altered the proportions of
the members, especially those of the skeleton,

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thickening the bones far beyond their ordinary
symmetry. End quote. In the

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end, Galleo was a great scientist
because he was able to innovate in several

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seemingly unconnected fields. On April first, sixteen thirty four, the papacy grew

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tired of constant Florentine requests for Galleo's
release. On April the first, sixteen

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thirty four, the Papacy grew tired
of constant Florentine requests for Galleo's release from

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home confinement, so it issued a
blunt warning. If they asked again,

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Galileo would be turned over to the
Inquisition and spend the rest of his life

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in prison. Unfortunately for Galleo,
the same day he got bad news.

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He found out his favorite daughter had
died of dysentery. Without her he turned

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to his son for support in his
old age, and the two seemed to

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have enjoyed a rather close relationship during
his last years. In sixteen thirty eight,

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an inquisitor visited Galileo and found him
on the verge of death. He

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wrote, I found him totally without
sight and completely blind. He has a

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very severe hernia, constant pain in
his guts, and a wakefulness such that,

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according to his own word and reports
of those who live with him,

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in twenty four hours he never sleeps
for a whole hour. In other respects,

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he is so reduced that he looks
more like a corpse than a living

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person. His studies have been brought
to a halt by his blindness, though

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he sometimes has something to read,
and he has a few visitors because being

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in such poor health, all he
normally has to talk to anyone about who

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does visit him is the dreadful pain
he is in and the conditions he suffers

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00:27:23.119 --> 00:27:30.799
from. Realizing his time was nearly
at an end. Galileo made preparations for

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the publications of his final book,
The Two Sciences. But the big question

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is, of course, when anybody
talks about Galileo, is was he Catholic,

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a Copernican, or some combination of
the two. It's hard to say,

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given the lack of resources. Certainly, Galileo, by his own admission,

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was an atomist. He believed the
universe was made up of atoms.

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Of course, that does not mean
that he believed universe had no creator,

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etc. Etc. Even though that
is how many at the time interpreted such

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beliefs. The only decisive document we
have on the subject is a letter from

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Castelli to Galileo in sixteen thirty nine. Castelli and Galileo had been friends at

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that point for about thirty five years, so we can trust its authenticity.

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Of course, I wish it was
a letter from Galileo to Castelli, and

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not the other way around. But
this is the best piece of evidence that

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we have. Castelli evidently has heard
news of Galileo that has made him quote

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weep with joy end quote, for
he has heard that Galileo has given his

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soul to Christ. Castelli immediately refers
to the parable of the laborers in the

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vineyard, even those who were hired
in the last hour of the day receive

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payment for the whole day's work.
Then, having discussed the prophecies of a

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sister Elizabeth, he evidently now thinks
Galleo is a believer in miracles. He

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turns to the crucifixion, and in
particular to the two thieves crucified on other

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side of Christ. One confessed Christ
as his savior and was saved, the

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other did not and was damned.
Soon Castilli writes, he hopes to come

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to Florence and they'll be able to
talk about these things, which are the

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only ones that count for the salvation
of our souls. Castelli's invocation of the

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parable of the laborers and the vineyard
and of the two thieves crucified alongside Christ,

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is clear and completely unambiguous. He
believes Galleo is coming to Christianity at

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the last moment, but not too
late to save his soul. There is

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no conceivable interpretation of this letter which
is compatible with the general held view that

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Galileo was throughout his entire career a
believing Catholic. Every indication from this letter

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is that this is a late,
final seconds transition for the great scientist.

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The laborers did not merely put off
starting work until the last moment. They

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00:30:10.599 --> 00:30:17.839
weren't hired until the eleventh hour.
The thief crucified alongside Christ had no knowledge

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00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:23.839
that Christ was or even claimed to
be the Messiah until death was upon him.

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These texts, as generations of theologians
have recognized, are about last minute

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00:30:30.880 --> 00:30:37.559
conversions, about the amendment of a
misspent life. Hence, Castelli here is

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making the clear inference that Galileo is
converting at the last moment. Castelli allows

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himself to discuss Galleo's unbelief only because
he's been given to understand that he is

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now, at long last, a
believer. There are no further letters like

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this one. There are certainly a
few phrases in Galileo's letters at the time

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asking for prayers to be said for
him, for example, which may hint

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at a temporary piety. But it's
perfectly possible that Castelli and his informants had

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been taken in by a trick,
that Galileo simply hoped to improve his condition

347
00:31:14.799 --> 00:31:19.599
by making a display of piety.
Castelli's letter cannot tell us what really happened

348
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to Galileo in May of sixteen thirty
nine, But what is clear is what

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Castelli had always understood about his close
friend, and that is he was not

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a believer. And if anyone was
in a position to know if Galileo was

351
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or was not a Catholic, it
was Castelli. Now this is not to

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suggest that Galileo was an atheist or
even agnostic. He just might not have

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been an orthodox Catholic. For the
time, Galleo believed probably there was no

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evidence of a providential hand guiding the
creation or order of the heavens. To

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him, it was all mathematics.
If God were a mathematician, then this

356
00:32:04.640 --> 00:32:08.599
all made sense. But it did
not make any logical sense to Galileo that

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God designated Earth as the center of
the universe, when all objective evidence pointed

358
00:32:15.319 --> 00:32:21.160
to the contrary. At the end
of the day, the most important thing

359
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I can tell you about Galileo and
his relationship to Western history is that Galileo

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was the first modern scientist. Arguably, he was the first true scientist in

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Western history. He constructed a new
generation of technical and scientific instruments, instruments

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that could measure to degrees of specificity
far beyond what had previously been imagined as

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possible. Moreover, by the time
of Galileo's death, Europeans had started to

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consider the possibility that the word world
might only mean our planet at not the

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universe as a whole. This was
something quite unique. Indeed, Galileo invented

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00:33:06.359 --> 00:33:09.759
the telescope, or at least the
first good telescope, and then he used

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it to expand our knowledge. That
is a concept that was very alien to

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the medieval world. Frankly, if
you want to argue a point in history

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where the medieval world dies once and
for all, it might very well be

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that moment when Galileo first turned his
improved telescope to the stars. The primary

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thrust of Galleo's new science was to
argue that knowledge must be grounded in sensory

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experience. To us today this is
obvious, but in the fifteenth century,

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it was absolutely revolutionary. Moreover,
Galileo observed and argued that abstractions could and

374
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often did, go against the event
of our senses. That is, when

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in doubt we need to trust the
math. Well, this all seems so

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00:34:09.000 --> 00:34:15.840
clear to us. Let us recall
a few things. One, Galileo was

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willing to be different. He held
to his convictions until the end, even

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00:34:22.400 --> 00:34:30.400
though most, if not everyone,
disagreed with him. I've never had an

379
00:34:30.599 --> 00:34:36.280
entire continent disagree with me, so
I have no idea how hard it is

380
00:34:36.360 --> 00:34:42.840
under those circumstances to stick to your
guns. But my guess is pretty hard.

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00:34:44.480 --> 00:34:50.599
Two. We live in a world
of rapid change today, but Galileo's

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00:34:50.639 --> 00:34:59.320
world was mired in the past.
Sure, Copernicanism would be generally accepted,

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00:35:00.320 --> 00:35:07.000
but not until the sixteen sixties.
Outwardly, Galleo's path is easy to trace.

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For the first half of his life
he was an obscure mathematician who published

385
00:35:10.599 --> 00:35:15.039
little and nothing of importance. But
during this time he made most of his

386
00:35:15.119 --> 00:35:20.239
great discoveries in physics, discoveries that
he was only to publish at the end

387
00:35:20.239 --> 00:35:24.360
of his life. The second and
shortest period of Galileo's life began in sixteen

388
00:35:24.400 --> 00:35:29.960
oh nine, when he turned a
telescope toward the sky. He discovered new

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worlds and transformed astronomy. It was
this revolution which gave rise to our modern

390
00:35:35.280 --> 00:35:40.440
conviction that what scientists do is make
discoveries. Relying on these new discoveries,

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00:35:40.880 --> 00:35:45.400
Galleo set out to convince the world
that the Earth was flying through space,

392
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that the Earth was in fact merely
one of the planets, and the Sun

393
00:35:50.239 --> 00:35:55.360
merely one of the stars. These
arguments were condemned in sixteen sixteen, bringing

394
00:35:55.400 --> 00:36:02.400
the second period of his life to
an end. Galileo puzzled often over the

395
00:36:02.400 --> 00:36:08.920
hostility his work engendered, and suggested
a psychological explanation. The difficulty, he

396
00:36:09.000 --> 00:36:13.960
thought, was not simply his copernicanism, which implied we cannot trust our own

397
00:36:13.960 --> 00:36:17.000
senses in that the world around us
seems to be standing still, but is

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00:36:17.039 --> 00:36:22.480
in fact traveling at immense speed through
space. The hostility, he suggested,

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lay in his sustained efforts to deny
the validity of a traditional distinction between a

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sublunary realm, the world of change, of death of life, and the

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superlunary realm, the world of perfection, of permanence of I guess immortality.

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As far as Galileo was concerned,
the Earth and the Moon are heavenly bodies

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just like other heavenly bodies, and
other heavenly bodies are like the Earth and

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the moon. He found imperfection in
the Moon, and he found change in

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the sun. And he declared that
the Earth seem from a would shine just

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like any other star. It did
not follow. He continuously stressed that because

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heavenly bodies were imperfective, the universe
was therefore fragile or doomed to destruction.

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Change did not necessarily mean death.
If the fall of Adam and Eve had

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begun the reign of death on Earth, then Galileo had extended Death's reign throughout

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00:37:27.480 --> 00:37:36.719
the heavens. His version of Copernicanism
represented a second intellectual fall. One complaint

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was that by making the Earth a
heavenly body, he had placed hell in

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the heavens. Another was that,
in claiming that there were other uninhabited worlds,

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he had made nonsense of the notion
that the world existed because it was

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made for living creatures. Galleo was
simply removing the barriers that had kept apart

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God and the devil. The sacred
and the secular early modern period, there

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00:38:00.199 --> 00:38:06.199
was a fundamental intellectual commitment that was
deeper than the commitment to Aristotle or to

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00:38:06.239 --> 00:38:10.760
a literalist reading of the Bible,
a commitment that underpinned both of these explicit

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00:38:12.079 --> 00:38:17.360
openly avowed beliefs. The commitment was
to a dualist mode of thought. In

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00:38:17.400 --> 00:38:22.239
other words, there was carnival and
there was lent. There was time and

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there was eternity. There was heaven
and there was hell. By denying the

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distinction between the sublunary and super lunary, Galileo made it impossible to locate heaven

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00:38:36.320 --> 00:38:40.679
and Hell on a map. And
that, my friends, was why he

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had to be condemned. Galleo died
quietly on the eighth of January sixteen forty

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00:38:47.760 --> 00:38:53.440
two. He was seventy seven years
old. As soon as news reached Rome,

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instructions were sent that there was to
be no tombstone, no memorial within

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00:38:59.280 --> 00:39:04.880
any church. His good friend Viviani
ended up turning the front of his house

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00:39:04.920 --> 00:39:09.119
into a private memorial to Galileo and
left money in his will for a tomb.

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00:39:10.480 --> 00:39:15.360
A modest plaque was permitted, but
only in sixteen seventy three, and

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00:39:15.440 --> 00:39:24.320
a proper tomb finally allowed in seventeen
thirty seven. Galileo's work marked the beginning

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00:39:24.400 --> 00:39:30.719
of a scientific revolution, before which
even eventually the Catholic Church would have to

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00:39:30.760 --> 00:39:38.679
give ground. The first legal reprinting
of Galileo's band Dialogue in the original Italian

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wasn't until seventeen forty four, and
then it was also accompanied by the Way

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00:39:46.320 --> 00:39:54.239
by the Condemnation of sixteen thirty three
and by Galileo's famous recantation. The Catholic

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00:39:54.360 --> 00:40:01.599
Church did not formally permit the teaching
of Copernicanism until eighteen although over the previous

435
00:40:01.679 --> 00:40:08.079
century restrictions on the discussion of his
work had slowly broken down, and it

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00:40:08.159 --> 00:40:15.599
was only in eighteen thirty four,
the year before Copernicus and Galileo were finally

437
00:40:15.639 --> 00:40:22.360
removed from the Index of Forbidden Books, that the English word scientist finally first

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00:40:22.360 --> 00:40:29.760
appeared in print. John Milton,
the famous English poet, met with Galileo

439
00:40:29.840 --> 00:40:34.280
in secret just before the man's death. By then, the old man was

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00:40:34.320 --> 00:40:40.000
blind and confined to his bed.
In his famous work Paradise Lost, Milton

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00:40:40.079 --> 00:40:45.199
describes Atolemaic universe, but he hedges
his bets a little bit, pondering whether

442
00:40:45.559 --> 00:40:52.239
Galleo might in fact be right,
maybe mankind was not so privileged. Milton

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00:40:52.440 --> 00:40:58.880
has his character adam uttered the following
words, which I do think Galileo might

444
00:40:58.920 --> 00:41:05.440
have agreed with. When I behold
this goodly frame, this world of heaven

445
00:41:05.480 --> 00:41:08.440
and Earth consisting, and compute their
magnitudes, this earth, a spot,

446
00:41:08.519 --> 00:41:14.679
a grain, an atom, with
the firmament compared in all the numbered stars

447
00:41:14.679 --> 00:41:20.880
that seem to roll spaces incomprehensible for
which their distance argues in their swift return

448
00:41:20.960 --> 00:41:25.880
diurnal, merely to officiate light round
this opacious earth, this punctual spot,

449
00:41:27.199 --> 00:41:31.519
one day and night, in all
their vast survey useless. Besides reasoning,

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I often admire how nature wise and
frugal could commit such disproportions. And with

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00:41:42.880 --> 00:41:45.239
that we closed the book on Galileo, and we close the book for the

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00:41:45.280 --> 00:41:52.199
moment on the scientific Revolution. Next
week we return to more political history,

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00:41:52.760 --> 00:41:58.639
and we pick up our story in
England with the death of Henry the eighth

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00:41:58.840 --> 00:42:04.599
and the ascension of the young King
Edward the sixth, and the conclusion of

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00:42:04.639 --> 00:42:09.679
the English Reformation. As always,
if you're looking for additional content, you

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00:42:09.719 --> 00:42:15.760
can check out the website link in
the show notes. I've actually transitioned how

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00:42:15.840 --> 00:42:19.920
we do the paid shows. If
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00:42:19.960 --> 00:42:23.440
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00:42:23.480 --> 00:42:28.440
episodes for Western Civ two point zero, and will also take you to any

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00:42:28.480 --> 00:42:32.280
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