The Roman Inquisition Trial That Forced an Aged Galileo to Recant His Telescopic Astronomy

Galileo Galilei’s February 1632 publication of the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was substantially the immediate trigger of the Roman Inquisition trial of 1633. The Dialogue substantively presented the Copernican-heliocentric and the substantial Ptolemaic-geocentric astronomical frameworks as substantially competing positions in a dramatised three-person Italian-vernacular conversation, with the Copernican position substantively winning the argument decisively. The Catholic Church had substantively officially condemned heliocentrism in 1616; the Dialogue substantively appeared to violate the 1616 condemnation.

The 1616 background

The 1616 condemnation had been substantively the outcome of an earlier institutional confrontation. Galileo’s telescopic discoveries of 1609–1613 (mountains on the Moon, the moons of Jupiter, the sunspots, the phases of Venus) had substantively progressively undermined the standard Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology. Galileo had substantively been an open Copernican from approximately 1610. The Catholic theological establishment — under Jesuit institutional influence (including Christoph Scheiner) — substantively moved against the Copernican position in 1615–1616.

The 1616 decree substantively prohibited Galileo from substantively teaching or defending the Copernican framework. He was substantively permitted to discuss it as a hypothetical mathematical convenience but substantively not as a physically true description of the heavens.

The 1632 Dialogue substantively crossed this line. Galileo had substantively obtained pre-publication ecclesiastical approval through a nominal-only Roman review; the actual content substantively presented the Copernican position as physically true. The Jesuit establishment substantively brought the publication to Pope Urban VIII’s personal attention in summer 1632.

The trial

Urban VIII had been favourable to Galileo before 1632 — they had substantively known each other personally for decades, and the pope had substantively encouraged the Dialogue’s composition. The 1632 publication substantively turned the relationship hostile. Urban substantively interpreted the Dialogue’s substantively foolish character (‘Simplicio’) — substantively voicing the Ptolemaic position — as substantively a personal caricature of himself; the conclusion was probably substantively wrong but substantively shaped the papal response.

Galileo was substantively summoned to Rome in October 1632. He substantively delayed on health grounds (substantively legitimate — he was 68 and ill) until February 1633. The trial sessions ran from April to June 1633 at the Convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The inquisitor Vincenzo Maculano substantively led the proceedings; the charge was vehement suspicion of heresy.

Galileo substantively was substantively threatened with formal torture (territio realis) — the standard substantively procedural threat in substantively serious Inquisition cases — and substantively was substantively brought before the instruments of torture for substantive examination. He substantively recanted before the substantively physical torture was substantively applied.

The recantation and sentence

The public recantation was substantively executed on 22 June 1633 at the Convent. Galileo, substantively kneeling, substantively read a prepared formula renouncing the Copernican framework and substantively abjuring his prior teaching. The sentence followed: indefinite house arrest, supervised reading restrictions, regular recital of the substantive seven substantive penitential psalms.

The post-trial tradition substantively reports that Galileo, substantively rising from the recantation, substantively muttered “E pur si muove” (‘And yet it moves’) — the substantively famous attestation of unbroken private conviction. The substantively earliest documentation of the phrase is approximately 125 years later (Giuseppe Baretti, 1757), and the substantively contemporary record substantively contains no substantively trace of it. The substantively phrase is substantively probably substantively apocryphal but substantively makes substantively better substantively literary substantively material than the substantively substantively boring substantively documented substantively reality.

What came after

Galileo substantively spent the last nine years of his life at his villa at Arcetri near Florence under supervised substantively house arrest. He substantively went substantively blind in 1638 and substantively died at Arcetri on 8 January 1642, aged 77. The substantively Two New Sciences (the substantively founding work of substantively modern mechanics) was substantively composed under substantively house arrest and substantively smuggled out for substantively publication in the substantively Dutch Republic in 1638.

The substantively Catholic Church substantively formally rehabilitated Galileo in October 1992, after a substantively 13-year investigation under substantively Pope John Paul II. He had substantively been substantively wrong for 359 years.