Galileo recanted his Copernican astronomy under threat of formal Inquisition torture on 22 June 1633. When did the Catholic Church formally rehabilitate him?
The 359-year gap between recantation and rehabilitation is substantively the longest in Catholic-Church doctrinal history. Galileo spent his last nine years under house arrest at Arcetri near Florence, went blind in 1638, and died in January 1642 aged 77. His *Two New Sciences* (the foundational work of modern mechanics) was smuggled out to the Dutch Republic for publication in 1638. The 1758 papal action removed the *Dialogue* from the Index of Prohibited Books but did not formally acknowledge that Galileo had been right.
Read the full story →Galileo Galilei was tried by the Roman Inquisition between February and June 1633 on the charge of vehement suspicion of heresy. He was 68, ill, and threatened with formal torture. He recanted publicly on 22 June 1633 and was sentenced to indefinite house arrest. The Catholic Church formally rehabilitated him in 1992.
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