5393 AM · 1633 CE · world history
Galileo before the Inquisition
The man who turned a telescope on the sky is forced to recant Copernicus.
Galileo saw mountains on the Moon, moons around Jupiter and the phases of Venus, and concluded the heavens were neither perfect nor centred on Earth. He wrote in Italian, for a lay public, and argued sharply. At seventy he was made to recant and spent his last years under house arrest.
Sources
Documents of the period
- the transcript of Galileo's trial (1633) — the trial records themselves and the text of the abjuration
Scholarship
- studies in European history — the telescope, the Dialogue, and the rehabilitation 359 years later
Basis: documents and evidence.