Renaissance vs. Middle Ages Idea an Error

[galanx]

Yea, I don't know where this idea that Galileo was charged, tried, found guilty and sentenced for believing in the heliocentric system came from.

We: [names of ten Cardinals]

By the grace of God, Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, and especially commissioned by the Holy Apostolic See as Inquisitors-General against heretical depravity in all of Christendom.

Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were denounced to this Holy Office in 1615 for holding as true the false doctrine taught by some that the sun is the center of the world and motionless and the earth moves even with diurnal motion; for having disciples to whom you taught the same doctrine; for being in correspondence with some German mathematicians about it; for having published some letters entitiled On Sunspots, in which you explained the same doctrine as true; for interpreting Holy Scripture according to your own meaning in response to objections based on Scripture which were sometimes made to you; and whereas later we received a copy of an essay in the form of a letter, which was said to have been written by you to a former disciple of yours and which in accordance with Copernicus's position contains various propositions against the authority and true meaning of Holy Scripture;

And whereas this Holy Tribunal wanted remedy the disorder and the harm which derived from it and which was growing to the detriment of the Holy Faith, by order of His Holiness and the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord Cardinals of this Supreme and Univesal Inquisition, the Assessor Theologians assessed the two propositions of the sun's stability and the earth's motions as follows:

That the sun is the center of the world and motionless is a proposition which is philosophically absurd and false, and formally heretical, for being explicitly contrary to Holy Scripture;

That the earth is neither the center of the world nor motionless but moves even with diurnal motion is philosophically equally absurd and false, and theologically at least erroneous in the Faith.
.....

We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the above-mentioned Galileo, because of the things deduced in the trial and confessed by you as above, have rendered yourself according to this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having held and believed a doctine which is false and contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture: that the sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west, and the earth moves and is not the center of the world, and that one may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined contrary to Holy Scripture. Consequently you have incurred all the censures and penalties imposed and promulgated by the sacred canons and all particular and general laws against such delinquents. We are willing to absolve you from them provided that first, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, in front of us you abjure, curse, and detest the above-mentioned errors and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, in the manner and form we will prescribe to you.

ESS 362 - HISTORY of ASTRONOMY - Gagné

 

[Ray McCarthy]

for interpreting Holy Scripture according to your own meaning

That was the sole crime. His punishment was house arrest (with permitted excursions) in the villa he didn't want to leave.

Galileo was charged, tried, found guilty and sentenced for believing in the heliocentric system came from.

He wasn't. That quote is misleading and out of context.

Galileo's astronomy theory was rubbish compared to Kepler's "heliocentric". Kepler was employed by Holy Roman Emperor. Though his mother was charged with witchcraft at one stage, neither the Pope, Cardinals nor Emperor objected to Kepler. Kepler was a Protestant and unlike "firey" Galileo who seemed determined to fight with everyone (the Pope had even been a close friend, but Galileo insulted him in one essay), Kepler didn't mix religious explanations in his technical essays, unlike Galileo who attempted to quote scripture in his astronomy lectures. So the more radical science (much more accurate, Galileo was actually wrong) and Kepler didn't get in trouble with anyone.

In being tried, Galileo got off lightly, essentially practically zero punishment. He could have published ALL his science without getting in trouble. But ignored all the advice of every friend.

He was tried and found guilty of a religious offence, needlessly committed within his scientific papers. He was lucky to avoid being tried for witchcraft as he did a lot of casting of horoscopes. (Almost all astronomers did then), but the Pope made that illegal about that time due to the mischief caused by some astrologers.

 

[Tulius Hostilius]

I don't know what held their trousers up.

With the phallus?


I think we should look to the Middle Ages and to Renaissance (I prefer to call it Age of Discoveries) as historical periods. Full stop.

We could call it historical period “x” and historical period “y”. But it is real more practical to call Middle Ages and Renaissance. The division of time in periods is just a tool in the work of a historian. There are no better time periods of worst time periods. Just differences in the continuity.

 

[galanx]

That was the sole crime. His punishment was house arrest (with permitted excursions) in the villa he didn't want to leave.

He wasn't. That quote is misleading and out of context.

That quote is the exact charges laid against him by the commission appointed by the Church to investigate him. If your argument is that the Church wanted to get him for something else but trumped up these accusations as a cover, well, that's been known to happen, and I'll certainly listen to the case-but those were the charges laid and the verdict brought in.

Galileo's astronomy theory was rubbish compared to Kepler's "heliocentric". Kepler was employed by Holy Roman Emperor. Though his mother was charged with witchcraft at one stage, neither the Pope, Cardinals nor Emperor objected to Kepler. Kepler was a Protestant and unlike "firey" Galileo who seemed determined to fight with everyone (the Pope had even been a close friend, but Galileo insulted him in one essay), Kepler didn't mix religious explanations in his technical essays, unlike Galileo who attempted to quote scripture in his astronomy lectures. So the more radical science (much more accurate, Galileo was actually wrong) and Kepler didn't get in trouble with anyone.

Galileo's system made predictions slightly more accurately than the Ptolemaic model, but not as good as the Tychonic one (Tycho Brae) which was a modified geocentric one, holding the earth at the centre with the moon and he sun in orbit around it, while the other planets orbited the sun. The Church allowed the Copernican system to be published and used, but only instrumentality, that is, for making calculations. It could not be taught as truth, which is what Galileo tried to do in the Two Systems, though he pretended he was simply comparing them.

Was Galileo arrogant and obnoxious? Absolutely. Did he deliberately try to insult the Pope and many of his previous defenders, notably among the Jesuits? Yes indeed. Did he quote Scripture in an attempt to defuse criticism?Again, yes. Were his quotations suspected of leaning towards Protestantism? Yep.

And you're right- Kepler's ellipses turned out to be what was needed to make both Galileo and Tycho's observations come out right, in spite of Kepler's beliefs in the nesting of solids and the music of the spheres. Kepler also got in trouble with the Church, but over his Protestantism, and he was smart enough to turn down Galileo's recommendation that he be given a post at the University of Padua, thus keeping himself out of reach of the Inquisition.

But all that aside, Galileo's crime, as far as the Church was concerned, was teaching that the heliocentric position was actually, physically, true.

In being tried, Galileo got off lightly, essentially practically zero punishment. He could have published ALL his science without getting in trouble. But ignored all the advice of every friend.

Yes- as an old man he was sentenced to house arrest- after being shown the instruments of torture and being told they would be used on him if he failed to recant.

And he could have published them indeed, as long as he proposed them as an intellectual exercise and did not say what he believed- that they were true.

He was tried and found guilty of a religious offence, needlessly committed within his scientific papers. He was lucky to avoid being tried for witchcraft as he did a lot of casting of horoscopes. (Almost all astronomers did then), but the Pope made that illegal about that time due to the mischief caused by some astrologers.

Read the findings above- his religious offence was defying the word of Scripture and the teachings of the Church that the Earth was the centre of the Universe.