In 1611 was published a tract maintaining Jupiter’s satellites to
be unscriptural. In 1612 Galilei consulted Cardinal Conti as to the
astronomical teaching of the Bible, and obtained from him the opinion
that the Bible appeared to discountenance both the Aristotelian
doctrine of the immutability of the heavens and the Coppernican
doctrine of the motion of the earth. A tract of Galilei’s on floating
bodies, published in 1612, roused fresh opposition, but on the other
hand Cardinal Barberini (who afterwards, as Urban VIII., took a leading
part in his persecution) specially thanked him for a presentation
copy of the book on sun-spots, in which Galilei, for the first time,
clearly proclaimed in public his adherence to the Coppernican system.
In the same year (1613) his friend and follower, Father Castelli, was
appointed professor of mathematics at Pisa, with special instructions
not to lecture on the motion of the earth. Within a few months Castelli
was drawn into a discussion on the relations of the Bible to astronomy,
at the house of the Grand Duchess, and quoted Galilei in support of his
views; this caused Galilei to express his opinions at some length in a
letter to Castelli, which was circulated in manuscript at the court.
To this a Dominican preacher, Caccini, replied a few months afterwards
by a violent sermon on the text, “Ye Galileans, why stand ye gazing
up into heaven?”[71] and in 1615 Galilei was secretly denounced to
the Inquisition on the strength of the letter to Castelli and other
evidence. In the same year he expanded the letter to Castelli into a
more elaborate treatise, in the form of a _Letter to the Grand Duchess
Christine_, which was circulated in manuscript, but not printed till
1636. The discussion of the bearing of particular passages of the
Bible (_e.g._ the account of the miracle of Joshua) on the Ptolemaic
and Coppernican systems has now lost most of its interest; it may,
however, be worth noticing that on the more general question Galilei
quotes with approval the saying of Cardinal Baronius, “That the
intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us not how the heavens go, but
how to go to heaven,”[72] and the following passage gives a good idea
of the general tenor of his argument:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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