User:Dandrake/templates


 * Main article: Trial of Galileo.

Not long after Galileo began publishing his astronomical work in The Starry Messenger, his Copernican ideas came under attack as a possible heresy, violating the Biblical picture of the Earth as the center of the universe (as well as the accepted philosophical teachings of the time).

By 1616 the attacks seemed to Galileo to have become dangerous, and he went to Rome to try to persuade the Church authorities not to ban the new teachings. The mission was a failure: in the end, Cardinal Bellarmine, acting on orders from the Pope, delivered him an order not hold or defend the idea that the Earth moves and the Sun stands still at the center.

For the next several years Galileo stayed well away from the controversy. Toward 1630, however, he revived his project of writing a book on the subject, encouraged by the election of Pope Urban VII. The book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was published in 1632, with formal authorization from the Inquisition; there is dispute, however, concerning this license.

Galileo was ordered to Rome to stand trial on suspicion of heresy in 1633. The sentence of the Inquisition was in three essential parts:
 * 1) . Galileo was required to recant his heliocentric ideas, which were condemned as "formally heretical";.
 * 2) . He was ordered imprisoned; the sentence was commuted to house arrest.
 * 3) . His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.

After a period with the friendly Archbishop Piccolomini in Siena, Galieo was allowed to return to his villa in Arcetri near Florence, where he spent the remainder of his life under house arrest.