One of the most notable targets of Catholic Questioning was Galileo Galilei. As a result of his strong support for the theory that all the planets, including the Earth, orbiting the sun, the Catholic Church accused him of heresy and spent the last years of his life. his life under house arrest. Galileo was well aware that he was on the Church ‘s hit list, and a recent letter shows that he tried to put down one idea to avoid persecution, according to persecution Nature and Ars Technica.
This letter, written in 1613, solves a long-standing mystery for Galileo’s scholars. It was found in the library of the Royal Society, where it has been for at least 250 years.
Galileo’s flesh with the Catholic Church came about as a result of his support for heliocentrism – the idea that the solar system is centered around the sun – as suggested in the book of Nicolaus Copernicus The Revolutionibus. Galileo’s scientific writings clearly confirmed Copernicus’ theory of the world, including widely circulated personal letters, and in some cases directly questioned the scientific merits of the passages of the Bible.
In 1613, Galileo wrote to a friend and alumnus named Benedetto Castelli who was then teaching mathematics at the University of Pisa. The letter was a longing for Galileo’s views on Copernicus’ ideas and beliefs, arguing that science and astronomy should not be overshadowed by religious teaching. (He would extend this into him Letter to The Duchess Christina.) Like many of Galileo ‘s writings at the time, the letter was copied and widely distributed, and was eventually forwarded to the Inquisition in Rome in 1615 by a friar by the name of Niccolò Lorini.
This is where things get tricky. Galileo said that the version of the letter sent by Lorini was confirmed to be slower. He sent a less controversial version of the letter to a friend, saying it was the original document and should be forwarded to the Vatican, essentially to clear his name. However, pupils were never able to be absolutely certain whether he was telling the truth about the letter being taught.
This newly discovered letter reveals that he was lying, and that he himself was looking to put down astronomy in order to claim the Catholic Church and keep authorities from overthrowing eliminate the spread of heliocentric ideas. The original copy found in the archives of the Royal Society shows changes in the words in what appears in Galileo ‘s handwriting. The seven-page letter, signed “GG,” introduces changes such as changing the word “false” for the slippery “looks different from the truth,” changing “a “hiding” to “veiling,” and other editions which seek to tone down astronomy which angered Church leaders. The terminology and handwriting correspond to Galileo-like writing at the time. Based on this decision, it appears that Galileo tried to make his views more palatable to the Catholic Church in the hope that the persecution would escape the Questioning.
Found on a research trip by the scientist Salvatore Ricciardo from the University of Bergamo in Italy, the letter may have been overlooked in the archives of the Royal Society as it was cataloged as 21 October 1613 rather than the date it, December 21, 1613 However, it is not clear how it first came to the Royal Society. The document is the subject of a forthcoming article by Ricciardo and his colleagues in the journal of the Royal Society Notes and Tables, According to Nature.
The small changes made by Galileo since the Church’s crackdown on heliocentrism failed. In 1616, the Inquisition ordered Galileo to suspend the teaching or defense of the theory, and several of his books were banned. He was tried again almost two decades later, in 1633, on suspicion of speculation. He was convicted and sentenced to prison, where he remained until his death in 1642.
[h/t Ars Technica]