#ScienceSunday On the last Sunday of the month, we feature #SignificantHistoricalEvents that transpired during the month of January 20 January 1633, Galileo, at age 68, left his home in Florence, Italy, to face the Inquisition in Rome. He was formally interrogated for 18 days and on April 30 Galileo confesses that he may have made the Copernican case in the Dialogue too strong and offers to refute it in his next book. Unmoved, Pope Urban VIII decides that Galileo should be imprisoned indefinitely. Soon after, with a formal threat of torture, Galileo is examined by the Inquisition and sentenced to prison and religious penances, the sentence is signed by 6 of the 10 inquisitors. In a formal ceremony at a the church of Santa Maria Sofia Minerva, Galileo abjures his errors. He is then put in house arrest in Sienna. After these tribulations he begins writing his Discourse on Two New Sciences. Galileo remained under house arrest in Siena, despite many medical problems and a deteriorating state of health. Legend has it that as Galileo rose from kneeling before his inquisitors, he murmured, e pur, si muove -- even so, it does move. In 1992, Pope John Paul II acknowledged that the Roman Catholic Church had erred in condemning Galileo 350 years ago for asserting that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 10:01:07 +0000
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