HP107 Galileo
Hello and welcome to History Podcast number 107. This was a request via email from Jonathan Grunert. Jonathan wanted to know more about Galileo and specifically his troubles getting published. Lots of Italian names in this one, may come out mangled. The script will be available online as always.
Galileo was born on February 15, 1564 in Pisa. By the time he died at Arcetri, near Florence on January 8, 1642. He was as famous as any person in Europe.
In addition, when he was born, there was no such thing as ‘science’, yet by the time he died science was well on its way to becoming a discipline and its concepts and method a whole philosophical system.
Galileo and his family moved to Florence in 1572. He started to study for the priesthood, but changed his mind and enrolled for a medical degree at the University of Pisa. He never completed this degree, but instead studied mathematics notably with Ostilio Ricci, the mathematician of the Tuscan court. Later he visited the mathematician Christopher Clavius in Rome and started a correspondence with Guildobaldo del Monte. He applied and was turned down for a position in Bologna, but a few years later in 1589, with the help of Clavius and del Monte, he was appointed to the chair of mathematics in Pisa.
In 1592 he was appointed, at a much higher salary, to the position of mathematician at the University of Padua (PAD JEWA). While in Padua he met Maria Gamba. They never married. In 1600, their daughter Virginia was born. In 1601, they had another daughter Livia, and in 1606 a son, Vincenzo.
It was during his Paduan (PAD JEWA) period that Galileo worked out much of his mechanics and began his work with the telescope. In 1610, he published The Starry Messenger, and soon after accepted a position as Mathematician and Philosopher to the Grand Duke of Tuscany (and a non-teaching professorship at Pisa). He had worked hard for this position and even named the moons of Jupiter after the Medici. There were many reasons for his move but he says he did not like the wine in the Venice area and he had to teach too many students. Late in 1610, the Collegio Romano in Rome, where Clavius taught, certified the results of Galileo's telescopic observations as presented in his book. In 1611 he became a member of what is perhaps the first scientific society, the Academia dei Lincei.
In 1612 Galileo published a Discourse on Floating Bodies, and, in 1613, Letters on the Sunspots. In the latter he first expressed his position in favor of Copernicus (CA PER NICUS). In 1614 both his daughters entered the Franciscan convent of Saint Mathew, near Florence. Virginia became Sister Maria Celeste and Livia, Sister Arcangela. Maria Gamba, their mother, had been left behind in Padua (PAD JEWA) when Galileo moved to Florence.
In 1613/1614 Galileo entered into discussions of Copernicanism through his student Benedetto Castelli, and wrote a Letter to Castelli on the relationship between science and the Bible. In 1616 he transformed this into the expanded Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Lorraine. In February 1616, the Sacred Congregation of the Index condemned Copernicus' book On the Revolution of the Heavenly Orbs, pending correction. Galileo then was called to an audience with Cardinal Robert Bellarmine and advised not to teach or defend Copernican theory.
In 1623 Galileo published The Assayer in which he dealt with the nature of comets, arguing that they were sublunary phenomena. In this book, he made some of his most famous methodological pronouncements including the claim the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics.
The same year Maffeo Barberini, Galileo's supporter and friend, was elected Pope Urban VIII. Galileo felt empowered to begin work on his Dialogues concerning the Two Great World Systems. It was published with an imprimatur (IM PRA MA TOUR) from Florence (and not Rome) in 1632. Shortly afterwards the Inquisition banned its sale, and Galileo was ordered to go to Rome to be examined by the Holy Office of the Inquisition. In January 1633, a very ill Galileo made an arduous journey to Rome. Finally, in April 1633 Galileo was called before the Holy Office. This was tantamount to a charge of heresy (HAIR A SEE), and he was called to repent. Specifically, he had been charged with teaching and defending the Copernican doctrine that holds that the Sun is at the center of the universe and that the Earth moves. This doctrine had been deemed heretical (HER RET I CAL) in 1616, and Copernicus' book had been placed on the index of prohibited books, pending correction.
Galileo was summoned four times for a hearing; the last call came on June 21, 1633. The next day, 22 June, Galileo was taken to the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, and ordered to kneel while his sentence was read. It was declared that he was “vehemently suspect of heresy”. Galileo was made to recite and sign a formal abjuration:
I have been judged vehemently suspect of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the sun is in the center of the universe and immoveable, and that the earth is not at the center of same, and that it does move. Wishing however, to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me, I abjure (ab-?ju?r) with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error, heresy, and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church.
Galileo was not imprisoned, but had his sentence commuted to house arrest. In December 1633, he was allowed to retire to his villa in Arcetri, outside of Florence. During this time he finished his last book, Discourses on the Two New Sciences, which was published in 1638, in Holland, by Louis Elzivier. The book does not mention Copernicanism at all, and Galileo professed amazement at how it could have been published. He died on January 8, 1642.
For detailed biographical material, there are a number of sources. The best and classic work dealing with Galileo's life and scientific achievements is Stillman Drake's Galileo at Work (1978). A popular, readable biography is James Reston's Galileo: A Life (1994).
Sources for this podcast will be posted to the website.
Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography (Dover Phoenix Editions)