This book shows that the known accounts of Galileo's trial leave many important facts unexplained or even clash with them. A most careful reading of the relevant documents and treatises backs an interpretation which has Pope Urban VIII sue Galileo for denying God's omnipotence or His omniscience by admitting the «absolute truth» of Copernicanism. The Pope's opinion results from an argument he fully trusts, together with his belief that Galileo failed to fulfill a condition to which the publication of the Dialogue was subjected. That the trial does not end with a conviction for Urban's awful «formal heresy» but merely for «vehement suspicion of heresy», with the «heresy» consisting in the pseudo-heretical belief in a doctrine contrary to the Bible, all this is due to the existence of a Galileo-friendly party inside the Holy Office, led by Cardinal Francesco Barberini and powerful enough to wring a compromise from the Pope.

No other work on Galileo Galilei has brought together such a complete description of the historical context in its political, cultural, philosophical, religious, scientific, and personal aspects as this volume has done. In addition to covering the whole of Galileo's life, it focuses on those things that are most pertinent to the Galileo Affair, which culminated in his condemnation by the Inquisition in 1633. It also includes an extensive discussion of the relationship between religion and science in general, and of the relationship between Christianity and science in particular, without which a true understanding of the affair is much weakened. This discussion of the relationship of Christianity with science-a long, generally positive relationship-is most timely since the case of Galileo is, as many historians and Pope Benedict XVI have stated, the beginning of the alienation of the Church from much of the intellectual culture of our present age. The "warfare between science and religion" is an old myth that should finally be retired, but for many it is still axiomatic. This work shows the significance of astrology in the history of society and the Church (Galileo was a master astrologer), and the importance of the internal tensions and factions within the Roman Curia in the seventeenth century. It also tells of the profound battles among Church leadership over the direction of the Church in a time of uncertainty and intellectual and cultural ferment. The Galileo Affair is not just of its time and place, and it is not just about Galileo, but it touches upon that perennial issue of how the Church deals with issues of adaptation and change.

In their search for truth, contemporary religious believers and modern scientific investigators hold many values in common. But in their approaches, they express two fundamentally different conceptions of how to understand and represent the world. Michael E. Hobart looks for the origin of this difference in the work of Renaissance thinkers who invented a revolutionary mathematical system—relational numeracy. By creating meaning through numbers and abstract symbols rather than words, relational numeracy allowed inquisitive minds to vault beyond the constraints of language and explore the natural world with a fresh interpretive vision. The Great Rift is the first book to examine the religion-science divide through the history of information technology. Hobart follows numeracy as it emerged from the practical counting systems of merchants, the abstract notations of musicians, the linear perspective of artists, and the calendars and clocks of astronomers. As the technology of the alphabet and of mere counting gave way to abstract symbols, the earlier “thing-mathematics” metamorphosed into the relational mathematics of modern scientific investigation. Using these new information symbols, Galileo and his contemporaries mathematized motion and matter, separating the demonstrations of science from the linguistic logic of religious narration. Hobart locates the great rift between science and religion not in ideological disagreement but in advances in mathematics and symbolic representation that opened new windows onto nature. In so doing, he connects the cognitive breakthroughs of the past with intellectual debates ongoing in the twenty-first century.

In 1633, the Roman Inquisition condemned Galileo as a suspected heretic for defending Copernicus's hypothesis of the earth's motion and denying the scientific authority of Scripture. This book draws upon Maurice A. Finocchiaro's earlier works, especially The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History (1989), to provide a brief, new documentary history of Galileo's trial that is simultaneously the most user-friendly and inclusive available.

English translations of primary documents.

Few legal events loom as large in early modern history as the trial of Galileo. Frequently cast as a heroic scientist martyred to religion or as a scapegoat of papal politics, Galileo undoubtedly stood at a watershed moment in the political maneuvering of a powerful church. But to fully understand how and why Galileo came to be condemned by the papal courts—and what role he played in his own downfall—it is necessary to examine the trial within the context of inquisitorial law. With this final installment in his magisterial trilogy on the seventeenth-century Roman Inquisition, Thomas F. Mayer has provided the first comprehensive study of the legal proceedings against Galileo. By the time of the trial, the Roman Inquisition had become an extensive corporatized body with direct authority over local courts and decades of documented jurisprudence. Drawing deeply from those legal archives as well as correspondence and other printed material, Mayer has traced the legal procedure from Galileo's first precept in 1616 to his formal trial in 1633. With an astonishing mastery of the legal underpinnings and bureaucratic workings of inquisitorial law, Mayer's work compares the course of legal events to other possible outcomes within due process, showing where the trial departed from standard procedure as well as what available recourse Galileo had to shift its direction. The Roman Inquisition: Trying Galileo presents a detailed and corrective reconstruction of the actions both in the courtroom and behind the scenes that led to one of history's most notorious verdicts.

Maurice Finocchiaro considers the trial of Galileo by the Roman Inquisition in 1633, weighing up the views of both sides and presenting an account that incorporates historical context, science, theology, and philosophy. He also considers the legacy and continuing cultural afterlife of this remarkable episode in the history of science.