Pisa, and the Archbishop made it his business to have LITTLE 

 letters written to Galileo asking certain specific ques- JOURNEYS 

 tions. One man, Castelli, declined to be used for the 

 purpose of entrapping Galileo, but others there were 

 who loaned themselves to the plan. 

 In 1616, Galileo received a formal summons from Pope 

 Paul V. to come to Rome and purge himself of here- 

 sies that he had expressed in letters which were then 

 in the hands of the Inquisition. 



Galileo appealed to his friends at Florence, but they 

 were powerless. 'When the Pope issued an order, it 

 could not be waived. 



The greatest thinker of his time journeyed to Rome 

 and faced the greatest theologian of his day, Cardinal 

 Bellarmine. The Cardinal firmly and clearly showed 

 Galileo the error of his way. 



Galileo offered to prove for the Cardinal by astronom- 

 ical observations that the Copernican Theory was true. 

 Q Cardinal Bellarmine said that there was only one 

 truth and that was spiritual truth. That the Bible was 

 true, or it was not. If not, then was religion a fallacy 

 and our hope of heaven a delusion. 



Galileo contended that the death of Christ had nothing 

 to do with the truth, so Science and these things should 

 not be shuffled and confused. 



This attitude of mind greatly shocked the Inquisitors, 

 and they made haste to inform the Pope, who at once 

 issued an order that the astronomer should be placed 

 in a dungeon until he saw fit to disavow that the sun 

 was the center of the universe, and the earth moves. 



55 



