158 A Short History of Astronomy [CH. vi. 



observation and reasoning on the one hand, and of the 

 authority of the Church and the Bible on the other, a 

 controversy which began to take shape about this time and 

 which, though its battle-field has shifted from science to 

 science, has lasted almost without interruption till modern 

 times. 



In 1611 was published a tract maintaining Jupiter's 

 satellites to be unscriptural. In 1612 Galilei consulted 

 Cardinal Conti as to the astronomical teaching of the Bible, 

 and obtained from him the opinion that the Bible appeared 

 to discountenance both the Aristotelian doctrine of the 

 immutability of the heavens and the Coppernican doctrine 

 of the motion of the earth. A tract of Galilei's on floating 

 bodies, published in 1612, roused fresh opposition, but on 

 the other hand Cardinal Barberini (who afterwards, as 

 Urban VIII., took a leading part in his persecution) 

 specially thanked him for a presentation copy of the book 

 on sun-spots, in which Galilei, for the first time, clearly 

 proclaimed in public his adherence to the Coppernican 

 system. In the same year (1613) his friend and follower, 

 Father Castelli, was appointed professor of mathematics 

 at Pisa, with special instructions not to lecture on the 

 motion of the earth. Within a few months Castelli was 

 drawn into a discussion on the relations of the Bible to 

 astronomy, at the house of the Grand Duchess, and quoted 

 Galilei in support of his views j this caused Galilei to 

 express his opinions at some length in a letter to Castelli, 

 which was circulated in manuscript at the court. To this 

 a Dominican preacher, Caccini, replied a few months 

 afterwards by a violent sermon on the text, " Ye Galileans, 

 why stand ye gazing up into heaven?"* and in 1615 

 Galilei was secretly denounced to the Inquisition on the 

 strength of the letter to Cistelli and other evidence. In 

 the same year he expanded the letter to Castelli into a 

 more elaborate treatise, in the form of a Letter to the Grand 

 Duchess Christine^ which was circulated in manuscript, but 

 not printed till 1636. The discussion of the bearing of 

 particular passages of the Bible (e.g. the account of the 

 miracle of Joshua) on the Ptolemaic and Coppernican 



* Acts i. ii. The pun is not quite so bad in its Latin form : Viri 

 Gali'act, etc. 



