This Day in History: 1633-02-13
In 1633 Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome, ready for his inquisition and second trial for heresy in front of the pope. Galileo had been a strong supporter of the Copernican view of the solar system after observations he made with his telescope. The Copernican view said that the planets revolved around the Sun while the prevailing view was that the universe revolved around the Earth. This view was originally championed by Ptolemy and strongly supported by the church as it implied mankind’s importance. Galileo had already been warned not to support the Copernican view by the church but he could not ignore the evidence. He published a book called ‘Dialogue on Two Chief World Systems’ where he discussed the two theories through two characters in the book. Galileo was once again ordered before the pope and in April 1633 his inquisition began. This time he was threatened with torture and placed under house arrest until further notice; it was while a prisoner in his own home that Galileo died, on the 8th of January 1642. The church finally admitted that the Copernican view was correct in 1835 and, in 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed regret about the church’s handling of Galileo.
