In the Catholic world prior to Gali

In the Catholic world prior to Galileo's conflict
with the Church, the majority of educated
people subscribed to the Aristotelian
geocentric view that the earth was the center
of the universe and that all heavenly bodies
revolved around the Earth, [53] despite the use
of Copernican theories to reform the calendar
in 1582. [54] Biblical references Psalm 93:1 ,
96:10 , and 1 Chronicles 16:30 include
text stating that "the world is firmly
established, it cannot be moved." In the same
manner, Psalm 104:5 says, "the Lord set
the earth on its foundations; it can never be
moved." Further, Ecclesiastes 1:5 states
that "And the sun rises and sets and returns
to its place." [55]
Galileo defended heliocentrism , and in his
Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina argued
that it was not contrary to biblical texts. He
took the Augustinian position that poetry,
songs, instructions or historical statements in
biblical texts need not always be interpreted
literally. Galileo argued that the authors wrote
from the perspective of the terrestrial world in
which the sun does rise and set, and
discussed a different kind of "movement" of
the earth, not rotations. [56] [ citation needed ]
By 1615 Galileo's writings on heliocentrism
had been submitted to the Roman Inquisition ,
and his efforts to interpret the Bible were
seen as a violation of the Council of Trent .[57]
Attacks on the ideas of Copernicus had
reached a head, and Galileo went to Rome to
defend himself and Copernican ideas. In
1616, an Inquisitorial commission unanimously
declared heliocentrism to be "foolish and
absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical
since it explicitly contradicts in many places
the sense of Holy Scripture." The Inquisition
found that the idea of the Earth's movement
"receives the same judgement in philosophy
and... in regard to theological truth it is at
least erroneous in faith." [58] (The original
document from the Inquisitorial commission
was made widely available in 2014. [59] )
Pope Paul V instructed Cardinal Bellarmine to
deliver this finding to Galileo, and to order
him to abandon the Copernican opinions. On
February 26, Galileo was called to
Bellarmine's residence and ordered
The decree of the Congregation of the Index
banned Copernicus's De Revolutionibus and
other heliocentric works until correction.[60]
Bellarmine's instructions did not prohibit
Galileo from discussing heliocentrism as a
mathematical fiction. [61]
For the next decade, Galileo stayed well away
from the controversy. He revived his project of
writing a book on the subject, encouraged by
the election of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini as
Pope Urban VIII in 1623. Barberini was a
friend and admirer of Galileo, and had
opposed the condemnation of Galileo in 1616.
Galileo's resulting book, Dialogue Concerning
the Two Chief World Systems , was published
in 1632, with formal authorization from the
Inquisition and papal permission.[62]
Earlier, Pope Urban VIII had personally asked
Galileo to give arguments for and against
heliocentrism in the book, and to be careful
not to advocate heliocentrism. He made
another request, that his own views on the
matter be included in Galileo's book. Only the
latter of those requests was fulfilled by
Galileo.
Whether unknowingly or deliberately,
Simplicio, the defender of the Aristotelian
geocentric view in Dialogue Concerning the
Two Chief World Systems , was often caught
in his own errors and sometimes came across
as a fool. Indeed, although Galileo states in
the preface of his book that the character is
named after a famous Aristotelian philosopher
( Simplicius in Latin, Simplicio in Italian), the
name "Simplicio" in Italian also has the
connotation of "simpleton". [63] This portrayal
of Simplicio made Dialogue Concerning the
Two Chief World Systems appear as an
advocacy book: an attack on Aristotelian
geocentrism and defence of the Copernican
theory. Unfortunately for his relationship with
the Pope, Galileo put the words of Urban VIII
into the mouth of Simplicio.
Most historians agree Galileo did not act out
of malice and felt blindsided by the reaction
to his book. [64] However, the Pope did not
take the suspected public ridicule lightly, nor
the Copernican advocacy.