Essays: April 2002 Archives
The conflict between Galileo and the church is a well-known incident in history often portrayed as a battle between the tyrannical Catholic Church and a heroic scientist. As recently as 1992 the Roman Catholic Church admitted they had made an error in their persecution of Galileo at a meeting of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome, much to the ridicule of the media who interpreted this as obvious result which had taken a Papal commission thirteen years to derive. To fully assess the reasons behind the condemnation of Galileo’s Dialogue concerning the Two Chief World Systems we shall examine the events that preceded it’s publication and also the condition of Italy at the time.
