Galileo Galilei Influence On Religion

Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564, in Pisa, Italy. He was the first of six children born to Vincenzo Galilei, a well-known musician and music theorist, and Giulia Ammannati. In 1574, his family moved to Florence, where Galileo began his formal education at the Camaldolese monastery in Vallombrosa. Galileo Galilei is remembered for several things but one in particular was making observations that essentially set the foundation for modern physics and astronomy. Galileo was never married, however, he did have a brief relationship with Marina Gamba, a woman he had met on one of his many trips to Venice. Marina moved in with Galileo in Padua and while living there they had three children, two girls and one boy. His two daughters, Virginia and Livia, became Sister Maria Celeste and Sister Arcangela after were both put in convents. In 1610, Galileo left his son, Vincenzio, with Marina and moved from Padua to Florence where he took a position at the Court of the Medici family. In 1613, Marina married Giovanni Bartoluzzi, and Vincenzio joined his father in Florence (Burr). In the spring of 1609 Galileo heard that an instrument had been invented in the Netherlands that showed far off objects as if they were nearby. By trial and error, he quickly figured out the secret of the invention and began to make a series of telescopes whose optical performances were much better than that of the original instrument. His first telescope was made from available lenses that were for sale in local spectacle makers’ shops and gave a magnification of about four times (Group 806). To improve on this, Galileo learned how to polish and grind his own lenses, and by August 1609 he had an instrument with a magnification of around eight or nine. Others had tried to do the same but what set Galileo apart was that he quickly figured out how to improve the instrument, taught himself the art of lens grinding, and actually was able to produce increasingly powerful telescopes (Helden). In 1609 Galileo began to make remarkable discoveries concerning the night sky which he described in a short book called the Starry Messenger, published in Venice in May 1610. Galileo claimed to have seen mountains on the Moon, the rings of Saturn, the four small moons orbiting Jupiter, to have proved the Milky Way was made up of tiny stars, and more importantly he noted that the planet Venus showed phases just like the Moon, and therefore must orbit the Sun, not the Earth. Galileo knew that all his discoveries were evidence for Copernicanism. Another observations made by Galileo was the observation of sunspots (Group 807). Galileo’s telescope was only an inch-and-a-half in diameter. Galileo’s interpretation of what he observed with his tiny telescope changed people’s view of the universe in two fundamental ways. Even though he did not invent the telescope, nor have even been the first to use it to observe the sky, Galileo saw infinite stars in the milky-white cloud in the night sky, and realized that the night sky is not a dome at all and has depth. Galileo observed Jupiter’s moons, …show more content…
Wishing however, to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me, I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error, heresy, and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church” (Shea and Artega).

Galileo was not thrown in jail but instead had his sentence changed to house arrest. In December 1633 he was allowed to retire to his villa in Arcetri, outside of Florence. During this time he finished his last book, Discourses on the Two New Sciences, which was published in 1638, in Holland, by Louis Elzivier. The book does not mention Copernicanism at all (Machamer).
Galileo Galilei’s discoveries and observations have significantly and positively influenced how we view the universe today. During his time, his opinions were unpopular, and ultimately resulted in condemnation, but he still stayed true to science and his beliefs. Who knows what today’s world would be like if the highly intelligent Galileo Galilei never