St Robert Bellarmine is perhaps best known for his dealings with Galileo Galilei, whom he warned off teaching the Copernican ideas that would later underpin astronomy. However, a closer look at the interaction between the theologian and the scientist suggests that there was more to the Galileo Affair than meets the eye.
A True Demonstration: Bellarmine and the Stars as Evidence Against Earth’s Motion in the Early Seventeenth Century
Article (PDF)- 17 pages
- Level: high school and above
This 2011 article from Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture presents the following argument: In 1615 Robert Cardinal Bellarmine demanded a “true demonstration” of Earth’s motion before he would cease to doubt the Copernican world system. No such demonstration was available because the geocentric Tychonic world system was a viable alternative to the heliocentric Copernican system. On the contrary, recent work concerning early observations of stars suggests that, thanks to astronomers’ misunderstanding of the images of stars seen through the telescope, the only “true demonstration” the telescope provided in Bellarmine’s day showed the earth not to circle the Sun. This had been discussed by the German astronomer Simon Marius, in his Mundus Iovialis, just prior to Bellarmine’s request for a “true demonstration.”
Bellarmine – The Louvain Lectures
Book- 50 pages
- Level: university
The Louvain Lectures, a short book published by the Vatican Observatory in 1984, was written by Ugo Baldini and Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J. (then Director of the Vatican Observatory). It was part of a series of works called the Studi Galileiani, created in response to Pope St. John Paul II’s expressed desire “that theologians, scholars and historians, animated by a spirit of sincere collaboration, will study the Galileo case more deeply”. The book focuses on astronomy-related lectures given by St. Robert Bellarmine in 1570, when Bellarmine was not yet 30 years of age. It also includes Bellarmine’s handwritten version of his 1616 declaration to Galileo.
Bellarmine in Perspective
Article- 2200 words
- Level: all audiences
An article by Vatican Observatory Director Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., published on the British Jesuit web site Thinking Faith about Cardinal Bellarmine, a Jesuit cardinal and saint famous for opposing Galileo’s theories. “An oft-quoted quip suggests Bellarmine was a better scientist than Galileo, while Galileo’s letter to the Grand Duchess showed him to be a better theologian than Bellarmine.” As serious analysis, the quip falls short of the mark. The real problem with both parties is that our modern idea of what science is and how it proceeds was only just being born at this time.
Click here to read the full article at Thinking Faith.
[Click here to download PDF]
Bellarmine in perspective
Decree of Approval for the work “Elements of Astronomy” by Giuseppe Settele, in support of the heliocentric system (1820)
Pope Pius VII
- Article
- 300 words
- Level: all audiences
The 1820 decree under Pope Pius VII removing all remaining prohibitions against the Copernican system. This arose from the request of Fr. Giuseppe Settele for an imprimatur on his book Elementi di ottica e di astronomia (Elements of Optics and Astronomy), which referenced Earth’s motion. The request was denied; Settele appealed to the Pope.
This translation is from the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science (Inters.org), which is edited by the Advanced School for Interdisciplinary Research, operating at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, and directed by Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti. The translation is from the original Latin provided in W. Brandmüller and E.J. Greipl, eds., Copernico, Galilei e la chiesa : fine della controversia (1820) : gli atti del Sant’Uffizio {i.e. Copernicus, Galileo, and the Church: The End of the Controversy (1820), Acts of the Holy Office} (Florence: Leo Olschki, 1992), pp. 300-301.
[Rome], 1820 VIII 16
Vol. I, fol. 174v (Bruni, scribe)
The Assessor of the Holy Office has referred the request of Giuseppe Settele, Professor of Optics and Astronomy at La Sapienza University, regarding permission to publish his work Elements of Astronomy in which he espouses the common opinion of the astronomers of our time regarding the earth’s daily and yearly motions, to His Holiness through Divine Providence, Pope Pius VII. Previously, His Holiness had referred this request to the Supreme Sacred Congregation and concurrently to the consideration of the Most Eminent and Most Reverend General Cardinal Inquisitor. His Holiness has decreed that no obstacles exist for those who sustain Copernicus’ affirmation regarding the earth’s movement in the manner in which it is affirmed today, even by Catholic authors. He has, moreover, suggested the insertion of several notations into this work, aimed at demonstrating that the above mentioned affirmation [of Copernicus], as it is has come to be understood, does not present any difficulties; difficulties that existed in times past, prior to the subsequent astronomical observations that have now occurred. [Pope Pius VII] has also recommended that the implementation [of these decisions] be given to the Cardinal Secretary of the Supreme Sacred Congregation and Master of the Sacred Apostolic Palace. He is now appointed the task of bringing to an end any concerns and criticisms regarding the printing of this book, and, at the same time, ensuring that in the future, regarding the publication of such works, permission is sought from the Cardinal Vicar whose signature will not be given without the authorization of the Superior of his Order.
Click here for the decree from Inters.org.
Discovery in the New Cosmology of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo
Article (PDF)- 14 pages, 6100 words
- Level: university
This article for the Paths of Discovery (published by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences) by Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, suggests “three components contained in the notion of discovery: newness, an opening to the future and, in the case of astronomical discovery, a blending of theory and observation. Discovery means that something new comes to light and this generally happens suddenly and unexpectedly.”
Click here for a link to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences’ entire Paths of Discovery volume.
[Click here to download PDF]
acta18-coyne
Galileo – History, Science and Faith
- Video
- One hour
- Level: all audiences
Fr. Christopher Corbally, S. J., a research astronomer at the Vatican Observatory since 1983, provides a short history of Galileo, his science, and his interactions with the Church.
Galileo and Bellarmine
- Article (PDF)
- 9 pages
- Level: university
This paper, by Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, aims to delineate two of the many tensions which bring to light the contrasting views of Galileo Galilei and of Cardinal Robert Bellarmine with respect to the Copernican-Ptolemaic controversies of the 16th and 17th centuries: their respective positions on Aristotle’s natural philosophy and on the interpretation of Sacred Scripture. Galileo’s telescopic observations, reported in his 1610 book Sidereus Nuncius, were bringing about the collapse of Aristotle’s natural philosophy. Galileo taught that there was no science in Scripture.
This paper can also be found in The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena VI (Proceedings of a conference held October 18-23, 2009 in Venezia, Italy.) ASP Conference Series, Vol. 441. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2011.
[Click here to download PDF]
Galileo_and_Bellarmine
Galileo and His Times
- Article (PDF)
- 9 pages
- Level: university
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes that Galileo, during the very last year of what he himself described “as the best [eighteen] years of his life” spent at the University of Padua, first observed the heavens with a telescope. Fr. Coyne writes that in order to appreciate the marvel and the true significance of those observations we must appreciate the historical precedents which will have important repercussions on the intellectual climate in Europe at the time of Galileo and, therefore, on the critical intellectual period through which Galileo himself was passing at the time those observations were made.
[Click here to download PDF]
Galileo_Keck
The Parallel Worlds of Christoph Scheiner and Galileo Galilei
Article- 14 pages
- Level: high school and above
This 2016 article—written by Oddbjørn Engvold of the University of Oslo, Norway, and Jack B. Zirker, of the National Solar Observatory, USA, and published in the Journal for the History of Astronomy—provides an overview that compares and contrasts the solar observations made by Galileo Galilei on one hand, and by Christoph Scheiner of the Society of Jesus on the other. While Galileo is better known, Scheiner would go on to study the sun far more extensively that Galileo, and to become the world’s first true solar astronomer. Engvold and Zirker write:
Scheiner was a keen observer, who shares with Galileo the credit of discovering and describing many of the sunspot phenomena we know today. He recorded the behaviour of sunspots, sometime several times per day, allegedly over 16 years. From this mass of data, he deduced several important properties of the Sun, such as the latitude variation of rotation, as well as the small tilt of the solar axis. Independently of Galileo, he described in meticulous detail the life cycle of sunspots and their associated faculae. Lacking any knowledge of physics, he thought sunspots were dense solid bodies floating in an incandescent fluid surface. He even ventured to speculate on the depth variation of solar rotation and the birth of sunspots in a violent solar interior.
He invented a scheme for determining the precise locations of sunspots and was able to therefore distinguish their proper motions. He also developed such observational tools as the equatorial mount, the back projection scheme, and the wide-field eyepiece.
Scheiner struggled to overcome his religious convictions regarding the perfection of the heavenly bodies. In the end, he trusted the evidence of his eyes and rejected the orthodox Aristotelian worldview. However, he stubbornly rejected Copernicus’ heliocentric model and adopted instead the Tychonic geocentric model. This was a rational alternative, which could not be disproved for two centuries. Many breakthroughs in science are based on strong evidence, but the ultimate answers rely on the proof. The final proof of the revolution of the Earth was delayed until Bessel detected the annual stellar parallax in 1838.
Click here to access this article from The Journal for the History of Astronomy.
Click here to access this article from NASA/ADS.
Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious
Article- 1000 words
- Level: all audiences
This article by Christopher Graney was originally published by Aeon, and later republished by The Atlantic and others. It discusses astronomical work published in 1614 by Johann Georg Locher, a student of the Jesuit astronomer Christoph Scheiner. There is a great contrast between how Galileo portrayed Locher’s work, and the work itself. Graney writes, “Locher matters. Science’s history matters. Anti-Copernicans such as Locher and Brahe show that science has always functioned as a contest of ideas, and that science was present in both sides of the vigorous debate over Earth’s motion.”
Click here for this article from Aeon.
Click here for this article from The Atlantic.
The Work of the Best and Greatest Artist: A Forgotten Story of Religion, Science, and Stars in the Copernican Revolution
Article (PDF)- 29 pages
- Level: high school and above
This 2012 article from Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture presents the following argument: In 1576 the English astronomer Thomas Digges (1546–95) published his English translation of Nicholaus Copernicus’s (1473–1543) De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium together with a sketch of the Copernican universe under the heading “A Perfit description of the Cœlestial Orbes”. Because Digges’s sketch shows the planets circling the Sun, surrounded by an infinite expanse of stars, it is often hailed as a forerunner of the modern, scientific understanding of an infinite universe in which the Earth is but a speck. However, Digges was illustrating not the insignificance of Earth but the greatness of a universe of stars that testified to the omnipotence and magnificence of God. Ideas such as Digges’s played a prominent role in Copernican thought, so much so that Copernicans cited Divine Omnipotence to answer one of the most powerful scientific objections to the heliocentric theory. This Copernican use of religion to answer a scientific objection to heliocentrism greatly troubled one of the most prominent defenders of geocentrism, the Italian Jesuit astronomer Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598–1671). The story of Digges, Riccioli, and the stars challenges the modern portrayal of the Copernican Revolution as being a contest of religion versus science: geocentricism versus heliocentrism. It also raises questions about how historians and scientists, and in particular Catholic historians and scientists, could forget such a dynamic part of the history of ideas.
How Frs. Riccioli and Dechales Argued that Science Shows the Earth to be at Rest – The Coriolis Effect
Article (blog post)- 600 words
- Level: all audiences
In this post on The Catholic Astronomer blog, Christopher Graney discusses how the effect of Earth’s rotation on objects travelling through the air (now known as the “Coriolis effect”) was foreseen by Jesuit scientists, who argued that the absence of this effect indicated that Copernicus was wrong about the Earth being in motion. This scientific argument against the Earth’s motion turned out to be wrong because the effect did in fact exist, but was very hard to detect.
A True Demonstration: Bellarmine and the Stars as Evidence Against Earth’s Motion in the Early Seventeenth Century
- Article (PDF)
- 17 pages
- Level: high school and above
This 2011 article from Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture presents the following argument: In 1615 Robert Cardinal Bellarmine demanded a “true demonstration” of Earth’s motion before he would cease to doubt the Copernican world system. No such demonstration was available because the geocentric Tychonic world system was a viable alternative to the heliocentric Copernican system. On the contrary, recent work concerning early observations of stars suggests that, thanks to astronomers’ misunderstanding of the images of stars seen through the telescope, the only “true demonstration” the telescope provided in Bellarmine’s day showed the earth not to circle the Sun. This had been discussed by the German astronomer Simon Marius, in his Mundus Iovialis, just prior to Bellarmine’s request for a “true demonstration.”
Bellarmine in Perspective
- Article
- 2200 words
- Level: all audiences
An article by Vatican Observatory Director Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., published on the British Jesuit web site Thinking Faith about Cardinal Bellarmine, a Jesuit cardinal and saint famous for opposing Galileo’s theories. “An oft-quoted quip suggests Bellarmine was a better scientist than Galileo, while Galileo’s letter to the Grand Duchess showed him to be a better theologian than Bellarmine.” As serious analysis, the quip falls short of the mark. The real problem with both parties is that our modern idea of what science is and how it proceeds was only just being born at this time.
Click here to read the full article at Thinking Faith.
[Click here to download PDF]
Bellarmine in perspective
The Jesuits and Galileo: Fidelity to Tradition and the Adventure of Discovery
- Article (PDF)
- 12 pages
- Level: university
An article by Fr. George Coyne, S. J., in the journal Forum Italicum. Fr. Coyne, who was Director of the Vatican Observator from 1978 to 2006, writes:
This paper investigates the tensions within the Society of Jesus, especially at the Roman College, at the time of Galileo and how they were resolved (or not) in a spirit of accommodation which was maturing at that time and which has entered into the Jesuit blood- stream. Jesuits at the Roman College confirmed Galileo’s earth-shaking observations, reported in his Sidereus Nuntius. Aristotle’s physics was crumbling. Would Aristotelian philosophy, which was at the service of theology, also collapse? Controversies over the nature of sunspots and of comets held implications for the very foundations of Christian belief. Some Jesuits saw the threat and faced it with an astute view into the future; others, though pioneers as scientists, could not face the larger implications of the scientific revolution to which they contributed with Galileo. Much of what occurred can be attributed to the strong personalities of the individual Jesuit antagonists, and Cardinal Robert Bellarmine will prove to be one of the most important of those personages.
Click here to download the paper from Sage Publications – Forum Italicum (2015), Vol. 49(1) 154–165.
[Click here to download PDF]
Jesuits and Galileo
Galileo’s Newly-Discovered Letter
Article (blog post)- 2800 words
- Level: high school and above
In 2018 the journal Nature announced that a previously-unknown copy of one of Galileo’s letters had been discovered in the archives of the Royal Society—and Nature stated that the new copy showed Galileo to have lied. Christopher Graney discusses this letter (which was arguably the event that set the “Galileo Affair” into motion) in a posting on the Vatican Observatory’s blog, The Catholic Astronomer, and also discusses the Nature announcement, the science of Galileo’s time, and the people involved with the letter.
Click here to read the entire blog posting from The Catholic Astronomer.
The Galileo Affair: Context and Controversy
- Video
- 1 hour 20 minutes (includes 15 minutes Q&A)
- Level: all audiences
Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, delivered “The Galileo Affair: Context and Controversy” in the University at Albany Lecture Center. on November 19, 2014. through the sponsorship of the associated Departments of Physics and Philosophy and College of Arts & Sciences at the University at Albany, State University of New York.
Galileo – History, Science and Faith
- Video
- One hour
- Level: all audiences
Fr. Christopher Corbally, S. J., a research astronomer at the Vatican Observatory since 1983, provides a short history of Galileo, his science, and his interactions with the Church.
Galileo and Bellarmine
- Article (PDF)
- 9 pages
- Level: university
This paper, by Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, aims to delineate two of the many tensions which bring to light the contrasting views of Galileo Galilei and of Cardinal Robert Bellarmine with respect to the Copernican-Ptolemaic controversies of the 16th and 17th centuries: their respective positions on Aristotle’s natural philosophy and on the interpretation of Sacred Scripture. Galileo’s telescopic observations, reported in his 1610 book Sidereus Nuncius, were bringing about the collapse of Aristotle’s natural philosophy. Galileo taught that there was no science in Scripture.
This paper can also be found in The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena VI (Proceedings of a conference held October 18-23, 2009 in Venezia, Italy.) ASP Conference Series, Vol. 441. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2011.
[Click here to download PDF]
Galileo_and_Bellarmine
Discovery in the New Cosmology of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo
- Article (PDF)
- 14 pages, 6100 words
- Level: university
This article for the Paths of Discovery (published by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences) by Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, suggests “three components contained in the notion of discovery: newness, an opening to the future and, in the case of astronomical discovery, a blending of theory and observation. Discovery means that something new comes to light and this generally happens suddenly and unexpectedly.”
Click here for a link to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences’ entire Paths of Discovery volume.
[Click here to download PDF]
acta18-coyne
A True Demonstration: Bellarmine and the Stars as Evidence Against Earth’s Motion in the Early Seventeenth Century
- Article (PDF)
- 17 pages
- Level: high school and above
This 2011 article from Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture presents the following argument: In 1615 Robert Cardinal Bellarmine demanded a “true demonstration” of Earth’s motion before he would cease to doubt the Copernican world system. No such demonstration was available because the geocentric Tychonic world system was a viable alternative to the heliocentric Copernican system. On the contrary, recent work concerning early observations of stars suggests that, thanks to astronomers’ misunderstanding of the images of stars seen through the telescope, the only “true demonstration” the telescope provided in Bellarmine’s day showed the earth not to circle the Sun. This had been discussed by the German astronomer Simon Marius, in his Mundus Iovialis, just prior to Bellarmine’s request for a “true demonstration.”
The Church’s Most Recent Attempt to Dispel the Galileo Myth
- Article (PDF)
- 29 pages
- Level: university
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes: “On October 31, 1992, John Paul II in an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences said that one of the lessons of the Galileo affair is that we now have a more correct understanding of the authority that is proper to the Church and that: ‘From the Galileo case one can draw a lesson which applies to us today, in view of analogous situations which come forth today and which may come forth in the future.’ Just 350 years before, Pope Urban VIII had declared that Galileo had made himself guilty of an ‘opinion very false and very erroneous and which had given scandal to the whole Christian world.’ The contrast between these two official Church judgments on Galileo separated by a 350-year period is enormous. The question is: What does it bode for the next 350 years? So the import of this paper is not just academic; it attempts to present a judgment on the past and on the present with a view to the future.”
This essay can also be found in The Church And Galileo (University of Notre Dame Press, 2005).
[Click here to download PDF]
Galileo_ed._McMullin
Science Meets Biblical Exegesis in the Galileo Affair
- Article (PDF)
- 11 pages
- Level: university
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, asks: Could the Galileo affair, interpreted with historical accuracy, provide an opportunity to come to understand the relationship of contemporary scientific culture and inherited religious culture?
Also available in Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, Volume 48, Issue 1, March 2013, Pages 221–229.
[Click here to download PDF]
Zygon_Comments_on_McMullin
The Young Bellarmine’s Thoughts on World Systems
- Article (PDF)
- 10 pages
- Level: university
An academic article by Fr. George Coyne and Ugo Baldini, published on the occasion of the publication of the autograph copy of Bellarmine’s Declaration of 1616 to Galileo. The authors look into the roots of Bellarmine’s attitudes towards what we now call cosmology.
Click here to read the full article from NASA ADS.
[Click here to download PDF]
Coyne and Baldini, Young Bellarmine
Galileo and His Times
- Article (PDF)
- 9 pages
- Level: university
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes that Galileo, during the very last year of what he himself described “as the best [eighteen] years of his life” spent at the University of Padua, first observed the heavens with a telescope. Fr. Coyne writes that in order to appreciate the marvel and the true significance of those observations we must appreciate the historical precedents which will have important repercussions on the intellectual climate in Europe at the time of Galileo and, therefore, on the critical intellectual period through which Galileo himself was passing at the time those observations were made.
[Click here to download PDF]
Galileo_Keck
The Jesuits and Galileo: Fidelity to Tradition and the Adventure of Discovery
- Article (PDF)
- 14 pages
- Level: university
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes: “This paper investigates the tensions within the Society of Jesus, especially at the Roman College, at the time of Galileo and how they were resolved or not in a spirit of accommodation which was maturing at that time and which has entered into the Jesuit bloodstream. Jesuits at the Roman College confirmed Galileo’s earth-shaking observations, reported in his Sidereus Nuntius. Aristotle’s physics was crumbling. Would Aristotelian philosophy, which was at the service of theology, also collapse? Controversies over the nature of sunspots and of comets held implications for the very foundations of Christian belief. Some Jesuits saw the threat and faced it with an astute view into the future; others, though pioneers as scientists, could not face the larger implications of the scientific revolution to which they contributed with Galileo. Much of what occurred can be attributed to the strong personalities of the individual Jesuit antagonists, and Cardinal Robert Bellarmine will prove to be one of the most important of those personages.”
A version of this essay appeared in Forum Italicum: A Journal of Italian Studies, Volume 49, Issue 1, 2015.
[Click here to download PDF]
Galileo__SJs_Stonybrook
Bellarmine – The Louvain Lectures
- Book
- 50 pages
- Level: university
The Louvain Lectures, a short book published by the Vatican Observatory in 1984, was written by Ugo Baldini and Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J. (then Director of the Vatican Observatory). It was part of a series of works called the Studi Galileiani, created in response to Pope St. John Paul II’s expressed desire “that theologians, scholars and historians, animated by a spirit of sincere collaboration, will study the Galileo case more deeply”. The book focuses on astronomy-related lectures given by St. Robert Bellarmine in 1570, when Bellarmine was not yet 30 years of age. It also includes Bellarmine’s handwritten version of his 1616 declaration to Galileo.
Mathematical Disquisitions – The Booklet of Theses Immortalized by Galileo
Book- 176 pages
- Level: high school and above
This 2017 book by Christopher M. Graney is the first complete English translation of an astronomical text written by scientists who stood opposite Galileo in the debate on the question of Earth’s motion. Galileo painted a very unfavorable portrait of Mathematical Disquisitions and its Jesuit authors, but the book itself turns out to be a competent scientific work and not much like Galileo’s portrayal of it.
From the publisher, the University of Notre Dame Press:
Mathematical Disquisitions: The Booklet of Theses Immortalized by Galileo offers a new English translation of the 1614 Disquisitiones Mathematicae, which Johann Georg Locher wrote under the guidance of the German Jesuit astronomer Christoph Scheiner. The booklet, an anti-Copernican astronomical work, is of interest in large part because Galileo Galilei, who came into conflict with Scheiner over the discovery of sunspots, devoted numerous pages within his famous 1632 Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems—Ptolemaic and Copernican to ridiculing Disquisitiones. The brief text (the original was approximately one hundred pages) is heavily illustrated with dozens of original figures, making it an accessible example of “geocentric astronomy in the wake of the telescope.”
The treatise provides valuable insight into the astronomical debates of the seventeenth century, a time when the question of the Earth’s motion was still very much in flux. Whereas Galileo’s works are readily available, there are far fewer translations of works arguing the other side. Christopher Graney’s translation focuses on the mathematical and astronomical core of Locher’s work and is suitable for undergraduate students in courses on the history of science, philosophy of science, astronomy, and physics.
Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google Books.