Galileo Galilei

While Kepler was developing his 3 laws of motion from Tycho Brahe's data (and later shown to be derivable from Newton's 3 laws of force) Galileo Galilei was lecturing at the University of Padua and strongly espousing Copernicus’ model. Using the just-invented (and by him greatly enhanced, page 260) telescope, Galileo observed that the moon has mountains and valleys, the Sun has dark spots, Jupiter four moons that move with it, Venus a full cycle of phases like the Moon, and that the Milky Way is composed of a multitude of stars invisible to the naked eye.

All this flew in the face of Aristotle’s and Ptolemy’s perfect earth-centered universe. Ordered by the Inquisition of 1616 to recant the Copernican view of the universe, Galileo persisted. In 1633 he was condemned to lifelong house arrest for his views. In 1992 Pope John Paul admitted errors had been made, yet never admitted the Church had been wrong in convicting Galileo of believing that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

All of this flew in the face of Aristotle’s and Ptolemy’s perfect, earth-centered universe. Ordered by the Inquisition of 1616 not to hold the Copernican view of the universe, Galileo nevertheless persisted. In 1633 he was condemned to life imprisonment for his views, the sentence sympathetically carried out as a life-long house arrest. On October 31, 1992, 350 years after Galileo’s death, Pope John Paul II admitted that errors had been made in the case of Galileo. Although he declared that the case was closed, he never admitted that the Catholic Church was wrong in convicting Galileo of heresy because he believed that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

This Galileo Galilei page and much of this 550-page website are excerpted from You and the Universe, a handmade, individualized fine art book on astrology, mythology and astronomy through which the recipient's complete astrological reading is woven.