Life
of Galileo
By
Bertolt Brecht
Translated by John Willett
Directed by Joe Discher
Program
Notes
 Galileo
judged his Discourse on Two New Sciences "superior
to everything else of mine hitherto published," containing
"results which I consider the most important of all my
studies." By his own reckoning, his conclusions on resistance
and motion outweighed all the astronomical discoveries that
immortalized his name. Surely Galileo prided himself on having
been the first to build a proper telescope and point it toward
the sky. But he believed his own greater genius lay in his
ability to observe the world at hand, to understand the behavior
of its parts, and to describe these in terms of mathematical
proportions. Posterity agrees. As Albert Einstein noted, "Propositions
arrived at purely by logical means are completely empty as
regards reality. Because Galileo saw this, and particularly
because he drummed it into the scientific world, he is the
father of modern physics—indeed, of modern science altogether."
Illustration
from Galileo’s Dialogue
Galileo
Galilei: A Chronology
1564: February 15. Galileo Galilei is born in Pisa, Italy.
1581: Studies four years at the University of Pisa. Leaves
without a degree.
1586–9: Begins work on physics. Invents hydrostatic
balance.
1589–92: Teaches mathematics at the University of Pisa.
Writes On Motion using Archimedian approach to motion:
speed of falling bodies is proportional to their density,
not their weight as Aristotle said.
1593: Invents a horse-driven pump for raising water. Receives
patent from the Venetian Senate in 1594.
1595: Develops his explanation of the tides, which invokes
the annual and diurnal motion of the Earth.
1597: Invents a geometric and military compass, used to solve
practical mathematical problems.
1600: In Rome, Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake for his
beliefs in the Copernican system and the concept of an infinite
universe.
1602: Galileo experiments with the pendulum on natural accelerated
motion.
1604: First experiments with uniformly accelerated motion
on a gently sloping inclined plane, leading to the law of
falling bodies. A supernova is first observed in Padua in
October. Galileo first observes it on Christmas Eve.
1605: January. Delivers three lectures on the supernova, arguing
that change must be admitted in the heavens.
1607–8: Hans Lippershey invents the telescope in Holland.
1609: Cosimo II de' Medici becomes Grand Duke of Tuscany.
Galileo hears of the invention of the telescope, duplicates
the invention, improves it to the eighth power, and presents
it to the Venetian Senate.
1610: January. Galileo discovers the four satellites of Jupiter.
The Starry Messenger, dedicated to Cosimo II, Grand
Duke of Tuscany is published in Venice. Appointed Philosopher
and Mathematician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Verifies that
Venus goes through phases like the Moon, proving that Venus
orbits the Sun.
1611: Galileo arrives in Rome on March 29. Johannes Fabricius
begins his observations of sunspots in Germany. In April,
The Collegio Romano certifies his celestial discoveries, though
they disagree with his interpretation of them. At a debate
during a state dinner for two visiting cardinals, Galileo
supports the Archimedean arguments about bodies in water.
He is supported by Cardinal Maffeo Barberini (later Pope Urban
VIII), who became one of Galileo's patrons at this time.
1612: Benedetto Castelli, professor of mathematics at the
University of Pisa, a student of Galileo, defends the Copernican
theory to the Grand Duchess Christina of Lorraine. Galileo
composes a long letter to Castelli about his views on the
relationship between science and Scriptures, which circulates
widely to the detriment of his cause.
1614: Dominican friar Tommaso Caccini preaches a sermon against
Galileo, calling him a heretic.
1615: Dominican friar Niccolo Lorini files a written complaint
against Galileo with the Inquisition. Carmelite Friar Paolo
Antonio Foscarini publishes a book arguing that Copernican
theory is compatible with Scripture. Galileo writes a long
letter defending his views to Monsignor Piero Dini, a well-connected
official in the Vatican. In April, Cardinal Bellarmin cautions
Foscarini to treat the Copernican theory as hypothesis only,
including Galileo in his comments.
December. Galileo goes to Rome to defend his Copernican ideas.
January. Writes up his theory about the tides, which, he argues,
proves the motion of the earth.
1616: February. A committee declares to the Inquisition that
the proposition that the Sun is the center of the universe
is both absurd in philosophy and formally heretical, and that
the proposition that the Earth moves is absurd in philosophy
and erroneous in theology. Cardinal Bellarmin calls Galileo
to his residence, warning him not to hold or defend the Copernican
theory.
1616: March. The Congregation of the Index suspends Copernicus's
On the Revolutions until corrected, and bans Foscarini's
book entirely. Galileo has an audience with Pope Paul V.
1621: Pope Paul V dies. He is succeeded by Gregory XV, who
dies in July 1623.
1623: Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, friend and patron of Galileo,
is elected Pope and takes the name Urban VIII. In October,
Galileo's The Assayer, dedicated to Pope Urban VIII,
is published in Rome.
1624: Galileo goes to Rome. Has six audiences with Pope Urban
VIII and is assured that he may write about the Copernican
theory as hypothesis.
1624–25: A complaint against Galileo's Assayer
is lodged, charging that the atomism espoused in the book
goes against Church doctrine regarding the Eucharist, in which
bread and wine are transubstantiated into Christ's flesh and
blood. After investigation by the Inquisition, Galileo is
cleared. Galileo finishes his Dialogue Concerning the
Two Chief World Systems. In June, he clears his Dialogue
with censors in Rome.
1631: Spring. Through the Grand Duke and his ambassador in
Rome, Galileo negotiates with the Vatican Secretary about
the printing of the Dialogue. The result is that
the preface and ending may be approved in Rome, with the remainder
checked and approved by the Inquisition in Florence.
1632: February. Printing of the Dialogue is completed.
Summer. Distribution of the Dialogue is prohibited
by Pope Urban VIII who refers the case to the Inquisition.
October. Galileo is summoned from Florence to Rome by the
Inquisition. For health reasons, he requests that the trial
be moved to Florence. His request is refused by Urban VIII.
December. The Florentine Inquisitor notifies Rome that he
has visited Galileo, who is ill in bed, and three physicians
sign a statement that he was too ill to undertake the journey
to Rome. At a meeting presided over by Urban VIII, the Inquisition
rejects Galileo's excuse as subterfuge, and sends him notification
that if he does not come to Rome voluntarily, he will be arrested
and brought to Rome in chains.
1633: January. Galileo arrives in Rome on February 13. He
is forbidden social contact.
April. Galileo is formally interrogated by the Inquisition
for two weeks. On April 30, Galileo confesses that he may
have made the Copernican case in the Dialogue too
strong and offers to refute it in his next book.
June. Urban VIII decides that Galileo will be imprisoned for
an indefinite period. With a formal threat of torture, Galileo
is examined by the Inquisition and sentenced to prison and
religious penances.
1633: July. Galileo is under house arrest at the residence
of the Tuscan Ambassador, then at the residence of the Archbishop
of Siena, where he begins putting together his Discourse
on Two New Sciences.
December. He is allowed to return to his home in Arcetri,
near Florence. He remains under house arrest for life.
1634: Winter. Galileo suffers from a painful hernia. Requests
permission from Rome to consult physicians in Florence. The
request is denied, and he is told further requests will result
in imprisonment.
1637: Louis Elsevier, a Dutch publisher, visits Galileo in
Arcetri and agrees to publish the Discourse on Two New
Sciences in Leiden. Galileo states in a letter that he
has lost all vision in his right eye.
1638: Now totally blind, Galileo petitions the Inquisition
to be freed. He is denied, but allowed to go to his house
in Florence to be closer to his physicians. He obtains permission
to attend church on religious holidays, provided that he have
no contact with others. Discourse on Two New Sciences
comes off the press in the Netherlands. John Milton visits
Galileo in Arcetri.
1641: Galileo conceives of the application of the pendulum
to clocks.
1642: January. Galileo dies in Arcetri on January 8.
Information compiled from The Galileo Project Web site
and Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel.
“Leading
Cardinal Redefines Church's View on Evolution”
By Cornelia Dean and Laurie Goodstein
Excerpted from The New York Times July 9, 2005 edition
An influential cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, which
has long been regarded as an ally of the theory of evolution,
is now suggesting that belief in evolution as accepted by
science today may be incompatible with Catholic faith. The
cardinal, Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna,
a theologian…close to Pope Benedict XVI, staked out
his position in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on
Thursday…"Evolution in the sense of common ancestry
might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense—an
unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural
selection—is not.
Opponents of Darwinian evolution said they were gratified
by Cardinal Schönborn's essay. But scientists and science
teachers reacted with confusion, dismay and even anger...Cardinal
Schönborn, who is on the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic
Education…said he believed students in Catholic schools,
and all schools, should be taught that evolution is just one
of many theories.
…Dr. Francis Collins, who headed the official American
effort to decipher the human genome, and who describes himself
as a Christian, though not a Catholic, said Cardinal Schönborn's
essay looked like "a step in the wrong direction"
and said he feared that it "may represent some backpedaling
from what scientifically is a very compelling conclusion,
especially now that we have the ability to study DNA. There
is a deep and growing chasm between the scientific and the
spiritual world views," he went on. "To the extent
that the cardinal's essay makes believing scientists less
and less comfortable inhabiting the middle ground, it is unfortunate.
It makes me uneasy…."
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