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Updated: June 24, 2025
These facts would leave us to place Galileo's conversion somewhere between 1593 and 1597, although many years cannot be said to have elapsed between these two dates. The authenticity of this work has been doubted. It was printed at Rome, in 1656, from a MS. in the library of Somaschi, at Venice. See Opere di Galileo, tom. vii. p. 427.
The crystalline lens of the human eye, limited by the iris to a maximum opening about one-quarter of an inch in diameter, was the only collector of starlight available to the Greek and Arabian astronomers. Galileo's telescope, which in 1610 suddenly pushed out the boundaries of the known stellar universe and brought many thousands of stars into range, had a lens about 2-1/4 inches in diameter.
It was Cleanthes who wished to treat Aristarchus as the Church treated Galileo, for anticipating Galileo's discovery.
The area of this lens, proportional to the square of its diameter, was about eighty-one times that of the pupil of the eye. This great increase in the amount of light collected should bring to view stars down to magnitude 10.5, of which nearly half a million are known to exist. It is not too much to say that Galileo's telescope revolutionized human thought.
Lorini, a monk of the Dominican order, had already denounced to this body Galileo's letter to Castelli; and Caccini, bribed by the mastership of the convent of St Mary of Minerva, was invited to settle at Rome for the purpose of embodying the evidence against Galileo.
Thus the first great step was taken in the overthrow of that preposterous system of unquestioning adhesion to dogma, which had impeded the development of the knowledge of nature for nearly two thousand years. This revolutionary attitude towards the ancient beliefs was not calculated to render Galileo's relations with the University authorities harmonious.
Bacon constantly spoke of his friends, but his friends evidently did not share his temperament. The scientific man has seldom relished martyrdom, and Galileo's experience as late as 1633 shows what risks men of science ran who even indirectly attacked the vested interests of the Church.
Galileo's great contemporary, Kepler, was almost equally versatile, though his astronomical studies were of such pre-eminent importance that his other investigations sink into relative insignificance. Yet he performed some notable experiments in at least one department of physics.
The character of Galileo's artistic presentation may best be judged from an example, illustrating the vigorous assault of Salviati, the champion of the new theory, and the feeble retorts of his conservative antagonist: "Salviati.
"The starry Galileo, and his woes." To this planet did the philosopher direct the then newly-invented telescope, the result being the discovery of four attendant moons: while the analogy derived from the motions of these little stars, performing their revolutions round the primary planet in perfect order and concord, afforded an argument that had a powerful influence in confirming Galileo's own views in favor of the Copernican system of the universe, and ultimately converting the scientific world to the same opinion.
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