The Trial of Galileo , livre ebook

The Trial of Galileo
REACTING TO THE PAST is an award-winning series of immersive role-playing games that actively engage students in their own learning. Students assume the roles of historical characters and practice critical thinking, primary source analysis, and argument, both written and spoken. Reacting games are flexible enough to be used across the curriculum, from first-year general education classes and discussion sections of lecture classes to capstone experiences, intersession courses, and honors programs.
Reacting to the Past was originally developed under the auspices of Barnard College and is sustained by the Reacting Consortium of colleges and universities. The Consortium hosts a regular series of conferences and events to support faculty and administrators.
Note to instructors: Before beginning the game you must download the Gamemaster s Materials, including an instructor s guide containing a detailed schedule of class sessions, role sheets for students, and handouts.
To download this essential resource, visit https://reactingconsortium.org/games , click on the page for this title, then click Instructors Guide.
The Trial of Galileo
Aristotelianism, the New Cosmology, and the Catholic Church, 1616-1633
Michael S. Pettersen, Frederick Purnell Jr., and Mark C. Carnes

The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill
2022 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.
Cover illustration: Cristiano Banti, Galileo Facing the Roman Inquisition, 1857. Wikimedia Commons.
ISBN 978-1-4696-7081-2 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4696-7240-3 (e-book)
Table of Contents
I. THE GAME
Introduction: A Walk to the University
The Historical Context
The Protestant Challenge
Aristotle and Aquinas
Enter Galileo Galilei
The Religious Controversy Begins
The Cast of Characters
Role Allocation by Class Size
Allocation of Positions within the Major Factions
Factional and Indeterminate Players: Basic Goals
Key Elements of the Game
The Holy Office
Debates within the Academies
Prince Cesi s Party
Patron Credits
Writing Assignments
Classes with Laboratory Experiments/Demonstrations
Ways in Which the Game Departs from History
Phases of the Game
Phase One (1616)
Phase Two (1632-1633)
Game Strategy
Class Assignments and Activities
Overview
Set-Up Sessions
Game Sessions 1-5: Phase One (1616)
Game Sessions 6-9: Phase Two (1632-1633)
Post-Mortem Sessions
II. APPENDICES
Appendix A: Introduction to Astronomy from Aristotle to Copernicus
Appendix B: Aristotle, On the Heavens and Posterior Analytics
Appendix C: Decrees by the Council of Trent Concerning Heresy
Appendix D: Galileo, The Starry Messenger (1610)
Appendix E: Galileo, Letter to Grand Duchess Christina (1615)
Appendix F: Galileo, Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems (1632)
Appendix G: Laboratory Exercises
Appendix H: Bibliographical References
I. The Game
Introduction: A Walk to the University
Last night was a sleepless one. One argument collided with another and another. When you awoke your bed covers were on the floor in a heap, a confused tangle, like so much of life. And over it all looms an omnipotent God whose purposes are so hard to understand. The Protestants say that anyone can and should read Holy Scripture. But if everyone can make his own sense of the Bible, then the word of God means many different things. And if something can have innumerable meanings, then it has no concrete meaning For this reason the Catholic Church prohibited publication of the Bible thirty years ago. It is the task of the Church and its fathers to discern God s purposes. And soon you are to assist in this awesome task, reason enough for a sleepless night.
As you make your way to the University, a cool morning breeze sends a shiver down your spine. You hurry across the street, moving from the shadows into the sunlight Pausing, you look up. The Sun has just cleared the Coliseum. Then you shake your head. Again, these questions!
Does it-the Sun-rise? You recall the passage in the Book of Joshua, Sun, stand Thou still! If God commanded the Sun to stop, then normally the Sun moves. That is evident to everyone. You see that the Sun has just moved above the Coliseum. When you walk home later, the other side of the street will be in shadows. The Sun will have moved, not the buildings. This seems obvious.
Aristotle, writing nearly 2,000 years ago, explained it to nearly everyone s satisfaction. The Earth rests motionless at the center of the universe. Around it rotates, in progressively larger orbits, the Moon, planets, and the Sun; at the outer edge of the universe rotates the celestial orb holding the stars. Aristotle explained, too, that the universe consisted of two distinct realms: the sublunary [below the Moon] realm, extending from the center of the Earth nearly to the Moon; and the heavenly realm, extending from the Moon to the stars, the end of the universe. Each realm, moreover, was fundamentally different: the earthly realm was always changing; the heavenly realm was perfect and immutable.
Several centuries ago, Christian scholars found that this Aristotelian [EH-RIS-TOH-TEE-LEE-AN] cosmology not only explained the world, but it also accorded with the word of God. Little wonder that Aristotelianism has become the foundation of all philosophy.
But certain new philosophers propose that the Sun remains fixed in its place and the Earth moves around it. It is an amazing idea, first suggested, though not accepted, by the ancient Greeks, and now given new life by Copernicus [CO-PERN-EH-CUS], a Dominican scholar, almost a century ago. In On the Revolutions (1543), Copernicus suggested that the huge ball of the Earth turns completely around each day and, over the course of a year, the Earth arcs in a stupendous circle around the Sun. Copernicus died shortly after publishing his hypothesis, and not much further came of it.
In the past decade Galileo Galilei, a Tuscan mathematician and philosopher, has embraced Copernicanism with ingenuity and vigor and he has won over more than a few learned scholars, including some churchmen. Now a debate rages in the universities and, increasingly, among important Catholic prelates. Is it possible that Rome, along with the Earth, is now spinning? If so, then the Bible-the word of God-is seemingly in error. Can that be?
How do we know the truth? How do we know how to know?
A flock of pigeons breaks your reverie. You need to focus on the job at hand. Things are moving quickly-both those you know of and, you suspect, a great many more behind the scenes.
Galileo has long been defending Copernican views to his friends. But in recent years Galileo has found a new source of evidence from an unlikely source: a child s toy-a spyglass. Galileo improved the toy, chiefly by grinding new lenses and positioning them with mathematical precision inside a tube. Now, when viewed through this spyglass, an object appears thirty times closer to the observer than to the naked eye. Galileo pointed his spyglass at the sky and claimed that he had found powerful refutation of Aristotle. Galileo published these claims in The Starry Messenger (1610).
For several years not much happened. But last year a Dominican priest at a church in Florence railed against heretics who took it upon themselves to contravene Holy Scripture by writing that the Earth moves and the Sun stands still; he mentioned Galileo by name. A few months later another Dominican priest wrote to the Inquisition in Rome, complaining that Galileo s opinions were heretical. Now the Inquisition has decided to conduct an investigation to determine whether Galileo is a heretic, and whether Copernicanism is a heresy. You are to be an important part of the proceedings. What will transpire is unclear. Church authorities keep mostly to themselves on matters as delicate as this.
You stumble against a loose paving stone. You recall that yesterday workmen had been repairing a broken water main; obviously, they had forgotten to tap the stones fully into place. Does no one take their job seriously anymore? These are troubling times, unsettling times. One has to watch one s step.
The point is underscored as you come to the Campo de Fiori, the flower market. Here, sixteen years ago, in the Year of Our Lord 1600, the ex-Dominican Giordano Bruno was burned alive by order of the Inquisition. Church authorities never said exactly why he had been condemned. Everyone knows that he had defended Copernicanism; but Bruno had also said many foolish things, such as that the universe was infinite and that it contained innumerable world-systems like our own. Worse, he denounced modern Christianity as a triumphant beast that distracted people from the true religion of the ancient Egyptians. Little wonder he was burned at the stake, particularly when the Catholic Church was faced with the ongoing challenge presented by the Protestants in northern Europe. Proponents of Bruno s views, as well as practitioners of witchcraft and the occult, have not been completely eradicated from Christendom, or from Rome for that matter, but Bruno s gruesome demise reminds everyone that the Church takes the new cosmology-the new science, as some term it-seriously.
In a few minutes you arrive at the College of Rome. Among those lounging outside, you look for your friends, members of the Jesuit Order that runs the College. You have great respect for some of the faculty s contributions to astronomy and mathematics. Father Christopher Clavius, who wrote brilliantly on geometry and cosmology, was known throughout Europe. He died just over three years ago. He has been succeeded by his former student, the German Christoph Grienberger. Grienberger has published a new catalogue of fixed stars [so-called because they appear to move together across the sky, as though affixed