Report by Ian McKay
Following the publication in 1632 of his Dialogo…, Galileo found himself hauled before the Inquisition and tried for his heretical views.
This was a work which offered both a defence of the Copernican, heliocentric view of the solar system and a risky portrayal of his old friend and protector Maffeo Baberini, Pope Urban III. The pope is depicted as one of the three figures who discuss the merits of Copernican proposal – the simple-minded ‘Simplicius’, an adherent to the old Ptolemaic and Aristotelian theories.