Resumo de Galileo - Bertolt Brecht

Galileo's trial by the Inquisition is one of the most dramatic incidents in the history of science and religion. Today, we tend to see this event in black and white--Galileo all white, the Church all black. Galileo in Rome presents a much more nuanced account of Galileo's relationship with Rome. The book offers a fascinating account of the six trips Galileo made to Rome, from his first visit at age 23, as an unemployed mathematician, to his final fateful journey to face the Inquisition. The authors reveal why the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun, set forth in Galileo's Dialogue, stirred a hornet's nest of theological issues, and they argue that, despite these issues, the Church might have accepted Copernicus if there had been solid proof. More interesting, they show how Galileo dug his own grave. To get the imprimatur, he brought political pressure to bear on the Roman Censor. He disobeyed a Church order not to teach the heliocentric theory. And he had a character named Simplicio (which in Italian sounds like simpleton) raise the same objections to heliocentrism that the Pope had raised with Galileo. The authors show that throughout the trial, until the final sentence and abjuration, the Church treated Galileo with great deference, and once he was declared guilty commuted his sentence to house arrest. Here then is a unique look at the life of Galileo as well as a strikingly different view of an event that has come to epitomize the Church's supposed antagonism toward science.

In Bertolt Brecht's The Life of Galileo, the ongoing conflict between rationalism and religious authority is portrayed through Galileo Galilei's epic battle with the might of the Vatican. The play depicts the later years of the Italian astronomer's life as he struggles to promote the ideas of Copernicus in the face of fierce opposition from the Catholic Church. In the 17th century, claiming that the Earth rotates around the Sun was tantamount to heresy; as the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno found out to his cost in 1600, when he was burned at the stake for refusing to recant his heliocentric beliefs. According to Brecht's Galileo, Bruno's only mistake was that he had no proof.As a pure spectacle, The Life of Galileo is a fantastic advertisement for the joy of discovery. Despite his short and stout appearance, Simon Beale's ranting and obsessive Galileo dominates the stage and the play. Galileo's fanatical support for reason, and his frustration at the religious authorities, are expressed energetically by Beale. His explanations for observations of sunspots and mountains on the Moon have a verve and enthusiasm that makes one wonder why fewer pupils today are studying physics ? particularly in the opening scene of the play where Galileo demonstrates the Copernican system to his housekeeper's young son.

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