Galileo

Synopsis

Portrait of Galileo Galilei by Giusto Sustermans, c. 1640

Galileo, an eminent professor and scientist in Padua, a city in the 17th century Venetian Republic, is short of money. A prospective student, named Ludovico Marsali, tells him about a novel invention, the telescope ("a queer tube thing"), that is being sold in Amsterdam. Afterwards, the procurator of Padua University enters and informs Galileo that he cannot approve his application for a raise unless Galileo can produce inventions with practical applications. When Galileo protests that he will be unable to pursue his theoretical research into astronomy if he focuses on business pursuits, the procurator points out that his research into astronomy would be deemed heretical in other parts of Italy and that Venice provides greater academic freedom to scientists because Venetian merchants and industrialists seek to profit from the scientific advances.

Galileo realizes that he must appease his sponsors, replicates the Dutch telescope invention, and presents it to the leaders of Venice as his own creation. Galileo's daughter, Virginia, and Ludovico congratulate Galileo on his "invention" which Galileo claims is much improved from the Dutch version and Ludovico wryly responds that Galileo's is red rather than green. After presenting the telescope, Galileo receives an increase in his salary from the University and the procurator tells Galileo that the financial incentive was necessary to elicit inventions, but within a short time, the procurator discovers Galileo's ruse and is upset to have been publicly made a fool.

Galileo then uses the telescope for careful observations of the Moon and the planets, and he discovers the moons orbiting Jupiter. He makes plans to seek the sponsorship of the Medici Court in Florence where he hopes to be able to focus more on his writing and research, but his close friend and colleague, Sagredo, pleads with him not to leave Venice since the rest of Italy is dominated by clerics. His astronomical observations strongly support Nicolaus Copernicus' heliocentric model of the Solar System, which is counter to popular belief, Aristotelian physics and the established doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. When doubters quote scripture and Aristotle to him, Galileo pleads with them to look in his telescope and trust the observations of their eyes; they refuse.

Virginia's years long engagement to Ludovico Marsali, a wealthy young man whom she genuinely loves, is broken because of Galileo's reluctance to distance himself from his unorthodox teachings. He furthermore publishes his views in vernacular Italian, rather than traditional scientific Latin, thus making his work and conclusions more accessible to the common people, enraging the Church. Galileo is brought to the Vatican in Rome for interrogation by the Inquisition. Upon being threatened with torture, he recants his teachings. His students are shocked by his surrender in the face of pressure from the church authorities.

Galileo, old and broken, now living under house arrest with a priest monitoring his activities, is visited by one of his former pupils, Andrea. Galileo gives him a book (Two New Sciences) containing all his scientific discoveries, asking him to smuggle it out of Italy for dissemination abroad. Andrea now believes Galileo's actions were heroic and that he just recanted to fool the ecclesiastical authorities. However, Galileo insists his actions had nothing to do with heroism but were merely the result of self-interest.


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