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CULTURE
AND COSMOS
Volume 7 Number 1
Chapter 11. Rome, 1630
William Shea
Editor's Note. Galileo completed in
January 1630 his grand masterpiece, the Dialogue Between Two World-Systems,
and entrusted its reading to his Roman friend ‘the Dominican Niccolo Riccardi,
who had become the Master of the Apostolic Palace, and whose duty it was to
authorise the publication of books. Hoping for calm, scientific discussion,
Galileo instead found himself plunged into perilous skullduggery and intrigue,
with Jesuit accusations of forbidden astrological prognostications … The Pope
who had been addicted to astrology was now turning against it. His Bull that
spelt ruin for astrologers came out in 1631, the very year in which Galileo’s Dialogue
went to press: printing of the latter began in June, and it finally emerged on
21 June 1632.
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