Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was an Italian physicist and astronomer who led the scientific revolution during the Renaissance . His studies on the fall of bodies laid the foundations on which Newton would found classical physics; the invention of the telescope in the field of astronomy, allowed him to obtain evidence in favor of the heliocentric model of Copernicus.
In the field of astronomy, Galilei is a symbol: his unshakable defense that the Sun was the center of everything and not the Earth represented – despite being accused of heresy by the Church – a triumph for science and reason of the cultural and religious obscurantism of the Middle Ages.
He studied medicine at the insistence of his father but began to study what he liked in an alternative way: mathematics. Galilei was a follower of Pythagoras, Plato and Archimedes and an opponent of Aristotelianism.
During the years that he lived in Padua, to teach geometry, mechanics and astronomy classes at his university, he met Marina Gamba , a woman with whom he would maintain a loving relationship from which three children were born but with whom he would never marry: Virginia, Livia and Vincenzo.
In 1606 he built the thermoscope, the forerunner of the thermometer.
He was the manufacturer of the first astronomical telescope to be used for such purposes. The telescope did not deform the objects like the previous ones presented and thanks to a divergent lens it gave the image in the correct orientation. Thanks to him, the considered father of science and father of modern astronomy and physics, observes that the moon is not a perfect sphere but has mountains, an indisputable proof to dismantle the Aristotelian theory that divided this world in two. The improvement of the instrument would lead him to discover the constellation of Orion, the star clusters, the phases of Venus or the sunspots.
After taking up the theory of Nicolás Copernicus that affirmed that the Earth revolved around the Sun and not the other way around, the church asked him not to defend this idea that the Earth moved or he would be accused of being heretic. He did not give up his efforts and continued to publicly present his thesis. Finally the Church entered the scene.
Despite the fact that the Inquisition accused him of “serious suspicion of heresy” and was forced to say “I Galileo Galilei abandon the false opinion that the Sun is the center (of the Universe) and is immobile. I abjure, curse and detest such mistakes ”, when he stood up after this imposed plea, he muttered: “ E pur si muove ” (And yet (the Earth) moves (around the Sun).
Galileo’s vision gradually deteriorated to blindness, probably due to his astronomical observations. Far from being an impediment to his work, he hired an apprentice to help him both to carry out his experiments and to take note of them.
Galilei was sentenced to house arrest for life, until the day of his death, January 8, 1642.
