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Like so many larger-than-life figures, Galileo Galilei (February 15, 1564-January 8, 1642) made it to the top of his field through a combination of hard work and a connection to people in powerful places, specifically the Medici family.

Galileo’s parents, Giulia Ammannati and Vincenzo Galilei, a respected music teacher who conducted experiments on lute strings to support his musical theories, sent their son away from home in Florence at age 10 to study with a tutor in preparation for further education at the Camaldolese Monastery. Vincenzo wanted Galileo to become a physician, but he was intrigued by the monks and became a novice with every intention of joining the order. Galileo eventually bowed to parental pressure and enrolled at the University of Pisa to study medicine. When his interest turned to mathematics, only the intervention of a professor persuaded his father to let his son pursue his studies further.

Galileo began teaching mathematics, first as a professor at University of Pisa—an appointment he secured with the assistance of Ferdinand Medici. After his father’s death, Galileo became financially responsible for his family and took a position at University of Padua that paid three times his previous salary. During his 18-year term at Padua, he began a long-term relationship with Marina Gamba with whom he fathered two daughters and a son. Following the lead of other scientists of the day who remained single so they could pursue their research unfettered by spouses, Galileo never married Marina, making their daughters ineligible to marry. Once they came of age, he sent them to the Franciscan Convent of San Matteo to become nuns.

In 1609, Galileo heard of a spyglass invented by a Dutchman. Using his mathematical skills, he devised his own telescope eventually achieving a magnification level of about eight or nine. The Venetian Senate was so intrigued with the device that they bought the rights from Galileo—rights that were useless since the telescope

was not his own invention. Perhaps in retaliation, the senate later froze his salary. Galileo soon resigned his position at Padua and became chief mathematician at University of Pisa and mathematician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo Medici, to whom he had also sent a telescope.

Looking up at the skies with his telescope, Galileo was amazed by what he saw. He looked closely at the moon, discovered the four satellites of Jupiter, spotted a supernova, confirmed the phases of Venus and discovered sunspots, all of which reinforced his beliefs that Copernicus was right in his assertion that the sun and not the earth was the center of the solar system. Soon Galileo began to publish works defending the Polish astronomer. In his Letter to Castelli, he argued that the Bible had to be interpreted using scientific facts. Although the letter was sent to the Inquisition in Rome for review, the Church found little to object to at the time.

However, in 1616, when he wrote a letter to the Grand Duchess, Christina Medici—arguing that when mathematic science contradicted scripture, the Bible should be interpreted non-literally—his relationship with the Catholic Church began to deteriorate. The Inquisition forbade him from holding Copernican beliefs. But, in 1632, believing that his published works—one of which he dedicated to Pope Urban VIII—and his frequent audiences with the pope would allow him more intellectual freedom, he published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems – Ptolemaic and Copernican.

Galileo was very mistaken, and he was summoned to Rome to appear before the Inquisition. Grand Duke Ferdinand made some initial pleas on Galileo’s behalf, but when the duke was chastised by Pope Urban VIII for his support of Galileo, the Medici nobleman backed off, leaving Galileo to fend for himself. In 1633, Galileo was found guilty of heresy and sentenced to lifelong imprisonment, a sentence that given his age and deteriorating health, amounted to house arrest. During his imprisonment he did some of his most spectacular work. He wrote Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning the Two New Sciences, which was smuggled out of Italy and published in Holland. He also began experimenting with pendulums, and in the last part of his life, he invented the first pendulum clock.

Galileo died in 1642. Three hundred and fifty years later, on October 31, 1992, Pope John Paul II gave an address during which he acknowledged the errors of the theological advisors in the case against Galileo. Although he declared the Galileo matter closed, he did neither acknowledged nor apologized for the Church’s errors in convicting Galileo of heresy because of his belief that the earth rotates around the sun.

Even today, the relationship between Galileo and the Catholic Church still stirs controversy. Pope Benedict XVI had been scheduled to visit La Sapienza University in Rome on January 17, 2008. But academics, seething that the Pope condoned Galileo’s heresy conviction as a cardinal 15 years earlier, staged such a fevered protest that the Pope’s visit was cancelled.

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