Behind the Scenes of Galileo's Trial: Including the First English Translation of Melchior Inchofer's Tractatus Syllepticus. By Richard J. Blackwell. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 2006. xiii+245 pp. $35.00 cloth; $28.00 paper.

摘要

Richard Blackwell is already well known to Galileo scholars for his previousrnbooks: Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible (Notre Dame, Ind.: University ofNotre Dame, 1991) and A Defense of Galileo, a Mathematician from Florencern(the English translation of Campanella’s Apologia pro Galileo, [Notre Dame,rnInd.: University of Notre Dame, 1994]). His new book is another worthwhilernaddition to the Galileo literature. In the four chapters of its first part,rnBlackwell offers a reconstruction of the various events behind the scenes ofrnGalileo’s trial and condemnation (April–June 1633) and of the role played inrnit by two important dramatis personae (the Jesuits, Melchior Inchofer andrnChristoph Scheiner). This is followed by a final reflection on the meaning ofrnthe trial in light of the present-day religion and science debate. The secondrnpart of the book contains the first English translation of the Tractatusrnsyllepticus of Inchofer (a theological vindication of Galileo’s condemnation),rnand of the first chapter of Christoph Scheiner’s Prodromus pro Sole mobilern(its scientific vindication), as well as the translation of several officialrndocuments of the Society of Jesus enforcing on members of the order a strictrnfidelity to Aristotelian philosophy.