After the first injunction against him in 1616, the scientific revolutionary Galileo Galilei could no longer hold, defend, or teach Copernican astronomy. In 1633, he was tried again, this time by the Roman Inquisition, and was found guilty. Because of his fame and old age, however, the great astronomer was spared the heretic's punishment of torture and death. Instead, Galileo spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
Galileo was so controversial it took 350 years for the Catholic Church to officially concede, in 1992, that he and Copernicus were right, the Earth did orbit the Sun.
On March 12, 1737, ninety-five years after his death, Galileo's grave was robbed. The thief was Anton Francesco Gori, a professor, who cut off three of Galileo's fingers when his body was being moved from a temporary tomb to the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence. The practice of removing dead saints' fingers and other body parts was common, as the relics were believed to hold sacred powers. Gori was honouring Galileo as a martyr, a secular saint of science, who blasted apart old beliefs and liberated us with his thinking.
It was almost two centuries later, in 1927, when the first of Galileo's missing fingers was found. Today, it is on display at Florence's Galileo Museum. There, sealed in a glass jar, defiantly pointing to the heavens, is Galileo's middle finger.
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from The Reality Bubble: Blind Spots, Hidden Truths, and the Dangerous Illusions that Shape Our World
by Ziya Tong, Penguin Random House (Pub. May 2019)
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