This directed the attention of the Inquisition to his labours, but in
1632 he published his immortal work _Dialogo sopra i due Massimi Sistemi
del monda, Tolemaico et Copernicano_ (Florence), which was the cause of
his undoing. In this book he defended the opinion of Copernicus concerning
the motion of the earth round the sun, which was supposed by the
theologians of the day to be an opinion opposed to the teaching of Holy
Scripture and subversive of all truth. The work was brought before the
Inquisition at Rome, and condemned by the order of Pope Urban VIII.
Galileo was commanded to renounce his theory, but this he refused to do,
and was cast into prison. "Are these then my judges?" he exclaimed when he
was returning from the presence of the Inquisitors, whose ignorance
astonished him. There he remained for five long years; until at length,
wearied by his confinement, the squalor of the prison, and by his
increasing years, he consented to recant his "heresy," and regained his
liberty. The old man lost his sight at seventy-four years of age, and died
four years later in 1642. In addition to the work which caused him so
great misfortunes he published _Discorso e Demonstr. interna alle due
nuove Scienze, Delia Scienza Meccanica (1649), Tractato della Sfera
(1655)_; and the telescope, the isochronism of the vibrations of the
pendulum, the hydrostatic balance, the thermometer, were all invented by
this great leader of astronomical and scientific discoverers.
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