Dialogus de systemate mundi
Galileo Galilei. Lugduni (Lyons) : Sumptibus Ioan. Antonii Huguetan, 1641.
The early modern period was strongly influenced by beliefs from the Classical period, but it was also a time when many of those beliefs were challenged. This work contains Galileo Galilei’s (1564-1642) defense and proof of Copernicus’s theory of heliocentrism, the notion that the Earth travels around the sun.
This stance put him in direct opposition with the Catholic Church, which espoused the belief Ptolemaic belief that the Earth was the center of the universe that the sun, stars, and other celestial bodies orbited around. As a result, Galileo lost the support of the Jesuits that he previously had, and came under the scrutiny of the Roman Inquisition which charged him with heresy and placed him under house arrest.
The book was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books and not removed from the list until 1823.