Urban VIII
Pope in whose reign Galileo was tried. The registers of the Holy Office show him deciding on 16 June 1633 how the case should end and, after the sentence, changing the place of Galileo’s confinement.
The decrees of the Holy Office record meetings held before him at the Quirinal palace in June 1633 (Galileo trial documents, decrees of 23 June, 30 June and 1 December 1633 (Opere 19, pp. 284–286)). On 16 June he decided that Galileo Galilei should be examined about his intention under threat of torture, should abjure before the full Congregation and be condemned to prison, that the Dialogue should be prohibited, and that copies of the sentence should be sent to the nuncios and inquisitors and read to professors of mathematics (Galileo trial documents, decree of 16 June 1633 (Opere 19, pp. 282–283)).
On 23 June, the day after the sentence, he ordered Galileo moved from the prison of the Holy Office to the palace of the grand duke of Tuscany in Rome (Galileo trial documents, decrees of 23 June, 30 June and 1 December 1633 (Opere 19, pp. 284–286)). On 30 June he sent him to Siena, and on 1 December he allowed him to go to his own country house, to live there in seclusion (Galileo trial documents, decrees of 23 June, 30 June and 1 December 1633 (Opere 19, pp. 284–286)). See the Trial of Galileo.
In the timeline
- 22 June 1633, firm dateThe Trial of Galileo
The Roman Inquisition judges Galileo vehemently suspected of heresy for holding that the earth moves round the sun, bans his Dialogue and makes him abjure. He is confined to his house near Florence, where he dies in 1642.