Kneeling before Inquisition officials in Rome, the 69-year-old astronomer recanted his defense of Copernican heliocentrism, declaring he abjured, cursed, and detested his previous errors. He was sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life, but his condemned work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, continued circulating and shaping scientific thought across Europe.
Galileo had spent years defending Copernicus's theory that the Earth revolved around the sun, compiling telescopic observations of Jupiter's moons and Venus's phases that seemed to confirm it. His 1632 book, written as a dialogue between fictional characters, was clever and popular—too clever, in the eyes of Church authorities who saw it as a thinly veiled endorsement of a heresy Galileo had promised in 1616 not to promote.
Summoned to Rome despite his age and poor health, Galileo faced interrogation by the Inquisition. Legend holds he was shown instruments of torture, though historians debate whether actual torture was threatened or merely implied by procedure. Either way, the elderly scientist understood the stakes and, on June 22, 1633, knelt and recited a scripted abjuration of his 'errors.'
According to popular legend, immediately after recanting, Galileo muttered under his breath, 'Eppur si muove'—'And yet it moves'—referring to the Earth. Whether he actually said it remains disputed, but the phrase endures as a symbol of scientific conviction persisting beneath forced submission.
Key people: Galileo Galilei