Bruno (Giordano) was burnt alive for maintaining that matter is the mother of all things (1550-1600).
Crosse (Andrew), electrician, was shunned as a profane man, because he asserted that certain minute animals of the genus Acarus had been developed by him out of inorganic elements (1784-1855).
Dee (Dr. John) had his house broken into by a mob, and all his valuable library, museum, and mathematical instruments destroyed, because he was so wise that “he must have been allied with the devil” (1527-1608).
Feargil. (See “Virgilius.”)
Galileo was imprisoned by the Inquisition for daring to believe that the earth moved round the sun and not the sun round the earth. In order to get his liberty, he was obliged to “abjure the heresy;” but as the door closed he muttered, E pur si muove (“But it does move, though”), (1564-1642)[(1564-1642)].
Gerbert, who introduced algebra into Christendom, was accused of dealing in the black arts, and was shunned as a “son of Belial.”
Grosted or Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, author of some two hundred works, was accused of dealing in the black arts, and the pope wrote a letter to Henry III., enjoining him to disinter the bones of the too-wise bishop, as they polluted the very dust of God’s acre (died 1253).
Faust (Dr.), the German philosopher, was accused of diabolism for his wisdom so far in advance of the age.
Peyrere was imprisoned in Brussels for attempting to prove that man existed before Adam (seventeenth century).
Protagoras, the philosopher, was banished from Athens, for his book On the Gods.