The Cardinal firmly and clearly showed Galileo the error of his way. Galileo offered to prove for the Cardinal by astronomical observations that the Copernican Theory was true. Cardinal Bellarmine said that there was only one truth and that was spiritual truth. That the Bible was true, or it was not. If not, then was religion a fallacy and our hope of Heaven a delusion.
Galileo contended that the death of Christ had nothing to do with the truth, so Science and these things should not be shuffled and confused.
This attitude of mind greatly shocked the Inquisitors, and they made haste to inform the Pope, who at once issued an order that the astronomer should be placed in a dungeon until he saw fit to disavow that the sun was the center of the universe, and the earth moves.
A sort of compromise, it seems, was here effected by Galileo's promise not to further teach that the earth revolves.
He was kept at Rome under strict surveillance for some months, but was finally allowed to return to Florence, and cautioned that he must cease all public teaching, speaking and writing on the subject of astronomy. On March Fifth, Sixteen Hundred Sixteen, the consulting theologians of the Holy Office reiterated that the propositions of Galileo, that the sun is the center of the universe, and that the earth has a rotary motion, were "absurd in philosophy, heretical, and also contrary to Scripture."
The works of Copernicus were then placed upon the "Index," and Pope Paul issued a special decree, warning all Churchmen to "abjure, shun and forever abstain from giving encouragement, support, succor or friendship to any one who believed or taught that the earth revolves."
The name of Copernicus was not removed from the "Index" until the year Eighteen Hundred Eighteen.
alileo made his way back to Florence, defeated and disappointed. He had not been tortured, except mentally, but he had heard the dungeon-key turned in the big lock and felt the humiliation of being made a captive. The instruments of torture had been shown to him, and he had heard the cries of the condemned.
The cell that Bruno had occupied was his, and he was also taken to the spot where Bruno was burned: the place was there, but where was Bruno!