Despite extensive study of the Galileo affair in recent years, there are still some important documents relating to the case which have received little attention in the English-speaking world. In his translation of Thomas Campanella's "Apologia pro Galileo," Richard J. Blackwell presents for the first time in English a reliable and highly readable translation of this important and neglected work. Campanella, the maverick Dominican, sought to head off the confrontation between Galileo and the theologians by defending Galileo's right to develop, debate, and publish his ideas freely. By making...

Considered the paradigm case of the troubled interaction between science and religion, the conflict between Galileo and the Church continues to generate new research and lively debate. Richard J. Blackwell offers a fresh approach to the Galileo case, using as his primary focus the biblical and ecclesiastical issues that were the battleground for the celebrated confrontation. Blackwell's research in the Vatican manuscript collection and the Jesuit archives in Rome enables him to re-create a vivid picture of the trends and countertrends that influenced leading Catholic thinkers of the period:...