Vatican City, Mar 6, 2008 / 05:10 am
The Vatican plans to erect a statue of the 16th century scientist Galileo in the Vatican gardens, the Times reports.
The statue will stand near the apartment in which the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was incarcerated while awaiting trial in 1633. He was charged with advocating heliocentrism, the theory of Copernicus that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Though he was not tortured or executed, as some believe, he was forced to recant by the Roman Inquisition.
Nicola Cabibbo, a nuclear physicist who heads the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, explained the motive for the statue. “The Church wants to close the Galileo affair and reach a definitive understanding not only of his great legacy but also of the relationship between science and faith,” he said.
Professor Cabibbo said that the statue was appropriate because Galileo had been one of the founders of the Lincei Academy, a forerunner of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, in 1603.