The trial and house arrest of Renaissance genius Galileo Galilei by the Inquisition in 1633 because of his published views that the earth revolves around the sun, rather than vice versa, is one of the most notorious episodes in the intellectual history of the Roman Catholic Church.

Galileo would remain under house arrest having been found guilty in Rome of ‘vehement heresy’ for his support of the Copernican view of the universe (that the sun is the centre of the solar system), rather than the classical view (that the earth is), until his death in 1642 at the age of 77.