Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/480

476 contained not seven stars but thirty-six and that the milky way was powdered with stars. In reward for his discoveries the Venetian Senate doubled his salary of professor at Padua, and secured that position to him for life. He was made philosopher extraordinary to the grand duke of Tuscany, and the next year visited Rome, where he exhibited the wonders of the heavens to the eminent personages of the Pope's court.

But war on Galileo soon flamed forth. The spiritual authorities saw that established dogmas were endangered. He was accused of heresy and atheism. The story of his summons before the inquisition, his trial, conviction and suffering, has been told too often to be repeated here. The triumph of superstition over his astronomical discoveries was for the time complete. This great genius lived to see his works expelled from all the universities of Europe, their publication prohibited, and he knew that he was doomed to face all posterity as one who had committed perjury to escape torture.

Sixteen years previous to Galileo's first summons to Rome, poor Giordano Bruno was burned in that city. In his wanderings to escape persecution Bruno had visited England and while there published his exposition of the Copernican system. Prudence frequently obliged him to change his place of residence and it is not strange that he finally drifted to Venice. Here greater religious liberty was permitted than in other Italian cities, and here the stake had never been erected. It was at the Palazzo Mocenigo, on the Grand Canal, that emissaries of the inquisition finally ran him to earth. The first indictment of the inquisition charged him with teaching that there were innumerable worlds. He was burned to death in the Piazzo Campo di Fiore in the year 1600. Galileo's greatest contemporary was Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion which paved the way to the greater discoveries of Newton. Kepler was abused, imprisoned and warned that he must bring his theories into harmony with the scriptures. Astronomy was then so poorly patronized that to increase his meager income he was obliged to pay homage to the astrological superstitions of Rudolph II. and Wallenstein.

One of Kepler's most terrible experiences arose from the prevailing superstition of sorcery. His aunt and his mother were charged with being witches and sentenced to be burned alive. Through Kepler's indefatigable efforts, and the influence of powerful friends, his mother was saved, but the suffering which she endured during more than a year's imprisonment resulted in her death a few months later. Kepler's aunt was burned at the stake.

The writings of all ages up to the eighteenth century show that comets were believed to be dire messengers of woe. Stars and meteors were generally thought to foretell happy events, especially the birth of heroes and great rulers. Eclipses expressed the distress of nature over terrestrial calamities, while comets portended greater woes than all the