They knew it was round, damn it
This isn&#x27;t the only childish myth that refuses to die. The so-called Galileo affair and Copernicus&#x27; alleged fear and trembling over publishing &quot;his&quot; heliocentric theory are two notorious and by now classical examples. In both cases, the supposedly grand Manichean battle between Religion and Science was nothing but the fallout of the provincial squabbling of petty men. Copernicus -- who was a classically educated cleric -- was reluctant to publish De Revolutionibus on account of hostility from rival astronomers (and though the Church had no doctrinal interest in something as theologically irrelevant as which rock orbits which other rock, Paul III and Cardinal von Schoenberg did take interest in his work). Furthermore, Copernicus&#x27; original contribution was not the idea of a heliocentric &quot;universe&quot;, but the mathematization he produced that &quot;saved the appearances&quot; accounted for in the geocentric model. The Galileo &quot;affair&quot;, which stretched for some 30 years IIRC, culminated in house arrest in the papal apartments overlooking the papal gardens, a fate far better than that of many in the 15th century or the 21st century for that matter. Ultimately, his house arrest was largely the result of Galileo&#x27;s habit of harassing people and making enemies, some of whom were clerics, and nothing to do with doctrine (the story goes that Galileo was arrested and forced to abjure the very same heliocentrism Paul III and others encouraged and found so fascinating under pain of death, but anyone free of prejudice and acquainted with the history knows this account to be comically stupid as it is presented). There are many more such fabrications and misconceptions.<p>At least some of these myths are known to have their origins in the 19th century and in the slanderous writings of fanatical Enlightenment and Protestant writers whose rabid hatred for Rome seems to have, in their minds, given them license to resort to libel or corrupted their thinking. The author credits two men in the article who certainly had an axe to grind.