The Forbidden Lynx

Almost everybody knows some famous events from the life of Galileo, the "father of modern science". Or do they? Here is Galileo in his laboratory, inventing the telescope. This never happened. And here he is on the Leaning Tower of Pisa, dropping a pair of balls of unequal weight to see if one plummets faster. This never happened either. And we see him in court, bravely defying the panel of inquisitors who brand him a heretic for his belief that the earth revolves around the sun, not vice versa as the Bible says. False again. None of these scenes occurred. We think of science as the opposite of myth. And yet, the common understanding of modern science’s origins is as barnacled with legends as any religion. The standard tale of the "Scientific Revolution" of the 1500s and 1600s that ushered in the modern era is largely an invention of science propagandists of the 1700s and 1800s. These spinners of history were keen to portray science as something unique and new, as triumphing over the benighted dogmas of the past. But when we pull back this veil of propaganda we find that things didn’t quite happen that way…

The roots of science lie in the soil of magic. One of these roots arose in a villa in the Tuscan town of Careggi in 1459. Here the young Marsilio Ficino, philosopher of the early Renaissance, was commissioned by the Florentine prince Cosimo de Medici to found an Academy. Its purpose was to probe cosmic mysteries based on the teachings of ancient sages. Ficino was no scientist. But like a modern scientist and unlike other thinkers of his time, he imagined that the physical world is underpinned not by angels and devils, but by impersonal "forces". Ficino thought these powers of Nature could be steered by magical ceremonies. In contrast to the common (and illegal) rites of spirit magic, he promoted this "natural magic". Although inquisitors suspected that natural magic was just a cover for conjuring devils, Ficino managed never to fall afoul of heresy-hunters.

The Academy at Careggi vanished in the chaos that was Tuscany in the late 1400s. Inspired by Ficino’s vision of a universe of forces, an Italian underground devoted to natural magic sprung up. In 1542 Giovanni Ruscelli founded the Academy of Secrets in Naples. Ruscelli and his natural magicians conducted experiments in their lavoratorio. Such work was dangerous, as anyone who thought for themselves rather than accept the tidy truths of the authorities was a subversive. Another clandestine group was founded in Naples in the 1560s by Giambattista della Porta. He had friends in high places, so he dared to publish a book on their work - Magia Naturalis, or "Natural Magic". Porta was hauled before the Inquisition and his academy was shut down. But its influence lived on - in the shape of a lynx.

On the cover of Magia Naturalis we see a picture of a prowling lynx. Natural magicians were to take this animal as their model. In mythology, the lynx was said to have the most penetrating eyesight of any creature – X-ray vision. In order to spy Nature’s secrets, the researcher must scrutinize the world deeply, not relying merely on the accounts of others. In 1603 the most important natural magic society of all was formed in Rome. They called themselves the Academy of Lynxes. The elderly Porta joined. Eight years later, so did Galileo.

By then, Galileo had already made a name for himself. Born in Pisa, he had become a professor of mathematics. But, more than anyone, he embodied the ideal of the lynx. He observed that hailstones of all sizes seem to fall at the same speed – with such sharp vision he had no need to drop things from towers to discern that Aristotle’s teaching that the descent of falling objects depends on their weight was wrong. And,

learning of the recent invention of the telescope by a Dutchman, he built one and pointed it skyward, penetrating the heavens with his lynx-like gaze. Galileo found mountains on the moon, spots on the sun, satellites orbiting Jupiter, Venus displaying phases as it spun around the sun. None of which was supposed to be there.

Galileo’s discoveries challenged the authority of ancient teachings that the sun and planets revolved around the earth, and that celestial objects were perfect, not marred by mountains or spots. In 1600 Giordano Bruno, a scholar who denied Christ’s divinity and tried to revive pagan religion, had been burned at the stake for heresy. Bruno also taught the sun-centred model of the cosmos. Belief in the solar system and heresy were thus linked in the minds of some churchmen, and they tried to denounce Galileo. But nothing came of it. Jesuit astronomers reported to the Pope that Galileo’s observations were correct. It bade well for the coexistence of faith and science. But then the Jesuits got angry.

A Jesuit, Christopher Scheiner, made the claim that he and not Galileo had been the first to discover sunspots. Galileo rejected Scheiner’s claim and ridiculed him in a document published by the Academy of Lynxes. The Academy decided not to accept Jesuits as members. Relations with the powerful Jesuit order soured. Behind the scenes, wheels were set in motion. Before long Galileo found himself being questioned before Cardinal Bellarmino, the inquisitor who had presided over the interrogation of Bruno. This time he got off easy – he could continue to discuss the idea of a sun-centred cosmos, but only as a hypothesis. Asserting the literal reality of this idea would contradict the Bible.

A new pope, Urban VIII, was elected in 1623. Astonishingly, his past included membership in the Society of Lynxes. Galileo was elated. The harmony of religion and observational science now seemed assured. His next book bore on its cover a lynx, symbol of the Academy, and a trio of bees, the pope’s family crest. But then he made a fatal error.

Galileo’s next publication was called Dialogue Concerning the Two Principal Systems of the World, published in 1632. In it he not only argues for the reality of the sun-centred universe, he continued his attack on the physics of Aristotle. Unfortunately for Galileo, Catholic theologians were very attached to Aristotle. They used it to explain the sacred dogma called Transubstantiation – the mysterious "fact" that the sacraments consumed in the Mass change into Christ’s flesh and blood but still look and taste like bread and wine. This doctrine was dismissed as absurd by the Protestants. And Galileo’s teachings, it was feared, would play right into the hands of Catholicism’s arch-enemies. Galileo did himself no favour in the Dialogue by sketching a character named Simplicio, a simpleton who vainly tries to defend some of Urban’s own ideas. An offended pope agreed – Galileo had to be silenced.

Inquisitors presented Galileo, now living in Florence, with a summons: appear for trial in Rome within thirty days or be dragged there in chains. Melchior Inchofer the Jesuit put out a pamphlet on physics. On the cover was the earth, cradled in its place at the centre of the universe by three bees. Galileo’s star was falling fast.

Convicted of violating Cardinal Bellarmino’s demand that he not argue for the truth of the sun-centred view, Galileo was set to share the fate of Bruno. So he threw himself on the mercy of the court. Grovelling before his judge in a white shirt of penance, he lied that he believed in a motionless earth, and damned the heresy of a sun orbited by planets. He was placed under house arrest and banned from teaching for life. His Jesuit enemies and the defenders of transubstantiation were satisfied. But he had his supporters too. Three of the inquisitors refused to sign his sentence.

Much has changed since Galileo died in 1642. The truth of his heresy is now beyond all doubt. Three hundred fifty years after his death, in 1992 – after men had strolled on the moon and robots had sampled Mars - Pope John Paul II admitted that the church had been wrong about Galileo. There is still trouble at the borders of science and religion. If Galileo could only have resisted taunting his powerful opponents, maybe faith and empiricism would have found their peace long ago. In addition to the body of his scientific work, it seems fitting that another part of Galileo has survived to the present day. If you visit Florence you can see it in the Museum of the History of Science. Reverently preserved in a glass egg mounted on a marble stand, the right middle finger of Galileo the heretic, scornfully raised at the world that once condemned him. It’s his world now.