Galileo and the Church: Political Inquisition or Critical Dialogue? by Rivka Feldhay (review)

472book reviews process, Gallican scholars and their allies were countering the Papacy's perception of its role and its claim to infallibility; a confrontation was inevitable (Juge suprême et docteur infaillible: le pontificat romain de la bulle In eminenti à la bulle Auctoremfldei). Each one of these well-written essays not only offers precious information but also thoughtful analysis and stimulating observations. In order presumably not to frighten the reader, the original footnotes have been changed to endnotes ,but they are complete and offer many precious references.There is also a very useful index. Happily this republication marks a renewed interest in the field as a new generation of scholars has been following Neveu's lead in this demanding but important path.We may hope to see in the future more works that will contribute to a better knowledge of Gallican scholarship and an assessment of its influence upon the European Republic of Letters. Jacques M. Gres-Gayer The Catholic University ofAmerica Galileo and the Church: Political Inquisition or Critical Dialogue? By Rivka Feldhay. (NewYork: Cambridge University Press. 1995. Pp.viii, 303. $54.95.) In 1983 Pietro Redondi published his controversial account of Galileo's condemnation , an account considered by one reviewer to be "un véritable désastre, une sorte de Tchernobyl de l'érudition." Rivka Feldhay mentions Redondi's work in passing, as ifto demonstrate that it does not deserve serious consideration , but her account of the condemnation is likely to be just as controversial. Feldhay condemns all previous work on Galileo's condemnation for constructing a"binary opposition" or conflict between faith and reason, between authoritative obscurantism and scientific enlightenment, between ignorance and knowledge. Instead of conflict Feldhay adopts what she calls "the framework of a dialogic model."The Jesuits were major protagonists for both Redondi and Feldhay. In a review for Parergon (VIII [1990], 167-168) I criticized Redondi's portrayal of the Jesuits for its hackneyed stereotyping. Feldhay's Jesuits, on the other hand, are not the obscurantist opponents ofnew knowledge but the proponents of dialogue with Galileo; hence her"dialogic model." Feldhay begins with a close examination of Galileo's two trials in 1616 and 1633. According to the simplistic version enshrined in traditional myth, the Church condemned Galileo for his Copernican views. However, the Church's position was more complicated than that; it permitted the use of the Copernican theory as "an astronomical hypothesis" but forbade the consideration of it as an absolute truth. A reading of the documents associated with the trial of I6I6 reveals that the Jesuits, and Cardinal Robert Bellarmine in particular, and the Dominicans differed on what was meant by "an astronomical hypothesis." These differences derived from the two religious orders' position onThomism, the Dominicans supporting a pure Thomism while Jesuit educators sought to BOOK REVIEWS473 modify it.The dispute reached its denouement in the trial of 1633,when the Jesuits found themselves caught between Dominican claims that their position was unorthodox and Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two ChiefWorld Systems , which demonstrated an affinity with the ideas of Jesuit educators and mathematicians. Redondi tried to establish an "evidential paradigm" to support his account by searching for"clues and signs" in the milieu of seventeenth-century Rome. Feldhay seeks support for her account by returning to the sixteenth century, to the Council ofTrent and its decrees on education, to the traditional role ofDominicans as an educating elite,to the development ofthe Jesuits as an alternative educating elite, and to the resulting rivalry between the two religious orders that culminated in the dispute on free will and predestination. This is the longest part of the book, and it attempts to explain the denouement of 1633.The final part of the book focuses on the dialogue between Galileo and Jesuit mathematicians , focusing on the debate on sunspots with Christopher Scheiner. Feldhay's approach is anachronistic. She interprets sixteenth-century developments and documents on the basis oflater developments and documents, incorrectly reading interpretations into the earlier material that support her views on the Church's condemnation of Galileo. For example, instead of considering the vigorous debate within the Society on the shape of its educational program as a natural outcome of the...