Galileo's vision (1612)

A really bizarre alternate history I threw together:

Galileo has an intense dream in 1612 or as he would later call it a vision. As a result his letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Florence had a far different tone to it explaining that the heaven in the sky was not the same as the heaven in the Bible. "Look at the shadow of any object and ask yourself 'where is the center?' The heaven in the sky is a shadow of the true heavens."

The Inquisitorial commission looked over Galileo's reply and later debate deciding that Galileo's view had merit but was not simple enough for the average person to understand and instructed Galileo to not present heliocentrism as a physical truth.

Near a decade later Pope Urban VIII and the Inquisition commissioned Galileo to write a work on the two systems. Galileo's work, Dialogue Concerning the Reconciliation of the Two Chief World Systems, rather then giving arguments for and against heliocentrism as the Pope wanted instead tried to reconcile the two. Despite this deviation from his instructions the Pope was pleased with Galileo's efforts as it solved a lot of heretical issues with the heliocentric system and was somewhat in keeping with the original view that the system was a "mathematical connivance". Yes, heliocentrism was presented as a physical truth but only in the context of the shadow of the true universe God had created.

Galileo's work would be presented as a brilliant merging of the universe being observed and the one of the Bible for centuries afterword even by the rival Protestant religion. Galileo was beatificated in 1652, a mere 10 years after his death as would be said to be the 'man who returned the sword and shield of science to the hands of the faithful.'
 

SwampTiger

Banned
Was the Pope flexible enough to address a more open view of natural science than in OTL? Such a Pope could resolve many of the problems with the Reformation and Catholic Doctrine. A reconciliation between the Church and natural science would allow greater freedom for Catholic scientists. The Enlightenment in southern Europe may have been accelerated with the blessing of the Church, rather than the begrudging acknowledgement of Enlightenment ideas as seen in OTL. Mayhaps an early version of Mendel? Increased agricultural output a century of so earlier, resulting in an earlier industrialization in Catholic Europe? What a can of worms may such an action open? Lesser religious strife in the 17th century? Freer transmission of ideas deemed heretical in our day?
 
Was the Pope flexible enough to address a more open view of natural science than in OTL? Such a Pope could resolve many of the problems with the Reformation and Catholic Doctrine. A reconciliation between the Church and natural science would allow greater freedom for Catholic scientists. The Enlightenment in southern Europe may have been accelerated with the blessing of the Church, rather than the begrudging acknowledgement of Enlightenment ideas as seen in OTL. Mayhaps an early version of Mendel? Increased agricultural output a century of so earlier, resulting in an earlier industrialization in Catholic Europe? What a can of worms may such an action open? Lesser religious strife in the 17th century? Freer transmission of ideas deemed heretical in our day?

From what I have gathered what pissed off Pope Urban VIII was Galileo putting the view regarding the tides of the moon (which turned out to be right and was a favorite position of the Pope) in the mouth of a fool. Remove that and I think Pope Urban VIII wouldn't have been so angry with his (now former) friend Galileo.

With Galileo's Shadow of God's reality concept around many things would change. For example the Catholic Church denied the vacuum because they saw is an absence of God. But Aristotle himself had filled space with a fifth element (there five perfect solids so there had to be five not four elements) which he called aether, represented by the dodecahedron. This aether was not air, water, fire, or water. This view was contested by Epicurus and Lucretius who said there were two fundamental principles in nature: the atom and the void.

In OTL the Anglican Church embraced the vacuum via an interesting theological argument: The vacuum was evidence of the realm where god and his angels resided from which the king derived his authority so as Jame Burke so flippantly put it "Long live the Vacuum". In this alternate TL thanks to Galileo could the Catholic Church do something similar with the Vacuum tied to the Pope's authority.

They likely would still have problems with Aristotle's straight lines on Earth curves only in heaven nonsense (I have no idea how Aristotle came up with that it was known in his time arrows curved in flight) but with a little work they could likely shoe horn it into the Shadow of God's reality idea.
 

None of which fits into a vacuum as those of the 17th century understood it. Remember we are talking pre-Newtonian (ie 18th century) physics here and while people often talk about "empty" space in Newtonian physics once it was discovered that light was a wave the idea of it being empty became a problem. The result ironically was the resurrection of Aristotle's aether because waves had to travel though something.

Heck, black holes in the form of dark star came to Newtonian physics in 1784... over 100 years before Einstein.

Galileo's Shadow of God's reality concept could have integrated Aristotle's aether back into classical physics allowing for something akin to late 19th century physics appearing in the mid 18th century.
 
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