"[132]
But the little telescope of Galileo still swept the heavens, and
another revelation was announced--the mountains and valleys in the
moon. This brought on another attack. It was declared that this,
and the statement that the moon shines by light reflected from the
sun, directly contradict the statement in Genesis that the moon is
"a great light." To make the matter worse, a painter, placing the
moon in a religious picture in its usual position beneath the feet
of the Blessed Virgin, outlined on its surface mountains and
valleys; this was denounced as a sacrilege logically resulting from
the astronomer's heresy.
Still another struggle was aroused when the hated telescope
revealed spots upon the sun, and their motion indicating the sun's
rotation. Monsignor Elci, head of the University of Pisa, forbade
the astronomer Castelli to mention these spots to his students.
Father Busaeus, at the University of Innspruck, forbade the
astronomer Scheiner, who had also discovered the spots and proposed
a _safe_ explanation of them, to allow the new discovery to be known
there.
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