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Vincenzo sorted through the parchment folios with trembling hands , blowing the dry ink dust from the star charts before the morning bells finished ringing across the Roman rooftops . It was past nine , the papal commissioners were due at the villa gates within the hour to confiscate every draft of the astronomical dialogue , and his master sat quietly by the garden window , seemingly indifferent to the peril at their door . At nearly seventy years of age , Galileo Galilei had spent two decades mapping the heavens , yet what lay on the oak table before them threatened to destroy his life . " You ought to have burned the supplementary notes on the solar spots , " Vincenzo urged , rolling a sheet of heavy vellum into a tin cylinder . " The Holy Office considers any mention of a moving Earth an open heresy . " " You needn't panic , " the elderly mathematician replied , dipping a linen cloth into a vial of distilled wine to wipe the brass barrel of his telescope . " How dare they demand that geometry alter itself to please a committee of prelates ? Nature does not negotiate her laws , nor does truth require the permission of magistrates . " Rarely had any philosopher confronted the Inquisition with such obstinate calm . What frightened the cardinals most was not the instrument itself , but the undeniable mathematics it revealed . It was the discovery of four small moons circling Jupiter that had irrevocably cracked the ancient celestial spheres . Not only had Galileo proven that Earth was not the unique pivot of every planetary orbit , but he had also invited his critics to gaze through the convex lenses themselves . Few scholars had dared to look , fearing their cherished Ptolemaic doctrines would dissolve before their eyes . Vincenzo sealed the iron chest ; Galileo , the leather case protecting the optical glass . When Vincenzo suggested carrying the observational notebooks to the Tuscan embassy down in the valley , Galileo allowed him to do so , handing over the most dangerous folios with a steady hand . " They may silence my voice in the lecture halls , " Galileo said , his faded eyes tracking the flight of swallows across the pale sky . " They may even force my knees onto the cold chapel marble . But under no circumstances can an ecclesiastical decree command the sun to revolve around the dust beneath our feet . " Only when the iron - rimmed wheels of the inquisitorial carriage rumbled over the cobblestones below did the old astronomer rise from his chair . He smoothed down his dark wool tunic , lifted his walking cane , and walked toward the courtyard stairs to meet his accusers .
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