Download or read book Galileo and the Church written by Rivka Feldhay and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-05-26 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book questions the traditional "grand narratives" of science and religion in the seventeenth-century. The known contradictions between the documents of Galileo's "trials" are reread as expressions of the contradictory nature of the Counter Reformation Church. Looking back at the formative years of Tridentine Catholicism demystifies its monolithic and coercive tendencies. Being torn between different cultural orientationsNthe Dominicans' and the Jesuits'Nthe Church was unable to crystallize a coherent attitude towards Galileo's science.