My guest today is the historian of science, Thony Christie. Thony is an independent scholar based in Germany who also the author of the superb Renaissance Mathematicus blog.  His knowledge of the history of Early Modern science is vast and so he is the perfect person to give us a detailed overview of what happened and, more importantly, what did not happen in the dispute between Galileo and the Catholic Church. Thony and I spoke for almost two and a half hours on this subject, so I’ve edited our conversation into three parts of about 50 minutes each.

In this, the first part, we discuss the common myths that seem to be accepted by many people, and certainly by many atheists, about what happened in the Galileo Affair. Thony gives a detailed background to Galileo’s early career and the social and scientific context in which he worked.

Thony's detailed, 52 part series of articles on the beginnings of modern astronomy is also a great resource: “The Emergence of Modern Astronomy – A Complex Mosaic”.

And Thony has also provided an extensive recommended reading list. Finally, here is the translation of Cardinal Bellarmino's "Letter to Foscarini" which we discuss in our conversation and which is crucial for an understanding of the critical issues of the Church's approach to science and to the interpretation of the Bible.