Abstract
This article moves beyond the cosmological debate that preoccupies scholarship on Milton's relationship to Galileo Galilei. It shows how Milton's suspicion of Galileo's "less assured" telescope in Paradise Lost stems not from Galileo's celestial observations but from his more incendiary argument for the authority of natural philosophy over theology in his 1615 letter to the Grand Duchess Christina. Similar to Galileo's ardent Royal Society supporters, Milton conflates natural philosophical and theological forms of magnification to intervene in the letter's controversy, only to different ends. Rather than reject Galileo's astronomical discoveries, Milton opposes the authority Galileo and Royal Society Fellows claimed for natural philosophy.
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