Rapporto tra scienza e Libro Sacro: due versioni di Galileo

Abstract

In the Letter to Cristina, Galileo’s remark that Joshua 10:12-13 needs to be glossed and interpreted whatever the constitution of the world, overlooked by the critical literature, is what motivated the Author to reexamine the differences that characterize the Letter to Castelli and the Letter to Cristina. In the latter, having abandoned the aim of reconciling the letter of the biblical passage with the truth of Copernican propositions - a scientific status which in 1615 it was impossible to claim for both the results actually obtained in the demonstration of the motions of the Earth and the hypotheses necessary to arrive at a heliocentric interpretation of scriptural verse - Galileo makes use of Augustine’s hermeneutics and enjoins biblical exegetes to make room for his own proposal of an interpretation better than the geocentric one, while waiting for scientists to define with certainty the questions belonging to their domain through the use of their own tools. These are the Augustinian arms which Galileo also takes up against the attacks of Bellarmino in his letter of April 12, 1615.