Melchior Inchofer et l'hérésie de Galilée: Censure doctrinale et hiérarchie intellectuelle

Abstract

Melchior Inhofer and Galileo's Heresy: Doctrinal Censorship and Intellectual Hierarchy

The censures written by the Jesuit Melchior Inchofer about Galileo's works – three of them deal with heliocentrism, one has been recently discovered and is about the atomism of the Saggiatore – played a major part in the Galileo affair. The essay discusses the origins and the importance of these texts for the 1633 trial. More generally, it shows how theological censure was used by the upholders of scholastic aristotelism to hinder the dissemination of alternative forms of natural philosophy. The new philosophical orthodoxy produced by the Roman Inquisition intended to preserve the intellectual hierarchy of Counter-Reformation.