Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo

Why this matters here

Drake’s edition presents Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615), in which Galileo argues that scripture teaches how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go—and that when observation collides with literal reading, textual interpretation must yield to what the world discloses. When Authority Is Misread reads the letter as a claim about jurisdiction, not only diplomatic wisdom: who may revise how the faithful are taught to imagine the world’s order when new instruments require revision. The book’s inference concerns interpretive authority under new evidence, not a simple science-versus-religion morality play.