Biography:
Information of the author of "Galileo Project", which is a biography of Galileo Galilei, is provided below:
"Albert Van Helden (born 1940) is an American science historian specializing in the history of astronomy and scientific instruments.
He received his doctorate from the University of London in 1970. He is Professor Emeritus of Rice University where he is in charge of the Galileo Project. He chaired the History of Science Society (1998–1999)."
(translated from Wikipedia using Google Translate, original in French)
Sidereus Nuncius:
"Sidereus Nuncius (usually Sidereal Messenger, also Starry Messenger or Sidereal Message) is a short astronomical treatise (or pamphlet) published in New Latin by Galileo Galilei on March 13, 1610. It was the first published scientific work based on observations made through a telescope, and it contains the results of Galileo's early observations of the imperfect and mountainous Moon, the hundreds of stars that were unable to be seen in either the Milky Way or certain constellations with the naked eye, and the Medicean Stars (later Galilean moons) that appeared to be circling Jupiter.
The Latin word nuncius was typically used during this time period to denote messenger; however, it was also (though less frequently) rendered as message. Though the title Sidereus Nuncius is usually translated into English as Sidereal Messenger, many of Galileo's early drafts of the book and later related writings indicate that the intended purpose of the book was "simply to report the news about recent developments in astronomy, not to pass himself off solemnly as an ambassador from heaven." Therefore, the correct English translation of the title is Sidereal Message (or often, Starry Message).
A copy of the original edition is a valuable rare book and as of December 2010 has sold at auction for US$662,500, including premium. What would have been a multi-million dollar copy brought to a rare book dealer in 2005 with the title page signed by Galileo himself and watercolors, also attributed to Galileo, instead of etchings, was at first declared to be genuine by rare book experts and later shown by historian Nick Wilding to be a forgery and confirmed as such on further study by rare book experts. It had been created by the Italian antiquarian and library thief Marino Massimo De Caro, former director of the Biblioteca Girolamini, Naples, Italy, and sold by him to an American rare book dealer."
"The reactions to Sidereus Nuncius, ranging from appraisal and hostility to disbelief, soon spread throughout Italy and England. Many poems and texts were published expressing love for the new form of astronomical science. Three works of art were even created in response to Galileo's book: Adam Elsheimer's The Flight into Egypt (1610), Lodovico Cigoli's Assumption of the Virgin (1612), and Andrea Sacchi's Divine Wisdom (1631). In addition, the discovery of the Medicean Stars fascinated other astronomers, and they wanted to view the moons for themselves. Their efforts "set the stage for the modern scientific requirement of experimental reproducibility by independent researchers. Verification versus falsifiability…saw their origins in the announcement of Sidereus Nuncius."
But many individuals and communities were sceptical. A common response to the Medicean Stars was simply to say that the telescope had a lens defect and was producing illusory points of light and images; those saying this completely denied the existence of the moons. That only a few could initially see and verify what Galileo had observed supported the supposition that the optical theory during this period "could not clearly demonstrate that the instrument was not deceiving the senses." By naming the four moons after the Medici brothers and convincing the Grand Duke Cosimo II of his discoveries, the defence of Galileo's reports became a matter of State. Moran notes, “the court itself became actively involved in pursuing the confirmation of Galileo’s observations by paying Galileo out of its treasury to manufacture spyglasses that could be sent through ambassadorial channels to the major courts of Europe."
The first astronomer to publicly support Galileo's findings was Johannes Kepler, who published an open letter in April 1610, enthusiastically endorsing Galileo's credibility. It was not until August 1610 that Kepler was able to publish his independent confirmation of Galileo's findings, due to the scarcity of sufficiently powerful telescopes.
Several astronomers, such as Thomas Harriot, Joseph Gaultier de la Vatelle, Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, and Simon Marius, published their confirmation of the Medicean Stars after Jupiter became visible again in the autumn of 1610. Marius, a German astronomer who had studied with Tycho Brahe, was the first to publish a book of his observations. Marius attacked Galileo in Mundus Jovialis (published in 1614) by insisting that he had found Jupiter's four moons before Galileo and had been observing them since 1609. Marius believed that he therefore had the right to name them, which he did: he named them after Jupiter's love conquests: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. But Galileo was not confounded; he pointed out that being outside the Church, Marius had not yet accepted the Gregorian calendar and was still using the Julian calendar. Therefore, the night Galileo first observed Jupiter's moons was January 7, 1610 on the Gregorian calendar—December 28, 1609 on the Julian calendar (Marius claimed to have first observed Jupiter's moons on December 29, 1609). Although Galileo did indeed discover Jupiter's four moons before Marius, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto are now the names of Galileo's four moons.
By 1626 knowledge of the telescope had spread to China when German Jesuit and astronomer Johann Adam Schall von Bell published Yuan jing shuo, (Explanation of the Telescope) in Chinese and Latin.
Galileo's drawings of an imperfect Moon directly contradicted Ptolemy's and Aristotle's cosmological descriptions of perfect and unchanging heavenly bodies made of quintessence (the fifth element in ancient and medieval philosophy of which the celestial bodies are composed).
Before the publication of Sidereus Nuncius, the Catholic Church accepted the Copernican heliocentric system as strictly mathematical and hypothetical. However, once Galileo began to speak of the Copernican system as fact rather than theory, it introduced "a more chaotic system, a less-than-godly lack of organization." In fact, the Copernican system that Galileo believed to be real challenged the Scripture, "which referred to the sun 'rising' and the earth as 'unmoving.'"
The conflict ended in 1633 with Galileo being sentenced to a form of house arrest by the Catholic Church."
(from Wikipedia)