Summary
Outside of Galileo's house in Florence, two nuns walk by. He asks the nuns where to buy milk, and where to get bread, as various neighbors yell at him, warning him of the plague. "Your housekeeper collapsed in the street up there. She must have realised. That's why she went. So inconsiderate!" a woman says, before slamming her window. Soldiers pass by and force Galileo into his house.
An old woman appears at a nearby window, and Galileo complains to her that the government has cut them off "like the diseased branch of some barren figtree." Galileo then takes the blame for Mrs Sar.ti falling ill. He calls, asking people for food, when suddenly Andrea appears and asks to be let in, having jumped off the carriage and walked for three days. Andrea begins to sob, so to cheer him up, Galileo tells him that he has discovered that Venus is a planet that travels around the sun like the other planets.
Andrea continues to sob, but mentions that Galileo has all he needs to prove his theory to the scholars. Two men with masks bring bread, which they pass through the window. Galileo complains that he has no water, but the soldiers shrug. He asks if they could bring a book for him if they come tomorrow. The men leave, but Andrea offers to get Galileo the book he wants.
Scene 6. "The Vatican research institute, the Collegium Romanum, confirms Galileo's findings." At night, monks and scholars gather in small groups, laughing. They are joking about Galileo's theory, pretending that the earth is moving too fast. They argue about Galileo's discovery, suggesting that it is impossible and would subvert all of contemporary understanding. However, Christoper Clavius, "the Church's greatest astronomer," is looking through Galileo's telescope. One of the astronomers protests Galileo's discovery by saying, "There are phenomena that present difficulties for us astronomers, but does mankind have to understand everything?"
A very old cardinal enters and asks why Clavius' meeting with Galileo is taking so long and calls Galileo "an enemy of the human race." The cardinal then begins to berate Galileo for his work, before collapsing. Clavius enters, simply says, "He's right," and leaves. The cardinal does not hear him, and they assist him out of the room. A monk informs Galileo that he has won and he insists that it is not he who won, but reason.
Scene 7. "But the Inquisition puts Copernicus's teachings on the Index." This scene takes place at Cardinal Bellarmin's house in Rome, at a ball. Galileo is met with applause upon entering, and is accompanied by Virginia and her fiance Ludovico Marsili. Ludovico compliments Galileo on his success and says that Virginia will become very popular soon enough for her beauty. Two cardinals, Bellarmin and Barberini, enter, and greet Galileo. Barberini tells him the story of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, who were given shelter by a she-wolf.
As they talk more, Barberini and Bellarmin question Galileo's hubris, suggesting that he believes himself to know more than God. Eventually, Bellarmin tells him that his theory has been deemed "foolish, absurd, heretical and contrary to our faith."
As Bellarmin and Barberini bring Galileo into the ballroom, two secretaries report to the Cardinal Inquisitor about the discussion that just took place. When Virginia wanders into the room, the Inquisitor greets her and congratulates her on her engagement. He speaks to her at length about her father's discoveries, and suggests that it is good that she will be accompanying her father home. "He will need you; perhaps you cannot imagine this, but the time will come," he says.
Scene 8. "A conversation." In the Florentine Ambassador's palace in Rome, Galileo is getting an update from one of the monks. The monk tells him that his teachings have "drawn my attention to the potential dangers for humanity in wholly unrestricted research, and I have decided to give astronomy up." The monk tells him about his family, simple olive farmers who believe devoutly in the guidance and watchful eye of God. "They have been assured that God's eye is always on them—probingly, even anxiously—: that the whole drama of the world is constructed around them so that they, the performers, may prove themselves in their greater or lesser roles."
The monk uses this as a way of explaining the danger of Galileo's discoveries, that his theories could completely disorient the worldviews of people like his parents. Galileo counters that religion's tendency to give meaning to poverty, as well as justify exploitation and war, is not a good enough reason to subdue scientific progress. He says, "Virtues are not an offshoot of poverty, my dear fellow."
Analysis
Galileo's commitment to his studies gets him into some trouble. For instance, when everyone else flees Florence during an outbreak of the plague, he doesn't even think about his own mortality and stays behind to continue his research. He is so singleminded in his desire to prove his theories about the structure of the universe that not even the threat of death deters him. It is because of this singlemindedness that Mrs. Sarti gets the plague, leaving her young son, Andrea, Galileo's protege, brokenhearted.
Throughout the play, Andrea serves as Galileo's right-hand man, a young and motivated protege and confidant for all of Galileo's theories. Although Andrea is not very old, he is committed to the scientist's studies. While Galileo is so tied to his work, eschewing a personal life in favor of his studies, he keeps a close personal relationship with Andrea, who supports him each step of the way.
The resistance to Galileo's theories has to do with a basic conservatism, a sense that if things are fine the way they are, there is no use in trying to make new discoveries if the world is run in a certain way. The scholars in Rome, in their faithfulness to the Church, do not want to see the basic tenets of the Bible disproven by Galileo's studies. Even though Galileo has created plausible proofs to show his discoveries, they go against the teachings of the Bible and the way things have always been. Rather than make new discoveries and understand the world better, the scholars and astronomers would rather remain in the dark and make do with the status quo.
Just when it seems that Galileo's theory will be embraced with open arms by Roman society, two cardinals, Bellarmin and Barberini, inform Galileo that he must abandon his heretical standpoint. Their logic is that Galileo's theory presumes to know more than God who created the world. This would be blasphemous. Thus, in the blink of an eye, just when it seems that Galileo's fate had changed, he is made to amend his discovery and abandon everything he has worked for.
Galileo's theory of the universe, his investment in knowledge and empirical understanding, is connected to his philosophy and his political understanding of the world. He sees scientific understanding, an ability to understand the world not simply in terms of religious tenets, as a way to free people from ideologies that lead to poverty and war. When the Little Monk tells him that they are trying to keep Galileo's theories quiet so that the poor do not lose the religious ideology that justifies their poverty, Galileo suggests that his theories could eliminate the need for poverty and transform people's understanding of the world, so that governments might embrace new systems and no one would have to be overworked and underpaid.
