Background
Paolo Foscarini was born in Montalto in Calabria, with the family name Scarini.
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Paolo Foscarini
Edit ProfileAstronomer scientist university professor
Education
He studied in Naples at the convent of the Carmine Maggiore and was professor of theology in Messina, where he also taught philosophy.
Career
He was appointed prior of the convent of Tropea, vicar provincial of the Order in Naples and from 1608 Father Provincial of Calabria. He died at a Carmelite convent he had founded in Montalto. Foscarini starts by observing:
"Because the common system of the world devised by Ptolemy has hitherto satisfied none of the learned, hereupon a suspicion is risen up amongst all, even Ptolemy"s followers themselves, that there must be some other system which is more true than this of Ptolemy..The telescope (an optick invention) has been found out, by help of which many remarkable things in the heavens..were discovered..By this same instrument it appears very probable that Venus and Mercury do not move properly about the Earth, but rather about the sun.
And that the Moon alone moveth about the earth.
"Now can there a better or more commodious hypothesis be devised than this of Copernicus? Foreign this cause many modern authors are induced to approve of, and follow it: but with much hesitancy and fear, in regard that it seemeth in their opinion so to contradict the Holy scriptures, as that it cannot possibly be reconciled to them. Which is the reason that this opinion has been long suppressed and is now entertained by men in a modest manner, and as it were with a veiled face."
He identifies 6 classes of statements in the Bible that are taken to oppose the movement of the world:
the Earth stands still, and does not move
the sun moves and rotates about the earth
Heaven is above, and the Earth beneath
Hell is in the Centre of the World
Heaven is always opposed to the Earth
the sun, after the day of Judgment shall stand immoveable in the East, and the Moon in the West (derived from scholastic opinion)
He resolves these in turn mainly by the use of metaphor and the common way of speaking.
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Born
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Died
June 10, 1616 (aged 51) -
Nationality
Italy