Galileo (1980) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Characters edit see section history

• Galileo Galilei: Add a description of this character.
• Andrea: Galileis Schüler
• Ludovico Marsili: Schüler Galileis und später Verlobter von Virginia
• Sagredo: bester Freund Galileis
• Federzoni: Freund von Galilei, Linsenschleifer,
• Cardinal Bellarmin
• Christopher Clavius: höchster Astronom des Vatikans
• Priuli: Kurator an der Universität in Padua
• Horace
• Fabricius
• Vanni
• Barberini: Anfangs Kardinal und Mathematiker, später zum Papst ernannt. Mathematician and scientist. Pope Urban VIII
• Matti
• Giordano Bruno: Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. Condemned to death by the Inquisition
• Priapus: minor rustic fertility god
• Filippo Mucius: A Scholar

Quotes edit see section history

• “I get it: free trade, free research”

  Galileo

• “This is the tenth of January. Humanity notes in its diary: Heaven abolished.”

  Galileo

• “SAGREDO: God! Where's God? GALILEO: (furious) Not out there! Any more than He'd be on earth if somebody out there started looking for Him here, SAGREDO: Where is God then? GALILEO: Am I a theologian? I'm a mathematician. SAGREDO: First of all you're a human being. And I ask you: Where is God in your world system? GALILEO: Inside us or nowhere!”

  Galileo

• “Then let me tell you this: I don't believe in reason. Forty years' experience has taught me that human beings are not accessible to reason. Show them a comet with a red tail, put dark fear into them, and they'll rush out of their houses and break their legs. But make a reasonable statement, prove it with seven good reasons, and they'll just laugh at you.”

  Sagredo

• “Thinking is one of the greatest pleasures of the human race.”

  Galileo

• “When truth is too weak to defend itself, it has to attack.”

  Galileo

• “We are using a very old system which seems to be in agreement with philosophy but unfortunately not with the facts.”

  Galileo

• “The Philosopher: Any textbook will tell you there is, my good man. ANDREA Then we need new textbooks.”

  The Philosopher

• “I'm used to seeing the gentlemen of all faculties close their eyes to all facts and act as if nothing had happened. I show them my calculations, and they smile; I make my telescope available to help them see for themselves, and they quote Aristotle.”

  Galileo

• “The man in the street will conclude that a good many things may exist if only he opens hiseyes. And you ought to back him up. It's not the motions of some remote stars that make Italy sit up and take notice, but the news that doctrines believed to be unshakeable are beginning to totter, and we all know that of these there are far too many. Gentlemen, we oughtn't to be defending shaky doctrines!”

  Galileo

• “I hear this Mr, Galilei has moved man from the center of the universe to somewhere on the edge. Obviously he's an enemy of mankind. And ought to be treated as such. Man is the crown of creation, every child knows that, he's God's highest and most beloved creature. Would God have put his most marvelous work, his supreme effort on a little far-away star that's constantly on the move? Would he have sent His Son to such a place? How can there be men so perverse as to believe these slaves of their mathematical tables? How can one of God's creatures put up with such a thing?”

  The Very Old Cardinal

• “It has prevailed. Not I, reason has prevailed”

  Galileo

• “GALILEO (to the secretaries playing chess): How can you go on playing chess the old way? Too confined. As it's played now, the larger pieces can range over many fields. The rook goes like this (He demonstrates it) and the bishop like this, and the queen like this and this. That gives you plenty of room and you can plan ahead. THE SECRETARY: It doesn't fit in with our small salaries. We can only afford to move like this. (He makes a short move) GALILEO: It's the other way round, my friend. If you live grandly, you can get away with anything. You must go with the times, gentlemen. You mustn't keep hugging the shore, one fine day you must venture out on the high seas.”

• “When I was this big (He shows with his hand), Your Eminence, I was on a ship, and I cried out: The shore's moving away.—Today I know that the shore stood still and the ship was moving.”

  Galileo

• “But, gentlemen, after all we can misinterpret not only the movements of the heavenly bodies, but the Bible as well.”

  Galileo

• “It's my mask that allows me a little freedom tonight. When I wear it, you may even hear me murmuring: If God did not exist, we should have to invent Him. Well, let's put our masks on again.”

  Cardinal Barberini

• “For three nights I haven't been able to sleep, Mr. Galilei. I can't figure out how to reconcile the decree which I've read with the satellites of Jupiter which I've seen. So I decided to read mass this morning and come and see you.”

  The Little Monk

• “Your peasants in the Campagna are paying for the wars which the vicar of gentle Jesus is waging Spain and Germany. Why does he put the earth at the center of the universe? Because he wants the See of St. Peter to be in the center of the world! That's the crux of the matter. You're right; the question is not the planets, but the peasants of the Campagna.”

  Galileo

• “Virtue is not bound up with misery, my friend. If your people were prosperous and happy, they could develop the virtues of prosperity and happiness. But today the virtues of exhausted people derive from exhausted fields, and I reject those virtues. Yes, sir, my new water pumps can work more miracles than your preposterous superhuman toil.—"Be fruitful and multiply," because your fields are barren and you are decimated by wars. You want me to lie to your people?”

  Galileo

• “Would you care to see a Cellini clock that Cardinal Bellarmine's coachman left here this morning? You see, my friend, as a reward for my letting your good parents have their peace of mind, the government offers me the wine which they press in the sweat of their countenance, which as you know was fashioned in the image of God. If I agreed to keep silent, my motives would undoubtedly be rather sordid: an easy life, no persecution, and so on”

  Galileo

• “The sum total of the angles in a triangle can't be changed to suit the requirements of the curia.”

  Galileo

• “You are in full agreement with the Holy Congregation's decree of 1616. You are perfectly within your rights. It's true, you studied mathematics with us, but we have no authority to make you say that two times two is four. You have every right to say that this stone (He takes the pebble from his pocket and throws it down to the ground floor) has just flown up to the ceiling”

  Galileo

• “Let me tell you this: Not to know the truth is just; stupid. To know the truth and call it a lie is criminal!”

  Galileo

• “People who suffer bore me”

  Galileo

• “Bad luck comes from faulty calculations”

  Galileo

• “If there are obstacles the shortest line between two points may well be a crooked line”

  Galileo

• “Science trades in knowledge distilled from doubt. Providing everybody with knowledge of everything, science aims at making doubters of everybody. But princes, landlords and priests keep the majority of the people in a pearly haze of superstition and outworn words to cover up their own machinations. The misery of the many is as old as the hills and is proclaimed in church and lecture hall to be as indestructibleas the hills.”

  Galileo

• “If mankind goes on stumbling in a pearly haze of superstition and outworn words and remains too ignorant to make full use of its own strength, it will never be able to use the forces of nature which science has discovered.”

  Galileo

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Florenz
• Florence
• Rome
• Italy
• Padua
• Venice
• Campagna
• Europe
• Germany
• Sweden

Organizations edit see section history

• The Holy Inquisition: Add a description of this organization.
• The Vatican
• The Holy Congregation
• Christianity
• The Church

First Sentence edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Bertolt Brecht (Author)
2. Eric Bentley
3. Ralph Manheim (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 832.912

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Arts & Photography › Performing Arts › Theater
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Drama › Continental European

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history