Paolo Antonio Foscarini


Paolo Antonio Foscarini was a Carmelite father and scientist, whose book on the mobility of the earth was condemned by the Roman Inquisition in 1616 along with the writings of Copernicus.
Paolo Foscarini was born in Montalto in Calabria, with the family name Scarini.
He studied in Naples at the convent of the Carmine Maggiore and was professor of theology in Messina, where he also taught philosophy. 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.

Works

He published a devotional book, "Meditations, preces, and Daily Exercises", in 1611. In 1613 he published a 7-volume encyclopedia of the liberal arts, physics and metaphysics.
But his attempt to publish in 1615 a "Letter of opinion over the Pythagorean and Copernican opinion concerning the mobility of the earth and the stability of the sun" was more contentious. The letter was addressed to the General of the Carmelites, Sebastiano Fantini. In it he addresses the common scriptural objections to the Copernican system.
This reached Galileo when his own "Letter to Castelli" was being considered by the Inquisition. But Cardinal Bellarmine responded to Foscarini saying that both men should confine themselves to treating the Copernican system as pure hypothesis and that purported reconciliations with the Bible were not allowed. Subsequently the book was banned, unlike the others which were only censored.
An English translation by Thomas Salusbury was published in 1661.

Epistle concerning the mobility of the earth

Foscarini starts by observing:
He identifies 6 classes of statements in the Bible that are taken to oppose the movement of the world:
  1. the Earth stands still, and does not move
  2. the sun moves and rotates about the earth
  3. Heaven is above, and the Earth beneath
  4. Hell is in the Centre of the World
  5. Heaven is always opposed to the Earth
  6. the sun, after the day of Judgment shall stand immoveable in the East, and the Moon in the West
He resolves these in turn mainly by the use of metaphor and the common way of speaking.