Preparation for "Life of Galileo"

"Life of Galileo" is a play which was created by a German dramatist in twentieth century. It is also called "Galileo". It has two versions: one is German and one is English. The main character Galileo is a mathematician, an astronomer and a philosopher during the scientific revolution. At that time, a great debate about world astronomy was going on between the Geocentrism and Heliocentrism. Galileo built his own telescope and used the telescope to affirm Copernicus's heliocentric model of our solar system was correct. His action was both against the Church and people's common belief. He then was brought to Vatican for interrogating. Because of the suppression from the Church and pressure of threatening and torturing, he withdrew his teaching. Then he was put under house arrest. When his friend Andrea visited him, Galileo gave him a book which contains all of his scientic discoveries and theories, and he asked Andrea to bring it out of Italy. Andrea finally knows that Galileo withdraws his teaching to fool the Church. Andrea thinks his action was heroic, but Galileo said this action had nothing do with being a hero but self-interest. In this case, he published his last work in Germany in 1638. On January 8th, 1642, Galileo passed away at the age of seventy seven.