A screen adaptation of the play was made in 1975, under the title Galileo. It was directed by Joseph Losey.
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The plot of the play concerns the latter period of the life of Galileo Galilei, the great Italian natural philosopher, who was persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church for his promolugation of his scientific discoveries.
The play embraces such themes as the conflict between the dogmatic church and science, as well as constancy in the face of oppression.
Galileo uses the telescope to substantiate Copernicus' heliocentric model of our solar system, which is highly incompatible with both popular belief and church doctrine.
Galileo's theoretical and experimental work on the motions of bodies, along with the largely independent work of Kepler and Descartes, was a precursor of the Classical mechanics developed by Sir Isaac Newton.
Galileo was a devout Catholic, yet his writings on Copernican heliocentrism disturbed the Catholic Church, which believed in a geocentric model of the solar system.
Galileo was sentenced to prison, but because of his advanced age (and/or Church politics) the sentence was commuted to house arrest at his villas in Arcetri and Florence[1].
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