Stargazers: Copernicus, Galileo, the Telescope and the Church

Did Galileo suffer for challenging the Church's understanding of the heavens? Or were many of the Popes and lesser clerics just as well up on astronomy as he was? Who else was involved in mapping the heavens around the time of the Renaissance and Reformation? This book takes Galileo out of his usual category of 'victim who dared speak the truth' and explores both his achievements and the earlier influences ,including that of Copernicus, on whose legacy he built. . It then goes on to trace the impact of his ideas on those who followed him, in the sixty years or so that followed his death.