Galileo arrived in Rome for his trial on 13 February 1633

Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome on 13 February 1633 to stand trial before the Roman Inquisition, carried in a litter lent by the Grand Duke of Tuscany after a plague quarantine on the way. He was 68, two days short of his 69th birthday.

Did Galileo go to Rome willingly?

No. Summoned in autumn 1632 over his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he first asked for the trial to be moved to Florence, then sent a certificate from three physicians saying he was too ill to travel. In December the Inquisition, with Pope Urban VIII presiding, dismissed that as a subterfuge: if he did not come voluntarily, he would be arrested and brought to Rome in chains. He left Florence on 20 January.

Was Galileo thrown in a cell?

No. Retellings often picture him in an Inquisition dungeon, but the usual rules were bent for him throughout, largely through the Tuscan ambassador, Francesco Niccolini.

• 13 Feb–12 Apr: lodged at the Tuscan embassy in Palazzo Firenze, told to avoid social life.
• 12–30 Apr: held inside the Inquisition’s building, but in the prosecutor’s rooms, with meals sent over from the embassy.
• 30 Apr: returned to the embassy after conceding he had made the Copernican case too strong.
• 22 Jun: sentenced and made to abjure; prison was commuted to stays at Villa Medici and then the Archbishop of Siena’s palace.
• Dec 1633: allowed home to Arcetri, near Florence, under house arrest until his death in 1642.

He was formally threatened with torture in his last interrogation, but historians agree with near unanimity that it never happened. The ordeal was psychological rather than physical: an elderly, unwell man made to cross Italy in winter, wait months for his hearings and then kneel to renounce what he believed.