The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History

Maurice A. Finocchiaro is a historian and philosopher of science, and this University of California Press volume is his edited and translated collection of the primary documents of the Galileo affair, including trial records and correspondence, presented in English translation with scholarly annotation. As a documentary collection of primary sources it is the correct source for what the actual records of the affair say, rather than a later retelling. Its limit is that the value of a documentary collection depends on the editor's selection and translation choices, which Finocchiaro makes as a scholar with his own interpretive framing, so a claim resting on the significance of a particular document should also consider Finocchiaro's own analytical writing on the affair.