That Kepler dared dispute so firmly fixed a belief, and one that seemingly had so sound a philosophical basis, evidenced the iconoclastic nature of his genius.

That he did not rest content until he had demonstrated the validity of his revolutionary assumption shows how truly this great theorizer made his hypotheses subservient to the most rigid inductions.
GALILEO GALILEI While Kepler was solving these riddles of planetary motion, there was an even more famous man in Italy whose championship of the Copernican doctrine was destined to give the greatest possible publicity to the new ideas.

This was Galileo Galilei, one of the most extraordinary scientific observers of any age.

Galileo was born at Pisa, on the 18th of February (old style), 1564.

The day of his birth is doubly memorable, since on the same day the greatest Italian of the preceding epoch, Michael Angelo, breathed his last.