Giovanni Alfonso Borelli - Sociopolitical Climate

Sociopolitical Climate

In 1542, the Congregation of the Holy Office (now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) was created by Pope Paul III to facilitate in the inquisition of heresy. This institution had influence in philosophy, mathematics, and science. The Holy Office was designed to protect the Catholic faith from ideas that were viewed as damaging to the Church. Its effects continued through the time of Borelli and on to modern times. The office was a well-structured, localized system that targeted new ideas considered to be dangerous by the Church. In addition to containing these ideas, the Holy Office could also punish the offending parties who brought the ideas into the public domain. This institution was one of many ways in which the Catholic Church responded to the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century.

Although Borelli lived and worked within this climate, the Holy Office did not hinder his work, perhaps because the Church did not find his work to be damaging to the faith. His work, and the work of many others, however, may still have been influenced by the Holy Office’s treatment of his contemporary Galileo Galilei. His work resembled that of many of his contemporaries in that he started to adhere to the rules of scientific exploration that are used in modern times, that is, building hypotheses and theories based on observations in the natural world, and then testing them.