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348 General History of Europe objects from the leaning tower of Pisa, which proved that Aristotle was wrong in assuming that a body weighing a hundred pounds fell a hundred times as fast as a body weighing but one. He wrote in Italian as well as in Latin. His opponents might have GALILEO forgiven him had he written only for the learned, but they thought it highly dangerous to have the new ideas set forth in such a way that the people at large might come to doubt what the theologians and universities were teaching. Galileo was finally summoned be- fore the Inquisition ; some of his theories were condemned, and he was imprisoned by the Church authorities.
