This paper is an in-depth analysis of the Carmelite Paolo Foscarini’s role in the debate on Copernican cosmology in the early seventeenth century. Using as a point of departure the 1616 Judicium issued by the Catholic Church against Foscarini’s pro-Copernican treatise, this analysis will lead to a clearer understanding of the discussions on the fluidity or hardness of celestial bodies, and more generally on the conflicting Biblical and Copernican models.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Kelter, I. A., (2025), "A Catholic Theologian Responds to Copernicanism: The Theological Judicium of Paolo Foscarini’s Lettera", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: Kelter, Irving A. "A Catholic Theologian Responds to Copernicanism: The Theological Judicium of Paolo Foscarini’s Lettera." Renaissance and Reformation 33 (2): 2010. 59-70. DOI: 10.33137/rr.v33i2.11344. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.