Galileo Galilee was born in 1564 into a Europe wracked by cultural ferment and religious strife. The popes of the Roman Catholic Church, powerful in their roles as both religious and secular leaders, had proven vulnerable to the worldly and decadent spirit of the age, and their personal immorality brought the reputation of the papacy to historic lows n 1517, Martin Luther, a former monk, attacked Catholicism for having become too worldly and politically corrupt and for obscuring the fundamentals of Christianity with pagan elements. His reforming zeal, which appealed to a notion of an original, purified" Christianity, set in motion the Protestant Reformation and split European Christianity in two.
In response, Roman Catholicism steeled itself for battle and launched the Counter-Reformation, which emphasized orthodoxy and fidelity to the true church The Counter Reformation reinvigorated the church and, to some extent, eliminated its excesses. But the Counter- Reformation also contributed to the decline of the Italian Renaissance, a revival of arts and letters that sought to recover and rework the classical art and philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome. The popes had once been great patrons of Renaissance arts and sciences but the Counter Reformation put an end to the church's liberal teniency in these areas. Further the church's new emphasis on religious orthodoxy would soon clash with the emerging scientific revolution. Galileo, with his study of astronomy, found himself at the center of this clash.