It put new weapons into the hands of the supporters of the Copernican theory.

The pious preface was laughed at from one end of Europe to the other.

This roused the enemy; the Jesuits, Dominicans, and the great majority of the clergy returned to the attack more violent than ever, and in the midst of them stood Pope Urban VIII, most bitter of all.

His whole power was now thrown against Galileo.

He was touched in two points: first, in his personal vanity, for Galileo had put the Pope's arguments into the mouth of one of the persons in the dialogue and their refutation into the mouth of another; but, above all, he was touched in his religious feelings.