The Galileo affair ended most unpleasantly in June 1633 in Rome where Galileo, on his knees before the
cardinals of the Inquisition at a formal ceremony in the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, spoke these words,
among others:
Developed through the four
cardinal virtues — prudence (practical wisdom), justice, courage, and temperance (perhaps better styled today, «self - command»)-- freedom is the method by which we become the kind of people our noblest instincts incline us to be: the kind of people who can,
among other possibilities, build free and virtuous societies in which the rights of all are acknowledged, respected, and protected in law.