Scipione Chiaramonti (21 June 1565 – 3 October 1652) was an Italian philosopher and noted opponent of Galileo.
Early life The Chiaramonti family was noble and wealthy, claiming to have originated in Clermont and moved to Italy in the fourteenth century. Pope Pius VII (1742–1823) was from the same family. The son of a doctor, Scipione studied at the University of Ferrara, lodging first at the house of Cardinal Alessandro d’Este and later associating with the circle of Cardinal Curzio Sangiorgi. In 1588 he married Virginia Abbati, with whom he was to father twelve children (including at least seven boys). A scholar of many interests, with a solid knowledge of medieval and humanistic natural philosophy, Chiaramonti organised a "Lyceum" at his house, in which he taught mathematics, optics and perspective. The art theorist Matteo Zaccolini was among his disciples. In 1592 he met Galileo, passing through Cesena on his way to Pesaro, who described him as 'very gifted in mathematics'; the same year he graduated in philosophy. He spent a short period in Faenza where, in 1598 he wrote a treatise on mathematical problems in artillery; in 1601, he was hired, at annual salary of 340 scudi, as "interpreter of natural philosophy to the academy of Perugia" and also received an annual allowance of 400 ducats from Cardinal Alessandro d'Este. He was highly regarded by the Cardinal's half-brother, Cesare d'Este, Duke of Modena whom he served as mathematician and advisor, and who took two of his sons, Virginio and Niccolò, as his pages. He was for a time also in the service of Cardinal Cinzio Passeri Aldobrandini. Some time between 1610 and 1614 he composed a treatise on stage scenery.
Opposition to Tycho Brahe In 1618 three comets appeared over Europe, and Chiaromonti dedicated his first printed work, Discorso della cometa pogonare dell'anno MDCXVIII to Cesare d'Este. He thus entered into a scientific polemic on the nature of comets that involved Orazio Grassi and Galileo; while Galileo held that they were most likely optical illusions rather than heavenly bodies, Chiaramonti argued that comets were made of 'elemental substance', did display parallax and were definitely sublunar. Just as Galileo sought to interpret the phenomenon of comets in a way which supported Copernican heliocentrism, Chiaramonti explained it with the intention of supporting the traditional geocentric model. Chiaramonti was such a determined defender of classical astronomy that he rejected even the Tychonic system, which was by then commonly accepted among Jesuit scholars and other astronomers who did not agree with the views of Copernicus. Chiaramonti's second and more significant venture into this scholarly field came with his 1621 work Antitycho which opposed the argument of Tycho Brahe that comets were celestial bodies following an orbit above the Moon. In this work Chiaramonti tackled not only Tycho but Grassi, devoting 10 of the work's 65 chapters to refuting his arguments about comets. When Johannes Kepler received a copy of Antitycho, he replied with Shieldbearer for Tycho. Despite the fundamental difference of views with Chiaramonti, Galileo maintained cordial relations with him at this time, referring to him positively in The Assayer as having conclusively proved the falsity of Tycho's model of the universe. Galileo's views may have hardened after Chiaramonti replied to Kepler's Shieldbearer in 1626 with his Apologia pro Antitychone. In this he reiterated what Benedetto Castelli described as "ridiculous and impossible" opinions on comets and stars. Mario Guiducci scorned him as a "cold, insipid Peripatetic" who needed "a good ironing." In contrast, Chiaramonti's standing in Church circles continued to rise, and he served as a consultant to the Holy Office in Cesena. Many conservative churchmen in Rome were convinced that they had found in him the champion who would overcome dangerous innovations and restore traditional certainties. As Guiducci reported to Galileo, some believed that Chiaramonti would prove able to resolve the question of the earth's movement in favour of Ptolemy. The poet Pier Francesco Minozzi praised him in verse as ‘the Aristotle of our times.’
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