Long before Gallileo, using deductive power of reason based on the scriptures, Cardinal Nicolas DiCusa supposed that the stars were other suns; that the universe was so unimaginably immense that wherever you were would appear to be the center of the universe; that everything in the universe traveled in cyclical curves; and that none of these curves was a perfect circle.
If Gallileo had looked to DiCusa instead the negation of his straw-man Simplicio, he would have launched astronomy 400 years into the future; as if was, his cosmology was so filled with errors that it took centuries to crawl out from his misconceptions.
Interesting. Shall have to lookup Cardinal Nicolas DiCusa later. Thanks.