An interesting twist on the tired story of Galileo v the Church. While Galileo did use telescopes to look at the moon and sun, he was a scientist and a great reader --- He also was atomist, or a believer in invisible corpuscles [Read his "The Assayer" 1623] of matter that could not be changed.
Thinking like this was dangerous in 1600's The Council of Trent produced reams of parchment on all sorts of topic -- one was the belief of Transubstantion. The 30 Years War was ongoing. It was not wise to have a scientist teach that atoms of x could not become q with magic words.
I enjoyed this book, its research, and its use of Latin. It open the door for more research.
