St. Robert Bellarmine

Today is the feast day of St. Robert Bellarmine, famously involved in the "Galileo affair:"

In his Système du monde, Duhem suggests that in one respect, at least, Bellarmine had shown himself a better scientist than Galileo by disallowing the possibility of a “strict proof” of the earth’ motion, on the grounds that an astronomical theory merely “saves the appearances” without necessarily revealing what “really happens.”

Duhem said in ΣΩZEIN TA ΦAINOMENA: Essai sur la notion de théorie physique de Platon à Galilée

that logic was on the side of Osiander, Bellarmine, and Urban VIII, and not on the side of Kepler and Galileo; that the former had understood the exact import of the experimental method; and that, in this regard, the latter were mistaken