CLEP Western Civ I

Answer: E - Machiavelli’s The Prince was critical of the Church, and therefore he did not receive funding or support from this institution. His interest was limited strictly to politics, and he no need for or interest in patronage from the Church. Copernicus was a Catholic cleric. When he formulated his treatise on the heliocentric model, he specifically chose to have it published after his death, so that he didn’t face a rebuke from the Church. Galileo received patronage from the Church early in his career. The relationship only soured when he promoted scientific theories that conflicted with Church doctrine. Though in the present day the Church and science are generally adversaries in many fields of thought (particularly medicine), that was not at all the case until later in the Renaissance. The Church used to be a great patron of science and had a keen interest in astronomy and anatomy. The rift between the two factions began in the Renaissance when scientific thought challenged Church doctrine and the Church refused to yield to empirical evidence. As science demonstrated that nature controlled the natural world and human experience more than the Church encouraged the laity to believe, they felt God and Christianity were being threatened, which, of course, would potentially put the Church itself in peril.