In the cosmic geography of the day, heaven and hell were actual places. Hell was not consigned to some vague location “below” but sat deep inside the Earth with its center directly beneath Jerusalem. The Earth was the center of the universe, and hell was the center of the center. Galileo’s adversary Cardinal Bellarmine spelled out why that was so. “The place of devils and wicked damned men should be as far as possible from the place where angels and blessed men will be forever. The abode of the blessed (as our adversaries agree) is Heaven, and no place is further removed from Heaven than the
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