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Who really said it

And yet it moves

Not Galileo at his trial — first printed by Giuseppe Baretti in 1757 Giuseppe Baretti 1719–1789 · Italian critic, translator and lexicographer, long resident in London
Disputed Free to reuse

Wikiquote files Eppur si muove among Galileo’s misattributed quotations ↗ and names Giuseppe Baretti as apparently the first person to record the story. He did it in a short note on Galileo’s Dialogue in The Italian Library (London, 1757), p. 52 ↗: the moment he was set at liberty, Baretti writes, Galileo looked up to the sky, stamped his foot and said “Eppur si move.” No source is given for the anecdote, and the book was published 124 years after the 1633 trial it describes.

Last verified 22 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“And yet it moves” Not Galileo at his trial. The anecdote’s earliest known appearance in print is Giuseppe Baretti, The Italian Library (London: A. Millar, 1757), p. 52, where the Italian is set as "Eppur si move" and glossed "still it moves, meaning the earth" — 124 years after the 1633 trial it describes, and with no source given. Traced by Quotle.info.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Galileo Galilei. Use the credit shown above instead.

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In context

Evoking the world of Giuseppe Baretti — Italian literary critic, translator and lexicographer. Theme: "And yet it moves". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "And yet it moves". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The page the story starts on

Work
The Italian Library
Author
Giuseppe Baretti (1719–1789), writing in English as Joseph Baretti
Published
London: A. Millar, 1757
Located
p. 52, in the entry on the 1632 Dialogue

This is the celebrated Galileo, who was in the inquisition for six years, and put to the torture, for saying, that the earth moved. The moment he was set at liberty, he looked up to the sky and down to the ground, and, stamping with his foot, in a contemplative mood, said, Eppur si move; that is, still it moves, meaning the earth.

Transcribed from the 1757 scan, with the long ‘s’ modernised. Two details survive the transcription: the Italian is set as Eppur si move, not the muove spelling in circulation today, and “still it moves” is Baretti’s own English, not a later translator’s.

The Italian Library (1757), p. 52, at the Internet Archive

How we verified this

  • Wikiquote lists the phrase under Galileo’s misattributed quotations ↗, notes that Giuseppe Baretti was apparently the first person to record the story, and cites Paul F. Boller and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (1990), p. 30.
  • We read Baretti’s page rather than a summary of it. The 1757 scan at the Internet Archive ↗ carries the sentence on p. 52, in italic, as Eppur si move — and carries no footnote, informant or date to support it.
  • Wikipedia’s article on the phrase ↗ records that the earliest biography of Galileo, written by his disciple Vincenzo Viviani in 1655–56, does not mention it, and that the records of his trial do not cite it.
  • Baretti’s framing does not survive contact with the record either. He has Galileo “in the inquisition for six years, and put to the torture”; Wikipedia’s account of the affair ↗ has him interrogated under the threat of torture, sentenced on 22 June 1633, and moved the following day to the house arrest he remained under for the rest of his life.
Public domain

The Italian Library was published in London in 1757 and is long out of copyright; the Internet Archive serves the complete scan ↗. Note that the four words at the top of this page are not the ones Baretti printed — he set the Italian Eppur si move and glossed it “still it moves.” “And yet it moves” is an unattributed literal rendering of a public-domain Italian phrase, so nothing here is anyone’s to license either.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Often misattributed

It is the best closing line in the history of science, which is exactly the problem with it. Here is what the paper trail actually holds.

Galileo Galilei, muttering it at the Inquisition in 1633 Misattributed

The words appear in no work or letter of his and in no document of the trial, and his earliest biographer, Vincenzo Viviani, writing in 1655–56, does not mention them ↗. Saying it in that room would also have been an extraordinary risk to take moments after abjuring the belief it asserts.

Giuseppe Baretti, The Italian Library (1757), p. 52

Baretti prints the anecdote in a book of author biographies aimed at English readers, without naming an informant or a date ↗. That is 124 years after the trial — and it makes Baretti the earliest person known to have put the words in Galileo’s mouth, not necessarily the person who invented them.

A canvas dated 1643 or 1645, found in 1911 Disputed evidence

A picture acquired by the Belgian collector Jules van Belle showed Galileo in a cell with “E pur si muove” scratched on the wall ↗, seemingly putting the legend within a couple of years of his death. It was later found to be near-identical to a work of 1837; Wikimedia Commons catalogues that version as Eugène van Maldeghem’s, painted in 1837 and now in the Stedelijk Museum in Sint-Niklaas ↗.

Wikiquote files it as misattributed ↗, and the earliest text anyone has produced is Baretti’s, 124 years after the fact. Galileo may well have thought it. Nobody has shown that he said it.

Context

Why it mattered

A recantation is a piece of theatre staged by the winning side, and this line is the audience refusing to accept the ending. Whoever first told it understood that the Earth’s motion is not a matter of opinion: the sentence works because the fact is indifferent to the verdict, and everyone in the room knew it.

That is also why it spread. Wikipedia notes that the book became widely published in Querelles Littéraires in 1761 ↗, and the phrase has been doing duty ever since as the shortest available argument that authority cannot legislate what is true — down to the same article’s note that Justice Antonin Scalia handed out an “E pur si muove” award to trial judges whose reversed opinions the Supreme Court later vindicated.

Printed for the first time 124 years after the trial it describes, with no source at all.

Read the full story

Baretti was not a historian of science. He was a critic and lexicographer who had moved to London in 1751, taught Italian, fell in with Samuel Johnson’s circle, and compiled The Italian Library as a guide to Italian authors for English readers ↗. The Galileo anecdote sits in that book as colour, one paragraph long, between a note on Tassoni and a remark that Galileo also wrote burlesque verse.

The words are not in dispute as words — they are in dispute as testimony. Galileo was sentenced on 22 June 1633 and confined for the rest of his life ↗, which ran until 8 January 1642, and he kept working through it: the Two New Sciences came out of that confinement in 1638. The defiance the phrase dramatises is real enough. Only the muttering is unattested.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Truth Doubt Courage

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquote: Galileo Galileien.wikiquote.org

Files Eppur si muove under “Misattributed,” names Baretti as apparently the first to record it, and cites Boller and George’s They Never Said It (1990).
The Italian Library (Baretti, 1757)archive.org

The full 1757 scan. Page 52 carries the anecdote in a single paragraph, with the Italian set as Eppur si move.
Wikipedia: And yet it movesen.wikipedia.org

The phrase’s history — Viviani’s silence, the 1757 printing, the van Belle painting of 1911 and the doubts about it.
Wikipedia: Galileo affairen.wikipedia.org

What the trial actually did: interrogation under threat of torture, sentence of 22 June 1633, house arrest from the following day.
Wikimedia Commons: Galileo in prisoncommons.wikimedia.org

The prison-cell painting with “E pur si muove” on the wall, catalogued as Eugène van Maldeghem’s and dated 1837.
Wikipedia: Giuseppe Barettien.wikipedia.org

The critic who printed the story: Turin 1719 to London 1789, friend of Johnson and Reynolds, author of The Italian Library (1757).

The author

About Giuseppe Baretti

Giuseppe Baretti

1719–1789 · Italian literary critic, translator and lexicographer

Giuseppe Marc’Antonio Baretti was born in Turin in 1719 and settled in London in 1751, where he taught Italian, compiled two influential English–Italian dictionaries, and became a fixture of Samuel Johnson’s circle alongside Reynolds, Garrick and Burke. He was a combative critic — his journal La Frusta letteraria was suppressed in Venice, and in 1769 he was tried for murder in London and acquitted on grounds of self-defence, with Johnson and Reynolds testifying to his character. The Italian Library (1757), the book that carries the Galileo anecdote, was his first notable work: a catalogue of Italian authors written to introduce them to English readers.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Giuseppe Baretti, The Italian Library. Containing An Account of the Lives and Works of the Most Valuable Authors of Italy (London: A. Millar, 1757), 52: “The moment he was set at liberty, he looked up to the sky and down to the ground, and, stamping with his foot, in a contemplative mood, said, Eppur si move; that is, still it moves, meaning the earth.” Earliest known appearance of the anecdote in print.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘And yet it moves’?” Last verified 22 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/and-yet-it-moves/

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