Giorgio De Santillana’s The Crime of Galileo is the only book on Galileo’s trial. Published fifty years ago, it is badly out of date, especially on the law. The trial turns on a precept given to Galileo in 1616 to cease defending Copernicus. The Precept opened Galileo’s single trial, which abounded throughout in procedural oddities. The trial could have had another outcome had Galileo mounted the strong legal defense that a precept expired with the death of the authority who issued it. Instead Galileo turned to a political defense, which failed.