Milton visiting Galileo when a prisoner of the Inquisition. Artwork by Solomon Alexander Hart, 1847. This meeting, between the English poet John Milton (1608-1674, left) and the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642, right), supposedly took place in 1638. Galileo was convicted as a heretic by the Roman Catholic Inquisition for his support of the Copernican theory in his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632). He was placed under house arrest until the end of his life. Milton is known to have explored Italy and he later mentioned the imprisoned Galileo in his epic poem Paradise Lost.