Galileo continued to receive visitors until 1642, when, after suffering fever and heart palpitations, he died on January 8, 1642, at age 77.
The Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II, wished to bury him in the main body of the Basilica of Santa Croce, next to the tombs of his father and other ancestors, and to erect a marble mausoleum in his honour.
These plans were scrapped, however, after Pope Urban VIII and his nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, protested,because Galileo was condemned by the Catholic Church for "vehement suspicion of heresy".
He was instead buried in a small room next to the novices' chapel at the end of a corridor from the southern transept of the basilica to the sacristy
He was reburied in the main body of the basilica in 1737 after a monument had been erected there in his honour.
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