Raffaello Caverni and the Society for the Progress of the Sciences: an independent priest criticized by the lay scientists.

Raffaello Caverni (1837-1900), a Catholic priest, was a truly lay and anti-establishment intellectual in his opinions both on Darwin and on Galileo. He opposed the mythicization of Galileo, as a rule common in Italy after the unification, even though he considered Galileo a great scientist. As a consequence the scientific community of that time, under the influence of Antonio Favaro, bitterly censured his work Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia (History of the experimental method in Italy). In this way, Caverni's book was removed from the scientific debate in Italy for at least forty years.