 These plans were dropped , however , after Pope Urban VIII and his nephew , Cardinal Francesco Barberini , protested , because Galileo had been 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 ; during this move , three fingers and a tooth were removed from his remains . One of these fingers , the middle finger from Galileo 's right hand , is currently on exhibition at the Museo Galileo in Florence , Italy . 
