Galileo continued to receive visitors until his death on 8 January 1642, aged 77, following a fever and heart palpitations.[19][219] 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.[220][221]
Galileo's middle finger from his right hand
These plans were dropped, however, after Pope Urban VIII and his nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, protested,[220][221][222] because Galileo had been condemned by the Catholic Church for "vehement suspicion of heresy".[223] 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.[220][224] He was reburied in the main body of the basilica in 1737 after a monument had been erected there in his honour;[225][226] during this move, three fingers and a tooth were removed from his remains.[227] One of these fingers is currently on exhibition at the Museo Galileo in Florence, Italy.[228]