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When Calvin stopped replying to his letters, Servetus, based in Vienna, continued to send a stream of increasingly vituperative correspondence.

Servetus had no influence on the science of his times, and Harvey knew nothing of his work, but the story of how he met his end is an irresistible insight into the world of the sixteenth century.

Servetus reached his conclusion largely on theological grounds, not through dissection, and presented them almost as an aside in a theological treatise.

I tell the story of the heretic Michael Servetus, who was burned at the  stake in Geneva in 1553, triggering the first great debate in Europe on the issue of  religious tolerance.

Yet, as in his life, even in his grave, detractors strove to dim the glory of his important revelation, ascribing to the theological physician Servetus, to Realdus Columbus, and to Andreas Cæsalpinas, the credit of prior discovery.