里乔利和格里马尔迪对格里马尔迪绘制的月面图进行了大量的研究。这些素材被列入《新天文学大成》第4册中[9]。格里马尔迪的月图是基于更早的约翰·赫维留和米迦勒·弗洛伦特·范·朗伦绘制的月图。里乔利在这些月图中对月球的特征进行了命名，它们是今天仍在使用的月球特征命名的基础。例如，静海(宁静之海，1969年阿波罗11号的着陆点)来自里乔利按天气对月球大区所作的命名。他以著名天文学家的名字命名陨石坑，并将它们按哲学家和时代进行了分类[10]。尽管里乔利拒绝哥白尼的理论，但他却以哥白尼的名字命名了一座突出的陨石坑，同时他也用其他哥白尼学说拥护者的名字如开普勒、伽利略和"兰斯贝格"(Philippe van Lansberge)命名了另外一些重要的陨坑。因为他和格里马尔迪命名的陨石坑大致都在相近的地方，而其他一些耶稣会天文学家命名的陨石坑在月球的另一处，接近非常醒目的第谷·布拉赫环形山，里乔利的月球命名在当时就已被认为是暗中表达了对哥白尼学说的同情和支持[11]。因为，作为一名耶稣会员，他不能公开支持。然而，里乔利却说，他把哥白尼学说者们都放在了汹涌的波涛中(风暴洋中)[12]。该月图另一个值得注意的特点是，里乔利表达了一个直接的声明，那就是月球并非适居地，这与已有的库萨的尼古拉斯、布鲁诺，甚至开普勒的著作以及后来的贝尔纳·勒·布耶·德·丰特奈尔和威廉·赫歇尔等著作中有关月球适居论的猜测完全相左[13]。
里乔利还通过望远镜的天体观察来反驳哥白尼理论。从当时的小望远镜观看恒星，所看到的都是各式各样的小盘状星星。这些盘状形实际是进入望远镜中的光波产生的衍射。今天已知是以19世纪天文学家艾里（1801–1892）命名的艾里斑现象，真正的恒星盘即使用现代望远镜来观察通常也都很小。但在十七个世纪，人们都认为望远镜中所看到的这些圆盘都是恒星实际的本身 [28]。在哥白尼学说中，一年中无视差变化的恒星，唯一的解释就是它们距离地球极其遥远。里乔利和格里马尔迪用一架望远镜测量了很多恒星盘数据，并将详细步骤公之于众，以便所有想要的人都可重复他们的操作。里乔利进而计算了那些既符合望远镜所观察到的大小，又符合哥白尼学说中无视差恒星所需遥远距离的恒星尺寸，所有情况下的结果是，恒星极其巨大–而太阳被矮化了。从测量数据反映，某些情况下，一颗单个恒星的尺寸将超过第谷·布拉赫等地心论者们所估计的整个宇宙。哥白尼学说中望远镜中恒星外观的问题早在1614年就被西门·马里乌斯注意到了，他曾说望远镜中观察到的恒星盘是支持第谷理论的。哥白尼学说的拥护者如马丁·范登霍夫（Martin van den Hove,1605–1639）也承认了这一问题，他也测量了恒星并承认，巨大的恒星尺寸问题可能会导致人们拒绝接受哥白尼理论[29]。
Geographicae crucis fabrica et usus ad repraesentandam ... omnem dierum noctiumque ortuum solis et occasum (Ferroni: 1643) (世界地图 （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆）法国国家图书馆)
Immunitas ab errore tam speculativo quam practico definitionum s. Sedis apostolicae in canonizatione sanctorum, in festorum ecclesiasticorum institutione et in decisione dogmatum, quae in verbo Dei scripto, traditove implicite tantum continentur, aut ex alterutro sufficienter deducuntur, Bologna, 1668 (Listed in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1669[33])
De distinctionibus entium in Deo et in creaturis tractatus philosophicus ac theologicus (1669)
^But not necessarily favorably—some discussion of Lalande citing Riccioli is available in Galloway 1842 (pp. 93-97).
^Van Helden 1984 (p. 103); Raphael 2011 (pp. 73-76), which includes the quote about "no serious seventeenth century astronomer" on p. 76; Campbell 1921 (p. 848); Catholic Encyclopedia: Giovanni Battista Riccioli.
^Synopses of the 126 arguments have been translated into French (Delambre 1821, pp. 674-679) and English (arXiv:1103.2057v2 2011, pp. 37-95), but these are very abbreviated, reducing hundreds of pages of Latin text down to some few pages or tens of pages.
^Dinis (2002) says Riccioli misrepresented Galileo's conjecture, stating that
The whole "Galilean proof" [of Earth's immobility] as constructed and "proved" by Riccioli is nothing but a caricature even of Galileo's [conjecture] – let alone Galileo's true thought on the matter!
and declaring that Riccioli's "proof" could never be anything more than another conjecture (pp. 64-65). Koyré (1955) concurs that Riccioli's "physico-mathematical" argument was weak, but says Riccioli simply had difficulty grasping new ideas, or adapting old ones (such as the relativity of motion) to new conceptions, such as the motion of the Earth. Koyré emphasizes that this was a problem shared by many in the seventeenth century, so the argument could impress even an "acute mind" of the time (pp. 354, 352 including notes). Graney (arXiv:1103.2057v2 2011) states that Galileo's conjecture suggested a possible new physics that would explain motion in the Copernican theory in an elegant and coherent manner and therefore would strengthened the theory. By undermining Galileo's conjecture, Riccioli's experiment-based argument deprived the theory of that coherence and elegance (pp. 21-22).
arXiv:1103.2057v2 （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆） 2011: "126 Arguments Concerning the Motion of the Earth, as presented by Giovanni Battista Riccioli in his 1651 Almagestum Novum"
Campbell, Thomas Joseph 1921, The Jesuits, 1534-1921: a history of the Society of Jesus from its foundation to the present time (New York: Encyclopedia Press)
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems 2001, by Galileo Galilei [1632], translated and with revised notes by Stillman Drake and Foreword by Albert Einstein (New York: Random House/The Modern Library)
Dinis, Alfredo 2002, "Was Riccioli a Secret Copernican?" in Giambattista Riccioli e il Merito Scientifico dei Gesuiti nell'età Barocca, a cura di Maria Teresa Borgato (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki), 49-77
Dinis, Alfredo 2003, "Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science of His Time" in Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters，第195頁，載於Google圖書, edited by Mordechai Feingold (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press), 195-224 (Significant excerpts)
Graney, C. M. 2012, "Anatomy of a fall: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the story of g", Physics Today, Volume 65, 69-40, [2]doi:10.1063/PT.3.1716
Grant, Edward 1984, "In Defense of the Earth's Centrality and Immobility: Scholastic Reaction to Copernicanism in the Seventeenth Century", Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Volume 74, 1-69
Grant, Edward 1996, Planets, Stars, and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200-1687 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Heilbron, J. L. 1999, The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press)
Raphael, Renee 2011, "A non-astronomical image in an astronomical text: Visualizing motion in Riccioli's Almagestum Novum", Journal for the History of Astronomy, Volume 42, 73-90
Van Helden, Albert 1984, "Galileo, Telescopic Astronomy, and the Copernican System", in The General History of Astronomy, edited by M. A. Hoskin, volume 2A, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
