CHAPTER III.

_LAST YEARS AND DEATH._

Refusal of some Favour asked by Galileo.—His pious Resignation.—Continues his scientific Researches.—His pupil Viviani.—Failure of attempt to renew Negotiations about Longitudes.—Reply to Liceti and Correspondence with him.—Last Discussion of the Copernican System in reply to Rinuccini.—Sketch of its Contents.—Pendulum Clocks.—Priority of the discovery belongs to Galileo.—Visit from Castelli.—Torricelli joins Viviani.—Scientific discourse on his Deathbed.—Death, 8th Jan., 1642.—Proposal to deny him Christian Burial.—Monument objected to by Urban VIII.—Ferdinand II. fears to offend him.—Buried quietly.—No Inscription till thirty-two years later.—First Public Monument erected by Viviani in 1693.—Viviani directs his Heirs to erect one in Santa Croce.—Erected in 1738.—Rome unable to put down Copernican System.—In 1757 Benedict XIV. permits the Clause in Decree forbidding Books which teach the new System to be expunged.—In 1820 permission given to treat of it as true.—Galileo’s Work and others not expunged from the Index till 1835.

We now come to the last three years of Galileo’s life.

From two documents published by Professor Gherardi,[570] we learn that in 1639 Galileo once more asked at Rome for some favours not specified, but that they were absolutely refused by the Pope. From this time Galileo came no further into direct contact with the Roman curia. He had been compelled to give up all hope of any amelioration of his lot from the implacable Urban VIII. So he ended his days quietly and resigned, as the prisoner of the Inquisition, in his villa at Arcetri. Castelli also, who (as his letters to Galileo of 1639 bear witness)[571] had warmly exerted himself on his behalf with Cardinal Barberini and other influential persons, had probably come to the conclusion that nothing more could be done for his unfortunate friend, for from this time we find nothing in his letters to Galileo but scientific disquisitions and spiritual consolations.[572]

This indicates the two interests which occupied the latest period of Galileo’s life—deep piety and scientific meditations. His utter hopelessness and pious resignation are very clearly expressed in the brief sentence he used often to write to Castelli: “Piace cosi a Dio, dere piacere cosi ancora a Noi.”[573] (If it please God, it ought also to please us.) He never omitted in any letter to his old friend and pupil to commend himself in conclusion to his prayers,[574] and in his letter of 3rd December, 1639, he added: “I remind you to persevere in your prayers to the all-merciful and loving God, that He will cast out the bitter hatred from the hearts of my malicious and unhappy persecutors.”

The lofty genius with which nature had endowed Galileo never displayed itself in so striking and surprising a manner as during these last three years. No sooner were his physical sufferings in some measure relieved, than he occupied himself in scientific speculations, the results of which he partly communicated to his great pupil and subsequent biographer, Viviani, by word of mouth, and partly dictated them to some of those about him. The society of young Viviani, then eighteen years of age, who, by permission of the Inquisition, spent the last two years and a half of the old master’s life near him,[575] was the greatest comfort to him, and he conceived a fatherly affection for the talented youth. We owe it partly to the assistance and stimulus given by Viviani that the aged Galileo worked on to the end in improving and enlarging his “Dialoghi delle Nuove Scienze,” made a number of additions, and added new evidence of great importance to science in two supplementary dialogues.[576]

During this last period of his life also, he again took up the negotiations with the States-General, broken off by his severe illness in 1638. After he became blind he had given up all his writings, calculations, and astronomical tables relating to the Medicean stars, to his old pupil, Father Vincenzo Renieri, in order that he might carry them further; he was well adapted for the task, and executed it with equal skill and zeal.[577] The new ephemerides were just about to be sent to Hortensius, when Diodati informed Galileo of his sudden death in a letter of 28th October, 1639.[578] The three other commissioners charged by the States-General with the investigation of Galileo’s proposal having also died one after another, in quick succession, it was difficult to resume the negotiations. The interest of the Netherlanders in Galileo’s scheme (perhaps from its acknowledged imperfection) had also evidently cooled, and his proposal to replace the commissioners was not carried out, although he offered to send Renieri to Holland to give all needful explanations by word of mouth. Galileo’s death then put an end to these fruitless negotiations.[579]

At the beginning of 1640 Fortunio Liceti, a former pupil of Galileo’s, published a book on the phosphorescent Bolognian stone. In the fiftieth chapter of this work he treats of the faint light of the side of the moon not directly illuminated by the sun, and rejects the view advocated by Galileo in his “Sidereus Nuntius,” that it arises from a reflection of the sun’s rays striking our earth, which the earth reflects to our satellite, who again reflects them to us. Galileo was undecided whether it were not best to take no notice of Liceti’s objections, the scientific value of which he did not estimate very highly, when a letter from Prince Leopold de’ Medici, brother of the reigning Grand Duke, relieved him of his doubts.[580] This prince, who has gained a permanent name in the history of science by founding the celebrated “Accadémia del Cimento,” invited Galileo to give him his views on Liceti’s objections.[581] This challenge sufficed to rouse all the blind old man’s dialectic skill, though he was then seventy-six and bowed down by mental and bodily sufferings. He dictated a reply, in the form of a letter to Prince Leopold, which occupies fifty large pages in the extant edition of his “Opere,” and in fire, spirit, mastery of language, and crushing argument, it is quite a match for the most famous controversial works of his manhood.[582]

A most interesting direct correspondence then ensued between Galileo and Liceti, which was carried on from June, 1640, to January, 1641, in which not this question only was discussed, but Galileo took occasion to express his opinions, with great spirit and learning, on the modern Peripatetic school and philosophy, on Aristotle himself, and his fanatical followers. These letters of the venerable hero of science are characterised by ostensible politeness pervaded by cutting irony, which makes them instructive and stimulating reading.[583]

Ten months before his death, thanks to an indiscreet question from one of his former pupils, a last opportunity occurred of speaking of the Copernican system. Francesco Rinuccini, Tuscan resident at Venice, and afterwards Bishop of Pistoja, having apparently forgotten that the master had solemnly abjured that opinion, and had even been compelled to promise to denounce its adherents wherever he met with them to the Inquisition, informed him in a letter of 23rd March, 1641,[584] that the mathematician Pieroni asserted that he had discovered by means of the telescope a small parallax of a few seconds in some of the fixed stars, which would place the correctness of the Copernican system beyond all question. Rinuccini then goes on to say, in the same breath, that he had lately seen the manuscript of a book about to appear, which contained an objection to the new doctrine, and made it appear very doubtful. It was this: because we see exactly one half of the firmament, it follows inevitably that the earth is the centre of the starry heavens. Rinuccini begs Galileo to clear up these doubts for him, and to help him to a more certain opinion.

This was the impulse to Galileo’s letter of 29th March, 1641,[585] which, as Alfred Von Reumont truly says,[586] whether jest or mask, had better never have been written. There is no doubt that it must not be taken in its literal sense. Precisely the same tactics are followed as in the letter which accompanied the “Treatise on the Tides,” to the Grand Duke of Austria in 1618, and in many passages of the “Dialogues on the Two Systems.” Galileo conceals his real opinions behind a thick veil, through which the truth is only penetrable by the initiated. The cautious course he pursued in this perilous answer to Rinuccini is as clever as it is ingenious, and appears appropriate to his circumstances; but it does not produce a pleasant impression, and for the sake of the great man’s memory, one would prefer to leave the subject untouched.

We will now examine this interesting letter more closely. When we call to mind the disquisitions on the relation of Scripture to science, which Galileo wrote to Castelli in 1613, and to the Grand Duchess Christine in 1615, the very beginning is a misrepresentation only excusable on the ground of urgent necessity. He says: “The incorrectness of the Copernican system should not in any case be doubted, especially by us Catholics, for the inviolable authority of Holy Scripture is opposed to it, as interpreted by the greatest teachers of theology, whose unanimous declaration makes the stability of the earth in the centre, and the revolution of the sun round it, a certainty. The grounds on which Copernicus and his followers have maintained the contrary fall to pieces before the fundamental argument of the Divine omnipotence. For since this is able to effect by many, aye, endless means, what, so far as we can see, only appears practicable by one method, we must not limit the hand of God and persist obstinately in anything in which we may have been mistaken.[587] And as I hold the Copernican observations and conclusions to be insufficient, those of Ptolemy, Aristotle, and their followers appear to me _far more delusive and mistaken, because their falsity can clearly be proved without going beyond the limits of human knowledge_.”[588]

After this introduction Galileo proceeds to answer Rinuccini’s question. He treats that argument against the Copernican system as delusive, and says that it originates in the assumption that the earth stands still in the centre, and by no means from precise astronomical observation. _He refutes, therefore, the scientific objection to the new doctrine._ Speaking of the assumed discovery of Pieroni, he says, that if it should be confirmed, however small the parallax may be, _human science must draw the conclusion from it that the earth cannot be stationary in the centre_. But in order to weaken this dangerous sentence, he hastens to add, that if Pieroni might be mistaken in thinking that he had discovered such a parallax of a few seconds, those might be still more mistaken who think they can observe that the visible hemisphere never varies, not even one or two seconds; for such an exact and certain observation is utterly impossible, partly from the insufficiency of the astronomical instruments, and partly from the refraction of the rays of light.

As will be seen, Galileo takes great care to show the futility of the new arguments brought into the field against the Copernican system. It therefore seems very strange that some writers, and among them the well-known Italian historian, Cesare Cantu, suppose from this letter that at the close of his life Galileo had really renounced the prohibited doctrine from profound conviction![589] The introduction, and many passages thrown in in this cautious refutation, must, as Albèri and Henri Martin justly observe, be regarded as fiction, the author having the Inquisition in view; it had recently given a striking proof of its watchfulness by forbidding the author of a book called “De Pitagorea animarum transmigratione,” to apply the epithet “clarissimus” to Galileo, and it had only with great difficulty been persuaded to permit “notissimus Galileus”![590]

A short time before the close of Galileo’s brilliant scientific career, in spite of age, blindness, and sickness, he once more gave striking evidence of the genius which could only be quenched by death. It will be remembered that the inadequacy of his proposed chronometer had been the chief obstacle to the acceptance by the States-General of his method of taking longitudes at sea. Now, in the second half of the year 1641, it occurred to him, as is confirmed beyond question by Viviani, who was present,[591] though the idea is generally ascribed to Christian Huyghens, of adding a pendulum to the then very imperfect clocks, as regulator of their motion. As this was sixteen years before Huyghens made known his invention of pendulum clocks, priority indisputably belongs to Galileo. But it was only permitted to the blind master to conceive the great idea—he was not to carry it out. It was his intention to employ the eyes and hands of his son Vincenzo, a very clever mechanician, to put his idea in practice, and he told him of his plan. Vincenzo was to make the necessary drawings according to his father’s instructions, and to construct models accordingly. But in the midst of these labours Galileo fell ill, and this time he did not recover.[592] His faithful pupil, Castelli, who probably foresaw the speedy dissolution of the revered old man, came to see him about the end of September, 1641. In October, on the repeated and urgent invitation of Galileo, Torricelli joined Castelli and Viviani, not to leave the Villa Arcetri until they left it with Galileo’s coffin. Torricelli was then thirty-three, and the old master had discerned his eminent talents from a treatise on the theory of motion which he had sent him.[593] Castelli was not permitted to stay till the close. At the beginning of November he had to return to Rome, leaving Galileo, Torricelli, and Viviani eagerly occupied with the completion of the “Dialoghi delle Nuove Scienze.”

On 5th November Galileo was attacked by an insidious hectic fever, which slowly but surely brought him to the grave.[594] Violent pains in his limbs threw him on a sick bed, from which he did not rise again. In spite of all these sufferings, which were augmented by constant palpitation of the heart and almost entire sleeplessness, his active mind scarcely rested for a moment, and he spent the long hours of perpetual darkness in constant scientific conversation and discussions with Torricelli and Viviani, who noted down the last utterances of the dying man with pious care. As they chiefly related to the “Dialoghi delle Nuove Scienze,” they are to be found in the two supplementary Dialogues added to that work.

On 8th January, 1642, the year of Newton’s birth, having received the last sacraments and the benediction of Urban VIII., Galileo breathed his last, at the age of nearly seventy-eight years. His son Vincenzo, his daughter-in-law Sestilia Bocchineri, his pupils Torricelli and Viviani, and the parish priest, were around his bed.[595] And when Vincenzo closed his father’s sightless eyes for their last long sleep, they gave not a thought at Rome to the severe loss sustained by science by Galileo’s death, but only prepared in hot haste to guard the interests of the Church, and as far as it lay in their power, to persecute the Cæsar of science even beyond the grave. The aim was now, as far as possible, to extinguish his memory, with which so many perils for Rome were bound up.

Even around his bier the struggle began. Some pettifogging theologians went so far as to wish that Christian burial should be denied him, and that his will should be declared null and void, for a man condemned on suspicion of heresy, and who had died as a prisoner of the Inquisition, had no claim to rest in consecrated ground, nor could he possess testamentary rights. A long consultation of the ecclesiastical authorities in Florence, and two circumstantial opinions from them were required to put these fanatics to silence.

Immediately after Galileo’s death his numerous pupils and admirers made a collection for a handsome monument to the famous Tuscan. The Inquisitor, Fanano, at once sent word of this to Rome, and received a reply by order of the Pope, dated 23rd January, that he was to bring it in some way to the ears of the Grand Duke that it was not at all suitable to erect a monument to Galileo, who was sentenced to do penance by the tribunal of the Holy Office and had died during that sentence; good Catholics would be scandalised, and the reputation of the Grand Duke for piety might suffer. But if this did not take effect, the Inquisitor must see that there was nothing in the inscription insulting to the reputation of the holy tribunal, and exercise the same care about the funeral sermon.[596]

Besides this, Urban VIII. seized the next opportunity of giving the Tuscan ambassador to understand that “it would be a bad example for the world if his Highness permitted such a thing, since Galileo had been arraigned before the Holy Office for such false and erroneous opinions, had also given much trouble about them at Florence, and had altogether given rise to the greatest scandal throughout Christendom by this condemned doctrine.”[597] In the despatch in which Niccolini reported these remarks of the Pope to his Government, he advised that the matter be postponed, and reminded them that the Pope had had the body of the Duchess Matilda, of Mantua, removed from the Carthusian convent there, and buried at St. Peter’s at Rome, without saying a word to the Duke about it beforehand, excusing himself afterwards by saying that all churches were papal property, and therefore all the bodies buried in them belonged to the clergy! If, therefore, they did not wish to incur the danger of perhaps seeing Galileo’s bones dragged away from Florence, all idea must be given up for the present of suitably celebrating his memory.

Niccolini received an official reply that there had been a talk of erecting a monument to Galileo, but that his Highness had not come to any decision, and proper regard would certainly be paid to the hints received from the Pope.[598] The weak Ferdinand II. did not venture to act in the least against the heartless Pope’s wishes. Even Galileo’s desire in his will to be buried in the vault of his ancestors in the Church of Santa Croce, at Florence, was not respected. His mortal remains were placed in a little obscure room, in a side chapel belonging to the Church, called “the Chapel of the Novitiate.” He was buried according to the desire of Urban VIII., very quietly, without any pomp. No monument nor inscription marked his resting place; but though Rome did all she could to obliterate the memory of the famous philosopher, she could not effect that the immortal name of Galileo Galilei should be buried in the grave with his lifeless remains.

It was not till thirty-two years later, when Urban VIII. had long been in his grave, and more lenient views were entertained about Galileo at the Vatican, that Fra Gabriel Pierozzi, Rector of the Novices of the Convent of Santa Croce, ventured to adorn Galileo’s grave with a long bombastic inscription.[599] In 1693 Viviani, whose greatest pride it was to sign himself “Discépolo ultimo di Galileo,” erected the first public monument to his immortal master. The front of his handsome house in the Via San Antonio was made to serve for it, for he placed the bronze bust of Galileo, after the model of the famous sculptor, Giovanni Caccini, over the door. A long eulogy on Galileo was engraved over and on both sides of it.[600]

But Viviani was not content with thus piously honouring the memory of the master; in his last will he enjoined on his heirs to erect a splendid monument to him, which was to cost about 4000 scudi, in the Church of Santa Croce.[601] Decades, however, passed after Viviani’s death before his heirs thought of fulfilling his wishes. At length, in 1734, the preliminary steps were taken by an inquiry from the Convent of Santa Croce, whether any decree of the Holy Congregation existed which would forbid the erection of such a monument in the Church? The Inquisitor at Florence immediately inquired of the Holy Office at Rome whether it would be permitted thus to honour a man “who had been condemned for notorious errors.”[602] The opinion of the counsellors of the Holy Office was taken. They said that there was nothing to prevent the erection of the monument, provided the intended inscription were submitted to the Holy Congregation, that they might give such orders about it as they thought proper.[603] This opinion was confirmed by the Congregation of the Holy Office on 16th June, 1734.[604] And so the pompous monument to Galileo, which displayed the tastelessness of the age, and was not completed till four years later, could be raised in the Church of Santa Croce, this pantheon of the Florentines, where they bury their famous dead, and of which Byron finely sings in “Childe Harold”:—

“In Santa Croce’s holy precincts lie Ashes which make it holier, dust which is Even in itself an immortality, Though there were nothing save the past, and this, The particle of those sublimities Which have relapsed to chaos:—here repose Angelo’s, Alfieri’s bones, and his, The starry Galileo, with his woes; Here Machiavelli’s earth returned to whence it rose.”[605]

On 12th March, 1737, Galileo’s remains were removed, in presence of all the professors of the University of Florence, and many of the learned men of Italy, with great solemnity and ecclesiastical pomp, from their modest resting-place to the new mausoleum in a more worthy place in the Church of Santa Croce itself, and united with those of his last pupil, Viviani.[606]

It had long been perceived at Rome that, in spite of every effort, it was vain to try to bury the Copernican system with Galileo in the grave. It could no longer greatly concern the Roman curia that Galileo’s memory was held in high honour, when the cause for which he suffered had decidedly gained the victory. It was by a singular freak of nature that in the very same year which closed the career of this great observer of her laws, another who was to complete the work begun by Copernicus and carried on by Galileo, entered upon his. He it is, as we all know, who gave to science those eternal forms now recognised as firmly established, and whose genius, by the discovery of the law of gravitation, crowned the edifice of which Copernicus laid the foundations and which Galileo upreared. During the lifetime of the latter, and the period immediately succeeding his death, the truth of the system of the earth’s double motion was recognised by numerous learned men; and in 1696, when Newton published his immortal work, “Philosophiæ naturalis principia Mathematica,” it became thoroughly established. All the scientific world who pursued the paths of free investigation accepted the Copernican system, and only a few ossified devotees of the old school, in common with some theological philosophers, still raised impotent objections to it, which have been continued even up to this day by some wrong-headed people.[607]

At Rome they only accommodated themselves to the new system slowly and reluctantly. In 1757, when it was no longer doubted by any one but a few fanatics, the Congregation of the Index thought the time was come for proposing to Pope Benedict XIV. to expunge the clause from the decree of 5th March, 1616, prohibiting all books which teach that the sun is stationary and the earth revolves. This enlightened pontiff, known as a patron of the arts and sciences, entirely agreed, and signified his consent on 11th May, 1757.[608] But there still remained on the Index the work of Copernicus, “De Revolutionibus Orbium Cœlestium,” Diego di Zuñiga’s “Commentary on the Book of Job” (these two works, however, only “donec corrigantur,” but this was quite worthless for strict Catholics as far as the work of Copernicus was concerned, as since the announcement of these “corrections” by the decree of 15th May, 1620, no new edition had appeared), Foscarini’s “Léttera sópra l’opinione de i Pittagorici e del Copernico della mobilità della Terra et stabilità del Sole, e il nuove Pittagorico Sistéma del Mondo,” Kepler’s “Epitome astronomiæ Copernicæ,” and finally, Galileo’s “Dialogo sopra i due Massimi Sistémi del Mondo.” This last work had indeed been allowed to appear in the edition of Galileo’s collected works,[609] undertaken at Padua in 1744, which had received the prescribed ecclesiastical permission; but the editor, the Abbot Toaldo, had been obliged expressly to state in an introduction that the theory of the double motion can and must be regarded only as a mathematical hypothesis, to facilitate the explanation of certain natural phenomena. Besides this, the “Dialogues on the Two Principal Systems” had to be preceded by the sentence on and recantation of Galileo, as well as by an Essay “On the System of the Universe of the Ancient Hebrews,” by Calmet, in which the passages of Scripture bearing on the order of the world were interpreted in the traditional Catholic fashion.[610]

The celebrated French astronomer Lalande, as he himself relates,[611] tried in vain when at Rome, in 1765, to get Galileo’s works expunged from the Index. The Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of the Index objected that there was a sentence of the Congregation of the Holy Office in existence which must first be cancelled, but this was not done, and all remained as before; and even in the edition of the Index of 1819, strange to say, the five works mentioned above were to be found as repudiated by the Roman curia!

It then happened in the following year, 1820, that Canon Joseph Settele, professor of optics and astronomy at the Archive-gymnasium at Rome, wrote a lesson book, “Elementi d’astronomia,” in which the Copernican system, in accordance with the results of science, was treated _ex professo_. The Master of the Palace, Philip Anfossi, to whom in his capacity of chief censor of the press the book was submitted, demanded under appeal to the decree of 5th March, 1616, still in force, that the doctrine of the double motion should be only treated hypothetically, and refused the _imprimatur_ until the MS. had been altered. Canon Settele, however, was not disposed to make himself ridiculous in face of the whole scientific world by compliance with these antiquated conditions, and appealed to Pope Pius VII., who referred the matter to the Congregation of the Holy Office. Here at last some regard was had to the times, and in the sitting of 16th August, 1820, it was decided that Settele might treat the Copernican system as established, which was approved by Pius VII. without hesitation. Father Anfossi could not, after this decision, prevent the work from publication as it was, but he resolutely pointed out the contradiction between this permission and the decree of 5th March, 1616, and published a treatise entitled: “Can any one who has made the Tridentine Confession, defend and teach as a thesis, and as an absolute truth and not a mere hypothesis, that the earth revolves and the sun is stationary?”[612] This gave rise to discussions in the College of Cardinals of the Holy Inquisition as to the attitude to be adopted by ecclesiastical authority towards the Copernican system, which had been universally adopted for more than a century. In the sitting of 11th September, 1822, they finally agreed, with express reference to the decree of the Index Congregation of 10th May, 1757, and 16th August, 1820, “that the printing and publication of works treating of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun, in accordance with the general opinion of modern astronomers is permitted at Rome.”[613] This decree was ratified by Pius VII. on 25th September.

But full thirteen years more went by until, in 1835, when the new edition of the catalogue of prohibited books appeared, the five works in which the theory of the double motion was maintained and defended were expunged from the list.

It was not until 1835, therefore, that the last trace was effaced of the memorable warfare so long and resolutely waged by ecclesiastical power against the superior insight of science. If it is denied to history to surround the head of Galileo, the greatest advocate of the new system, with the halo of the martyr, ready to die for his cause, posterity will ever regard with admiration and gratitude the figure of the man, who, though he did not heroically defend the truth, was, by virtue of his genius, one of her first pioneers, and had to bear for her sake an accumulation of untold suffering.

APPENDIX.

I.

_HISTORY OF THE VATICAN MANUSCRIPT._[614]

We know next to nothing of the history of the Vatican MS. up to the time when Napoleon I. took possession of the papal city. During this period, when proud Rome had sunk so low as to be a department of France, in 1811, by the mandate of the then ruler of the world, the treasures of the Vatican archives were removed from Rome to Paris. Among them was the volume containing the Acts of Galileo’s trial. It is not known how Napoleon’s special attention came to be directed to them; but it is certain that he requested Alexander Barbier, then State Librarian, to furnish him with a detailed report about them.[615] Barbier handed it to the Minister of Worship and Instruction. He also proposed that the whole of the documents should be printed, in the interests of historical truth, in the original Latin and Italian, with a French translation. The proposal was approved by the Emperor, and the volume was handed over to Barbier that he might have the translation made.

When the convulsions of 1814 had swept Napoleon out of Paris, and transported him to Elba, and the Bourbons again ruled France, the Roman curia repeatedly took steps to regain possession of the volume.

After the return of Pius VII. to Rome in 1814, after his compulsory residence at Fontainebleau, Mgr. Marini was staying at Paris as Papal Commissary, in order to demand from the new French Government the restitution of the archival treasures taken by Napoleon from the Holy See. He first applied for the Acts of Galileo’s trial to the Minister of the Interior, who referred him to the Count de Blacas, Minister of the Royal Household.[616] He assured Marini that he would have a search instituted in the royal library.[617] He wrote on the same day to Barbier charging him to search for the documents, and to report to him on their historical value.[618] Barbier’s answer is too characteristic not to be given.

“A Son Excellence le Ministre de la Maison du Roi, Paris, 5 Decembre, 1814.

Monseigneur,

Je m’empresse de répondre à la lettre par laquelle votre Excellence me fait l’honneur de me demander s’il existe, dans le dépôt général des bibliothèques de S.M. ou dans l’une de ses Bibliothèques particulières, des pièces qui faisaient partie des Archives Pontificales et qui sont reclamées par le garde de ces Archives, savoir le procès de Galilée.

_Il y a plus de trois aus que je possède le procès de Galilée._

Rien n’est plus célèbre que ce procès dans l’histoire des Sciences et dans celle de l’Inquisition. Aussi s’en est on occupé avec un grand zèle jusqu’à ces derniers temps; ce qui est probablement cause qu’ après l’avoir examiné avec tante l’attention qu’il merite, _je n’y ai remarqué ancun détail qui ne soit connu_ (sic). L’importance de ce recueil consiste donc principalement dans la réunion des pièces qui ont motivé, dans le XVIIᵉ siècle, la condamnation d’un habile astronome, pour une opinion qui est généralement enseignée aujourd’hui dans toutes les écoles, même ecclésiastiques.

Je suis, Monseigneur, etc.,

BARBIER.”[619]

It is clear that Barbier expected to find support in the Acts of the trial for the assumed torture of Galileo; and as they reported nothing of the kind, and could not report anything consistently with the facts of history, the librarian entirely overlooked the vast importance of the papers. After this report Count Blacas felt no scruple about letting the Papal Commissary have them. On 15th December the minister wrote a note to Barbier, asking him for the volume of documents, that he might himself hand it to Marini.[620] He also wrote to the Papal Commissary that the documents had been found, and that it would give him great pleasure to deliver them to him.[621] Marini accordingly went three times to the minister’s hotel, and once to the Tuileries, but without success. He therefore begged, in a letter of 28th January, 1815, to have a day and hour appointed for an audience.[622] To his dismay he received in reply a letter from Count Blacas of 2nd February, 1815, saying that the King himself wished to look through the trial of Galileo, that the MS. was in his majesty’s cabinet, and therefore could not be given up immediately, but it should be done as soon as the King had returned it.[623]

Marini was therefore on the track of the documents, though he did not get them. But only twenty-four days after he received this explanation the famous hundred days occurred, and Louis XVIII. left his palace in the darkness of night for Ghent. Napoleon had scarcely set out for St. Helena, and the legitimate sovereign made his entry into Paris, than we find the Papal Commissary again eagerly trying to get back the precious MS.[624] But what must have been his dismay when he was informed by Count Pradel, temporary successor of Count Blacas, on 6th November, 1815, that the documents were no longer to be found in the King’s cabinet, and that it was not known what had become of them.[625] Further efforts were fruitless. All that he could get from the French Government was the doubtful promise that the papers should be restored when found.

Two years later, in August, 1817, he again attacked Count Pradel on the subject,[626] and was assured that they were not in the cabinet of the royal palace; he might have a search made among the archives in the Louvre, they might have been put aside there.[627] Marini suspected that the papers had been purloined, and asked the minister of police, Count Decazes, to help him in his search. He, however, referred him to the Minister Of the Interior,[628] that is, to the place where he had begun his inquiries three years before. Afterwards he applied to the president of the ministry, the Duke of Richelieu, and to the influential M. de Lainé, but with no more success than before.

In 1820 Venturi applied to Delambre, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences, with the request to get for him, if possible, extracts from and copies of the Acts of the trial, as he was urgently in want of them for the second volume of his “Memorie e lettere inedite fuora o disperse di Galileo Galilei.” Delambre eagerly took up the question. Some light is thrown on the steps he took by the following note to Barbier of 27th June, only published a few months ago:—

“Le secretaire perpétuel de l’Académie pour les Sciences Mathématiques est venu pour avoir l’honneur de converser avec M. Barbier, sur un article intéressant de biographie astronomique, le procés de Galilée et les pièces originales dont M. Barbier a été longtemps dêpositaire. Il desire cette conversation pour lui-même et pour M. Venturi, etc., Delambre.”[629]

Three days later Delambre wrote to Venturi that the original Acts certainly had been at Paris some years ago, but had disappeared, and it was not now known whether they were still there or had been taken away. He told him that during the Empire the publication and translation of the documents had been projected, but political events had prevented it from being carried out; the extracts, however, then made, and the French translation which had been begun, were in existence. These, which M. Barbier had placed at Delambre’s disposal, he sent to Venturi. Delambre expressed his great regret that the material which he could obtain was not complete; but he consoled himself with the opinion that by the publication of the documents in Riccioli’s “Almagestum novum,” 1651, and in the first volume of Venturi’s work, nothing essential would be wanting; and “that unfortunate business, which would be ridiculous if it were not so repulsive, is now as widely known as can be desired.” Delambre, as it seems, was only concerned with the clearing up of the torture question; and as the fragments which had come to his knowledge contained no evidence of torture, and as he might have been informed by Barbier that there was no trace of it in any of the papers, he wrote as above in calm conviction to Venturi.

Eight years afterwards Count Darü, who was intending to bring out his work on astronomy, made inquiries of Barbier about the existence of the Acts of Galileo’s trial. The information he received must have been wholly unsatisfactory, as appears from the following letter from the Count to Barbier of 16th October, 1828:—

“J’ai reçu Monsieur ... les deux lettres que vous m’avez fait l’honneur de m’écrire. J’ai trouvé, joint à la seconde, le billet de M. l’abbé Denina[630] qui prouve que la traduction du procès de Galilée a existé au moins en partie. Du reste, nous en avions déjà la preuve par l’extrait de M. Delambre. _Je suis persuadé que le procès existe quelque part à Paris_, et ce me semble, il doit se trouver dans quelque bibliothèque du roi, peut être même aux Archives de la liste civile. J’en parlerai a M. le baron de la Bouillerie.

Recevez, etc.,

DARÜ.”[631]

But Darü’s further inquiries seem to have been unsuccessful; anyhow, the long-sought-for volume remained concealed for seventeen years longer. In 1845 Gregory XVI. requested Pelegrino Rossi, French ambassador at Rome, who was devoted to the papacy, to use his influence to get the Acts restored, if they should be discovered at Paris. This shows that it was disbelieved at Rome that they could not be found. At first Rossi’s urgent mediation only obtained the assurance from Louis Philippe that the Pope’s cherished wish should be fulfilled, provided that the papers should be found, but on the express condition that they should be published entire at Rome. And as the curia, of course, promised to comply, the MS. which had been mysteriously concealed for thirty-one years was “found” and restored.

In 1848-9, when the Papal See was attacked by the revolutionary spirit which pervaded Europe, the fugitive Pope, Pius IX., confided the hardly-won documents to the prefect of the Secret Archives, Marino Marini. He not only took good care of them, but took the opportunity of fulfilling the obligation to the French Government incurred on their restoration. On 12th April, 1850, the Pope returned from Gaeta to his capital under the protection of French bayonets, and his thoughts must soon have recurred to these documents, for on 8th May of the same year he presented them to the Vatican Library. In the same year, also, Marini’s work, “Galileo Galilei e l’Inquizione,” appeared at Rome, intended to be the fulfilment of the French conditions.

We purposely say “intended to be,” for they were not really so at all. The entire contents of the Vatican MS. were thereby by no means given to the public, but such a sight of it as the editor thought proper, and which was, as far as possible, an apology for the Inquisition. Instead of the full original text of the Acts, the world only received disjointed extracts, arbitrary fragments—in many instances nothing at all. Perhaps it was perceived at head-quarters that a comparison of Marini’s work with the documents would bring strange things to light, for they were suddenly removed from the too public Vatican Library and placed among the papal archives.

And for a long time there seemed to be no disposition to place these important historical materials at the disposal of independent historians. Thus we learn from Albèri, editor of “Le Opere di Galileo Galilei,” Florence, 1842-1856, in 16 vols, in which all the materials for the history of Galileo are collected, that Marini had made obliging offers to him about the Vatican MS.; but his death put an end to the hopes thus raised, and Albèri had to content himself with reproducing the extracts and documents given by Venturi and Marini. It is obvious that the MS. was not accessible to him, or he would surely have included the Acts in his great work. Professor Moritz Cantor, who asked to see them ten years later, met with no better success. He complains bitterly in his essay, “Galileo Galilei,” that the attempts he made through the good offices of an eminent _savant_, with Father Theiner, keeper of the Secret Archives, had been without avail.

However, though neither Albèri nor Cantor attained their wish, Henri de L’Epinois, a few years later, was more successful. In the introduction to his work, “Galilée, son procès sa Condemnation,” 1867, he relates that in a conversation with Theiner at Rome, he expressed his regret at the inadequacy of Marini’s book, and his desire to see the subject of Galileo’s trial cleared up. Theiner liberally responded to this appeal by placing the documents at his disposal. But Epinois had only just made hasty copies of the most important, and indices of others, when he was compelled by urgent private affairs to return to France. The copies of the Vatican MS. which he took with him were therefore in many respects inaccurate and incomplete, and even the indices left much to be desired. Nevertheless, historical research will always be indebted to Epinois for publishing his notes, in spite of their shortcomings, which were best known to himself.[632] The melancholy picture of Galileo’s trial was first presented in faithful outline, and it became possible to weave the story with approximate accuracy. Many details, however, were still wanting; and though the fictitious stories of many writers were considerably checked by Epinois’s communications, some scope was still left for them. What was wanted was the entire publication of the Vatican MS., and if possible with diplomatic precision.

Nine years again went by, during which Epinois seems to have found no opportunity of completing his work. Meanwhile, Professor Domenico Berti asked for the favour of a sight of the papers, and in 1876 he was engaged in Theiner’s room in copying the documents.[633] In the same year his work, “Il Processo Originale di Galileo Galilei,” appeared, bearing upon the title page the unwarranted addition, “publicato per la prima volta da Domenico Berti.” Epinois had been the first to publish the Vatican MS., though only partially; the words would only have been correct if Berti had published them complete. This he professes to have done,[634] but as five documents are wanting, and the contents of fifty others only shortly given, it cannot be regarded as complete.

Besides these unfortunate lapses, Berti’s publication is very disappointing to the historian. Instead of giving the reader as good an idea as possible of this interesting MS., the documents are taken out of all connection, and given numbers and superscriptions of which there is not a trace in the original, and the marking of the folios is omitted. “Improvement” of the orthography, punctuation, etc., is consistently carried out. One of the numberings is quite left out (the oldest, upper paging), and, following Epinois, he reads the second incorrectly.

In the same year in which Berti’s book appeared, Sante Pieralisi received an invitation from high quarters to inspect the volume. He accepted the flattering offer with no small satisfaction, but does not seem to have known how to turn it to account. He confined himself to comparing the most important documents in Epinois and Berti with the originals, and to giving a list, by no means complete, of their deviations from them.[635]

In consequence of the controversy as to the genuineness of the document of 26th February, 1616, we resolved in the spring of 1877 to attempt to get a sight of the papers, our sole reason being the desire to see for ourselves whether external evidence was for or against falsification, or whether any certain conclusions could be drawn from it. We had then no idea whatever of publishing the Vatican MS. ourselves, as we at that time considered Berti’s publication of it to be nearly complete.

Through the good offices of the Austrian ambassador, we were promised that when we came to Rome, Cardinal Simeoni, Secretary of State, would permit us to see the documents. Two days afterwards we were on our way to Rome, and soon had the volume in our hands. As we turned over the pages with a curiosity easy to be imagined, and compared it with Berti’s publication, we discovered, to our no small surprise, its many omissions and inaccuracies. The idea then occurred to us of making a copy of all the documents in the collection with the greatest possible precision. Not the least “improvement” should be made; the text should be reproduced exactly, with its peculiar orthography, accentuation, and punctuation, its abbreviations, errors, and special marks, so far as it was possible by means of typography.

We made known our intention to the first prefect of the Vatican Library, Mgr. Martinuzzi, to whom Cardinal Simeoni had referred us; he not only made not the slightest objection, but showed great interest in our project. During our long daily tarriance in the Vatican afterwards, he was most obliging, and heaped attentions upon us which lightened the labour.

We might have been engaged about three weeks in copying the MS., sending the pages copied during the day to Messrs. Cotta, at Stuttgard, to be printed, when we were surprised one morning by a visit in the Vatican from M. de L’Epinois. He told us that he had been two months at Rome, and had undertaken a correction of Berti’s book from the original. We informed him of our enterprise, which he spoke of as “quite a different thing”; and when we returned his call, he again spoke of a correction of Berti, and regretted that he had not copied the whole MS. Of any intention of publishing it complete he said not a word. We therefore contentedly went on with our work; the copying was nearly finished and the printing in progress, when one afternoon on our return from the Vatican we found a letter from Epinois, in which he said that he had not had time to call on us again, and informed us of the speedy appearance of his complete publication of the Vatican MS., and that we should receive a copy in a few days. This announcement was most surprising. We went at once to seek M. de L’Epinois, but learnt that he had left Rome early that morning.

Our work was too far advanced to be given up, and so we went on, in the hope that even now there might be some little place in the world for it. By the time Epinois’s book reached us the copying was finished, and we were correcting the proofs by the originals. It was not without value, even for our enterprise, for we compared our proofs with it line by line and word by word, made notes of deviations, and then went to the Vatican to see which was right. We readily acknowledge that in this way we discovered and corrected many errors which had crept into our copy. The variations which still exist are all well known to us, and are left, either because Epinois is mistaken, or we consider our reading to be the best. This is not the place for a criticism of his work; we will only bear witness, after comparing it with the original, to its accuracy.

II.

_DESCRIPTION OF THE VATICAN MANUSCRIPT._

The Acts of the two trials of Galileo, of 1615-16 and 1632-33, which are stitched together, and to which several other documents are added relating to the surveillance of Galileo until his death, and the erection of his monument, form a pretty thick quarto volume, twenty-two centimeters broad and thirty high.

It is done up in a loose sheet of white paper, which can lay no claim to veneration from age, and is in an equally loose green pasteboard cover, which may boast of historic antiquity, as may also the faded and frail red strings by which the volume is fastened. The cover is too short and too narrow, so that the edges get mercilessly rubbed. In this way, unfortunately, many a letter, word and even signature in these precious papers have been lost, and it is high time to protect them from further injury.

The documents are only slightly fastened together in places, and you can see from the outside how far the Acts of the first trial extend. This slight fastening also enables you to see that all the blank pages, of which there are 194, are partly reverse sides, partly second pages of documents, and it may easily be discovered to which document each blank page belongs. In some cases these second pages have been cut away, as appears from the broad piece left. The suspicion from this that important documents have been withdrawn seems inadmissible, for the pages cut out, as is seen from those left, which correspond with the rest, belonged to finished documents, and the abstraction of a document would certainly not have been betrayed by leaving a broad strip behind.

The paging is in the greatest confusion. On the title page, in the right hand corner, are the figures 949, and under them 336. The historical introduction, by an unknown hand, prefixed to the papers, is numbered 337-340. The first document bears the double paging

950 341,

the upper number being struck through. On folio

951 342

a third paging begins with 1, on the right hand lower edge. The triple numbering goes on regularly to

959 350 9.

After

992 383 41

the uppermost and oldest paging is discontinued. Folios 384-386, blank pages of the Acts of the first trial, only bear the double paging, probably because, being blank, they were not paged until the papers of both trials were put together.

The double paging may be thus explained. The old numbering comprises all the documents belonging to 1616; and as it is to be seen on the title page, as well as the words: “Ex archivo S. Offij,” and Vol. 1181, it is clear that these documents were originally comprised in a volume of the Archives of the Holy Office numbered 1181. The Acts of the second trial, 1632-33, must have belonged to another volume, as appears from the paging, as the first document bears the number 387, but the number of the volume is not traceable. When the Acts of 1616 and 1632-33 were bound together, in order to form a continuous paging, the old numbers of the first trial were struck through, and the paging continued backwards, reckoning from the first folio of the second trial.

The Introduction helps to determine the time when the two parts were united. It only extends to the mention of Galileo’s defence; it is clear, therefore, that it was written after 10th May (the date of the defence), and before 21st June, the date of the last examination, while the numbering, which is that of the second paging only, shows that the union had taken place. The title page also is included in the second paging. We may therefore conclude that the authorship of the Introduction and the joining of the Acts up to 10th May, 1633, is to be attributed to the same person.

The object of this report undoubtedly was to give the Pope and Congregation, before their final verdict on Galileo; a _résumé_ of the whole affair from its beginning. The united Acts were the vouchers. The drawing up of such a _résumé_ was part of the ordinary proceeding in every trial before the Inquisition, and it had to be circulated among the cardinals and qualifiers before the final sitting[636]. As in Galileo’s case this final sitting took place on 16th June, under the personal presidency of the Pope, it is in exact agreement with this that both the summary and paging referred to in it only extend to the events of 16th June.

As to the addition of the further documents, it may be observed that after the papers were put together the collection ended with six second pages, of which four, 448, 449, 450, 451, belonged to the opinion of Pasqualigus; and two, 452, 453, to the protocol of the examination of Galileo of 12th April, 1633. The annotation about the decree of 16th June, 1633, was written on the reverse side of the last second page, 451, forming part of the above-named document, and the three previous pages were left blank. The protocol on the Constitute of Galileo of 21st June was written on the blank sheets of 12th April. On the remaining space (half of 453 and the reverse side) two notes were made—the first about the mandate of 30th June, to send the sentence and recantation to all Inquisitors, etc., and the permit to Galileo to go to Siena; the second note reports that Firenzuola issued the order to Galileo on 2nd July. The rest of the documents which the Vatican MS. now contains must have been added as they came in, or when there were several to be added. The paging was, of course, continuously carried out.

The last document but one of the collection is a short historical summary of the process. Berti says that this must have been drawn up at least a year after its conclusion,[637] but Pieralisi[638] has pointed out that he should have said, at least a century. The origin of it is plain: when the inquiry of Fra Paolo Antonio Ambr*** of 8th June, 1734, came in as to the erection of a monument in Santa Croce, this _résumé_ was drawn up to put the cardinals, who might not know much about it, in possession of the chief facts of Galileo’s trial. In the Vatican MS. the sheet of paper containing the _résumé_ is stitched to the letter of Fra. Ambr*** and the decision of the cardinals written on the fourth page. If any doubts remain that this summary was written in 1734, they will disappear on comparing it with the extracts, published by Gherardi, of the protocol of the sitting of 16th June of that year. In this we find, within parentheses, the most important part of the summary, followed by the decision of the cardinals, in almost verbatim translation from Italian into Latin. The date and purpose of the summary are therefore made clear.

III.

_ESTIMATE OF THE VATICAN MANUSCRIPT._

We now proceed to the examination of the documents contained in this famous volume. They differ in historical value, for they are not all as Professor Berti says,[639] original documents, but often copies, and more or less cursory annotations. Those only can be considered original documents which have autograph signatures; as all the letters in the MS. with one exception,[640] the protocol of the examination of Caccini, and the protocols of the examinations of Galileo; those of the depositions of Ximenes and Attavanti are copies sent by the Inquisitor at Florence to the Holy Office, and there is therefore no question of their authenticity. The rest of the MS. consists mainly of annotations on the decrees relating to the trial, decrees and mandates of the Pope and Holy Congregation, or notices of their execution. _But the original Acts corresponding with these annotations are not comprised in the Vatican MS._ Moreover, a careful examination of the Vatican Acts with Gherardi’s Documents shows, that especially after the conclusion of the trial till Galileo’s death, many papal decrees were issued of which there is no mention in the Vatican MS. So far as this, therefore, it must be looked upon as an incomplete source. But on the other hand, there is no doubt that the Acts of the trial itself lie before us altogether.

Dr. Emil Wohlwill, of Hamburg, has recently expressed the suspicion that a short time before the MS. was removed from the Archives of the Holy Office to France, the Acts of the trial underwent alterations with a special purpose, in the expectation that the Archives would be robbed, and that after the return of the volume in 1846, through Mgr. Marino Marini, Prefect of the Papal Archives, these alterations were completed![641] Wohlwill takes all the preliminary report—the origin of which is clear, and in accordance with the rules of the Inquisition—for a forgery intended to influence “readers outside the Vatican.” He also thinks that the opinion of the qualifier of the Holy Office at the head of the Acts is a later addition. The object of this no one can make out, and Dr. Wohlwill himself can give no satisfactory reason for it. As he had only Epinois’s first edition of the Vatican MS. (1867), and Berti’s imperfect publication in his hands, he often draws incorrect conclusions. It is hardly necessary to say that Dr. Wohlwill’s bold conjectures turn out to be phantoms on an actual examination of the papers, and this will certainly be confirmed by Epinois, Berti, Pieralisi, and all who have seen them. This is not the place to refute Wohlwill’s suspicions, as we have done so elsewhere.[642] It only remains for us to give the material evidence which indisputably proves that the annotation of 26th February neither is nor can be a later falsification.

As is well known, before we had inspected these documents we had fully adopted the suspicion, expressed by Dr. Wohlwill in Germany, and Professor Gherardi in Italy, that the “document” of 26th February, 1616, was of a later origin, in order to afford a pretext, according to the ideas of the time, for bringing the inconvenient author of the “Dialogues on the Two Systems” to trial for disobedience to an order of the Sacred Congregation, though the work seemed to be protected by the ecclesiastical _imprimatur_. We confess that we went to Rome with but little hope of finding external evidence for or against the genuineness of the document. It had been long in Professor Berti’s hands, and he had defended it with learned dialectics, while the controversy would have been closed by adducing material evidence. It seemed to us, therefore, sufficient inducement to undertake a journey to Rome, if it should enable us to confirm, on external grounds, that the document was not a falsification, even though its genuineness might not be capable of demonstration.

Contrary to all our expectations, after a repeated, careful, and we may say, entirely objective examination, we must pronounce _that the suspicion of a later origin is not tenable_.

Now for the reasons. The note of 26th February begins on the same page as that of the 25th, and they are in precisely the same ink and handwriting. As, however, in case of a forgery, the perpetrator would not have been so unskilful as to add a note in different ink and writing under another sixteen years old, but would have written both on another sheet, and carefully incorporated them with the Acts, we had to find out whether it was possible that the pages on which the notes are found (folios 378 vo. and 379 ro.), could have been afterwards added to the Acts. This was found to be impossible. It is excluded by two circumstances.

1. Folios 378 vo. and 379 ro. are _second_ pages to existing documents; and folio 378 belongs to 377, on which is written the famous opinion of the Qualifiers of the Holy Office on the two propositions of Galileo, taken from the work on the Solar Spots. Folio 379 again belongs to folio 357, which is a page of the protocol of the examination of Caccini.

2. In this collection of the Acts of the trial, all the paper on which the documents of the Holy Office were written at Rome, bears the same watermark,—a dove in a circle,—which is not found on any of the paper of later date. This mark is distinctly visible on the folios bearing the notes of 25th and 26th February.

As from this evidence the idea of a later insertion of the papers had to be given up, there was still one suspicion left—that the two notes had been written in 1632 on blank sheets of Acts of 1616, of which there are so many, and the authentic notice of 25th February removed. But this hypothesis could not be maintained in face of the fact that, as a scrupulous comparison showed, several other annotations of 1616 are in the same hand as those of 25th and 26th February, while it is not to be found in any document of the later trial.

In the face of these decisive facts it seems no longer justifiable to maintain that the note of 26th February is a _later_ falsification. Nevertheless, Professor Moritz Cantor, of Heidelberg, has conjectured, and Dr. Scartazzini has told us for certain, how the “falsifiers” went to work. In the _Revista Europa_, vol. iv. part v., 1st December, 1877, Dr. Scartazzini propounds his theory with an effrontery which is most convincing to a layman and astounding to the initiated. And yet it is entirely upset by one simple practical observation. His theory is that the page on which the genuine protocol of the proceedings of 26th February was written was cut out, that this was concealed by folding the edge the other way, while space was found for the existing forgery by transposing blank sheets. Now for our observation: Dr. Scartazzini quotes only the second paging, which was done _after_ the assumed forgery, and it therefore permitted a transposition of pages according to the pleasure—not of the forger, but of Dr. Scartazzini. In 1632 there was a regular numbering from 949-992, originating in 1616, and no transposition of the Acts could have been made on Scartazzini’s plan, without entirely disturbing it. His theory therefore belongs to the realm of impossibilities.

But firmly as it is now established that the document of 26th February, 1616, is not a later forgery, it is equally certain that the proceedings did not take place in the rigid manner described in that annotation. In the course of this work we have become acquainted with the various reasons which conclusively prove that the annotation contains a downright untruth, exaggeration, or misrepresentation. To all these reasons one more may now be added. Had the course of events been that recorded in the annotation, so important an act would have been made into a protocol, and would have been signed by Galileo, the notary, and witnesses. Only a document of this kind would have afforded conclusive evidence on another trial. We learn from another document of the trial that such a proceeding was a part of the precautionary measures of the Inquisition, in order that the accused might not be able to deny what had happened. When on 1st October, 1632, Galileo was summoned before the Inquisitor at Florence, who issued the command to him to present himself at Rome in the course of the month, Galileo had to state in writing that he had received the order and would obey it; no sooner had he left the room than it was entered by a notary and witnesses who had been concealed in an adjoining apartment, and affirmed under Galileo’s signature that they had been present when he “promised, wrote, and signed the above.”[643]

If these measures were so strictly observed in the case of this much less important act, we may be tolerably certain that they would not have been omitted in the far more important one of 1616, if the stringent command had really been issued to Galileo by the Commissary-General in the name of the Pope and the Holy Congregation, before notary and witnesses, to maintain henceforth absolute silence, in speaking and writing, about the Copernican system. Such a document would have furnished the Holy Office with legal grounds for bringing Galileo to trial in case of his breaking his word, and for punishing his disobedience; in short, for subjecting him to the consequences of this categorical injunction.

Did such a protocol ever exist? As we doubted the fact of the stringent intimation, we did not believe that such a document ever had existed. Nevertheless, when at Rome, we eagerly sought to discover whether, contrary to all expectation, this most important document was extant, or to learn anything about it. It might perhaps be in the Archives of the Holy Inquisition, in which, in 1848, Professor Gherardi had found such valuable notes about the trial of Galileo. We therefore addressed a memorial to the then Secretary of State, Cardinal Simeoni, in which we made a concise statement of the present state of the researches relating to Galileo’s trial, remarking that though the suspicion of a falsification was not tenable, the correctness of the note of 26th February seemed doubtful, and could only be acknowledged as trustworthy if either the original protocol, or some confirmatory notice, were discovered in the Archives of the Inquisition. In the course of four weeks we received the following reply:—

“Illm̃o Signore,

In sequito della richiesta fattasi da V. S. Illm̃a di avere dei documenti relativi a Galileo, mi recai a premura di commetterne le opportune indagini. Praticatesi le più diligenti ricerche, vengo informato non esistere affatto negli Archivi i documenti che si desideravano.

Nel portare ciò a sua notizia, ho il piacere di dichiararle i sensi della mia distinta stima—

Di V. S. Illm̃a,

Affmo per servirla,

GIOVANNI CARD. SIMEONI.

Roma 20 Luglio, 1877.”

By this decisive information it is established that _now_, at any rate, _no other document is extant relating to the proceedings of 26th February, 1616, than the well-known annotation_. Was this also the case in 1632, when Galileo was arraigned for disobedience and signally punished? The history of the trial, the otherwise incomprehensible attitude of the Interrogator towards Galileo, are strongly in favour of an affirmative answer. From his first examination to his defence, Galileo persistently denies having received any other command than the warning of Cardinal Bellarmine, neither to hold nor defend the Copernican doctrine, while the Interrogator maintains that a command was issued to him before a notary and witnesses “not in any way to hold, teach, or defend that doctrine.” The contradiction is obvious. In confirmation of his deposition, Galileo brings an autograph certificate from Cardinal Bellarmine which fully agrees with it. One would then have expected to see the Interrogator spare no pains to convict Galileo on this turning-point of the trial. The production of a legal protocol about the proceeding of 26th February would have cleared up the whole affair and annihilated Galileo’s defence. But as it was not produced, and the Interrogator, singularly enough, omits all further inquiry into Galileo’s ignorance of the absolute prohibition, and simply takes it for granted, we may conclude that in 1633 no other document existed about the Act of 26th February than this note without signature. It must therefore be admitted by the historical critic that one of the heaviest charges against Galileo was raised on a paper of absolutely no legal value, and that sentence for “disobedience” was passed entirely on the evidence of this worthless document.

IV.

_GHERARDI’S COLLECTION OF DOCUMENTS._

In the course of this work we have always acknowledged the authenticity of the documents first published by Gherardi in his “Il Processo Galileo: Riveduto Sopra documenti di nuove fonte,” in the _Rivista Europea_, vol. iii., 1870, and our story has in many cases been based on them. It behoves us, therefore, to give the reasons which place their authenticity beyond question. These are to be found, first, in the origin of the collection; secondly, by comparing the documents with others universally acknowledged to be authentic.

On the first point we refer to the professor’s account prefixed to the documents. In December, 1848, he came to Rome, and was at first, though only for a short time, deputy to the parliament summoned by Pius IX., then held, in quick succession, the offices of member of the assembly for framing a constitution, Secretary of State, and finally Minister of Instruction to the Revolutionary Government. These offices greatly facilitated Gherardi’s historical researches, and he pursued them with ardour even amidst the turmoil of revolution. His attention was specially directed to the discovery of the original documents of Galileo’s trial. Even in December, 1848, he found opportunity to make a search in the Archives of the Palace of the Inquisition, which was carefully guarded by the soldiers and agents of the Provisional Government to save these historical treasures from the fury of the mob. Gherardi had hoped to get a sight of the complete collection of the Acts, which had two years before been brought back from Paris. But this hope was not fulfilled, for as we know, during the Revolution, these documents were in the hands of Mgr. Marino Marini, Prefect of the Secret Archives. So Gherardi had to content himself with seeking more or less evident traces of the trial among the Archives left in the greatest confusion and partly hastily plundered by the fugitive custodians. It was not without difficulty that he discovered, what was before unknown, that the Acts of the Inquisition were divided into two classes: the first contains the protocols of the sittings and decrees of the Holy Congregation, sometimes in full and sometimes merely extracts. The folios containing these were marked Decreta. The second class contains the protocols of the examinations of accused persons and witnesses, all Acts relating to trials, and finally the sentences passed. These folios were marked Processus. There was a third register marked Rubricelle, which served as an index to everything relating to any person or cause.

As there were not nearly so many gaps in the Decreta as in the Processus, Gherardi turned his attention, the Rubricelle in hand, to the former. He began to make extracts from the documents relating to Galileo’s trial, and had already made ten, when he came upon a collection of papers containing thirty-two of such extracts, all relating to the trial. To these papers was added an extract from a letter from Count Blacas, from Prague, of 20th January, 1835, in which he stated that he had repeatedly, but without success, instituted a search for the Acts of Galileo’s trial, which had been detained at Paris since 1815, and that nothing would give him greater pleasure, should they come into his hands, than to deliver them to his Holiness, but this was not a suitable time to renew the demand for them.

It is clear from this letter that the curia made at least one attempt to regain possession of the Vat. MS. between 1820 and 1845, and Gherardi concludes from the circumstance that this letter was found with the said collection that a copy of it had been sent to the Count, perhaps to show him that it was desired to put all the papers relating to Galileo’s cause together—a project intended to urge the Count to renewed efforts for their recovery. Be that as it may, the important thing is that Gherardi, having convinced himself of the entire agreement of his ten extracts (the most important), with the corresponding ones in the collection, concluded that the other twenty-two were correct, and did not make any more extracts.

In April, 1849, in spite of the precautions taken, the Archives of the Inquisition seemed no longer safe from the mob, and were removed, with other ecclesiastical libraries, to the Apollinarius church, where Gherardi was again able to look at them. But it was but for a moment, as he decidedly declined all responsibility for a collection of such immense historical value. Moreover, the advance of the French army to Rome to effect the restoration of Pius IX., would have left him but little time for historical researches. On 4th July, in consequence of the capitulation of the municipal council, the French General Ouidinot marched at the head of his troops into “liberated” Rome, while Garibaldi left it on the other side with his 4000 volunteers, and with him all the patriots who had specially distinguished themselves in the service of the Republic during its short existence. Among these was Gherardi, who turned his steps towards Genoa, where he lived for his studies during his exile. On leaving Rome he had only been able to take ten extracts with him, and had now to wait for an opportunity of completing them by those in the Archives of the Inquisition, and he waited patiently twenty-one years. In 1870 the time at length came. He gives us no further particulars as to how he succeeded in getting the collection into his hands again, but simply says that he did so, and no longer delayed to give this valuable historical material to the world.

The history of Gherardi’s Documents is of itself a pledge of their authenticity, and it is absolutely confirmed by comparing them with the corresponding documents of the Vatican MS. We have compared them line for line and word for word, and have found that they contain nothing Whatever that in the least diverges from those Acts. On the contrary, they throw light on and complete them, and in some cases agree with them verbatim—perhaps the best possible proof of the authenticity of both.

V.

DECRETVM[644]

989. Fol. 380 ro. 38

Sacræ Congregationis Illustrissimorum S.R.E. Cardinalium, à S.D.N. PAVLO Papa V. Sanctàq. Sede Apostolica ad Indicem Librorum, eorumdemq; permissionem, prohibitionem, expurgationem, et impressionem, in vniuersa Republica Christiana specialiter deputatorum, vbiquè publicandum.

Cvm ab aliquo tempore citra, prodierint in lucem inter alios nonnulli Libri, varias hæreses, atq; errores continentes, Ideo Sacra Congregatio Illustrissimorum S. R. E. Cardinalium ad indicem deputatorum, nè ex eorum lectione grauiora in dies damna in tota Republica Christiana oriantur, eos omninò damnandos, atque prohibendos esse voluit; Sicuti præsenti Decreto pœnitus damnat, et prohibet vbicumq; et quouis idiomate impressos, aut imprimendos. Mandans, vt nullus deinceps cuiuscumque gradus, et conditionis, sub pœnis in Sacro Concilio Tridentino, et in Indice Librorum prohibitorum contentis, eos audeat imprimere, aut imprimi curare, vel quomodocumque apud se detinere, aut legere; Et sub ijsdem pœnis quicumque nunc illos habent, vel habuerint in futurum, locorum Ordinarijs, seù Inquisitoribus, statim à præsentis Decreti notitia exhibere teneantur, Libri autem sunt infrascripti, videlicet.

_Theologiæ Calvinistarŭ Libri tres, auctore Conrado Schlufferburgio. | Scotanus Rediuiuvs, siue Comentarius Erotematicus in tres prio- | res libros, codicis, &._

_Grauissimæ quæstionis Christianarum Ecclesiarum in Occidentis’, | præfertim partibus ab Apostolicis temporibus ad nostram vsque | ætatem continua successione, &. statu: historica explicato, Au- | ctore Jacobo Vsserio Sacræ Theologiæ in Dulbiniensi[645] Academia | apud Hybernos professore._

_Federici Achillis Ducis Vuertemberg. Consultatio de Pincipatu | inter Provincias Europæ habita Tubingiæ in Illustri Collegio | Anno Christi 1613._

_Donnelli Enucleati, siue Commentarium Hugonis Donelli, de Iure | Ciuili in compendium ita redactorum &._

Et quia etiam ad notitiam præfatæ Sacræ Congregationis peruenit, falsam illiam doctrinam Pithagoricam, diuinæq; scripturæ omnino aduersantem, de mobilitate Terræ, et immobilitate Solis, quam Nicolaus Copernicus de reuolutionibus orbium cœlestium, et Didacus Astunica in Job etiam docent, iam diuulgari et à multis recipi; sicuti videre est ex quadam epistola impressa cuiusdam Patris Carmelitæ, cui titulus, Lettera del R. Padre Maestro Paolo Antonio Foscarini Carmelitano, sopra l’opinione de Pittagorici, e del Copernico, della mobilità della Terra, e stabilità del Sole, et il nuouo Pittagorico Sistema del Mondo, in Napoli per Lazzaro Scoriggio 1615. in qua dictus Pater ostendere conatur, præfatam doctrinam de immobilitate Solis in centro Mundi, et mobilitate Terræ, consonam esse, veritati, et non aduersari Sacræ Scripturæ: Ideo nè vlteriùs huiusmodi opinio in perniciem Catholicæ veritatis serpat, censuit dictos Nicolaum Copernicum de reuolutionibus orbium, et Didacum Astvnica in Job, suspendendos esse donec corrigantur. Librum verò Patris Pauli Antonij Foscarini Carmelitæ omninò prohibendum, atque damnandum; aliosq́; omnes Libros pariter idem docentes prohibendos, Prout præsenti Decreto omnes respectiuè prohibet, damnat, atque suspendit. In quorum fidem præsens Decretum manu, et sigillo Illustrissimi & Reuerendissimi D. Cardinalis S. Cæciliæ Ep̃i Albaneñ signatum, et munitum fuit die 5. Martij 1616.

P. Episc. Albanen. Card. S. Cæciliæ.

Locus † sigilli. _Registr. fol. 90._

_F. Franciscus Magdalenus Capiferreus Ord. Prædic. Secret._

ROME, Ex Typographia Cameræ Apostolicæ. M.DCXVI.

VI.

_REMARKS ON THE SENTENCE AND RECANTATION._[646]

We give the Sentence and Recantation as given by Giorgio Polacco in his work, “Anticopernicus Catholicus seu de terræ Statione, et de salis motu, contra systema Copernicanum, Catholicæ Assertionis,” pp. 67-76, Venice, 1644. Everything indicates that these are the only authentic copies of the originals, while the opinion adopted by many authors that the Latin texts published by P. Riccioli in his “Almagestum Novum,” 1651, are the originals, is not tenable on close examination, for it is obvious that they are translated from the Italian. According to the rules of the Inquisition, sentences and recantations were written in the mother tongue,[647] that they might be generally understood. P. Olivieri, General of the Dominicans and Commissary of the Inquisition, also says in his posthumous work, “Di Copernico e di Galileo,” Bologna, 1872, p. 62, “We find the history of it, etc., in the sentence passed on Galileo, which is given in many works in a Latin translation. I take it from Venturi, who gives it in the Italian original.”

Professor Berti, in his “Il Processo originale di Galileo Galilei,” etc., pp. 143-151, has given the Sentence and Recantation in a Latin text which agrees precisely with Riccioli’s, even in some misprints. He says that they are taken from some MS. copies in the Archivio del Santo, at Padua, and thinks that they are the very copies sent by the Cardinal of St. Onufrio, at the command of the Pope, to the Inquisitor at Padua in 1633. Incited by this remark, when at Padua we went to inspect these valuable MSS. But what was our surprise on being told that these documents had already been sought for in vain at the request of Dr. Wohlwill, and that no one remembered to have seen them. Professor Berti will perhaps have the goodness to clear the matter up. The documents were probably only exact copies of Riccioli’s text.

_SENTENZA._

Noi Gasparo del titolo di S. Croce in Gierusalemme Borgia. Fra Felice Centino del titolo di S. Anastasis, detto d’Ascoli. Guido del titolo di S. Maria del Popolo Bentivoglio. Fra Desiderio Scaglia del titolo di S. Carlo detto di Cremona. Fra Antonio Barberina detto di S. Onofrio. Laudiviò Zacchia del titolo di S. Pietro in Vincola detto di S. Sisto. Berlingero del titolo di S. Agostino, Gessi. Fabricio del titolo di S. Lorenzo in pane e perna. Verospi, chiamato Prete. Francesco di S. Lorenzo in Damaso Barberino, e Martio di S. Maria Nuova Ginetti Diaconi.

Perla misericordia di Dio della S. R. E. Cardinali in tutta la repubblica cristiana contra l’eretica pravità Inquisitori Generali della S. Sede Apostolica specialmente deputati.

Essendo che tu Galileo, figliolo del qu. Vincenzo Galilei Fiorentino dell’ età tua d’ anni 70 fosti denonciato del 1615 in questo S. Officio, che tenessi come vera la falsa dottrina da molti insegnata, che il Sole sia centro del mondo et immobile, e che la terra si muova anco di moto diurno: Che avevi alcuni discepoli, a’ quali insegnavi la medesima dottrina: Che circa l’ istessa tenevi corrispondenza con alcuni Matematici di Germania: Che tu avevi dato alle stampe alcune lettere intitolate delle Macchie Solari, nelle quali spiegavi l’ istessa dottrina, come vera: Et che all’ obbiezioni, che alle volte ti venivano fatte, tolte dalla Sacra Scrittura rispondevi glossando detta Scrittura conforme al tuo senso. E successivamente fu presentata copia d’ una scrittura sotto forma di lettera, quale si diceva essere stata scritta da te ad un tale già tuo discepolo, ed in essa seguendo la posizione di Copernico, si contengono varie proposizioni contro il vero senso, ed autorità della sacra Scrittura.

Volendo per ciò questo S. Tribunale provvedere al disordine ed al danno, che di quì proveniva, et andava crescendosi con pregiudizio della Santa Fede; d’ ordine di Nostro Signore, e degli Emin. Signori Cardinali di questa suprema, et universale Inquisizione, furono dalli Qualificatori Teologi qualificate le due proposizioni della stabilità del Sole e del moto della terra; cioè.

Che il Sole sia centro del Mondo, et immobile di moto locale, è proposizione assurda e falsa in filosofia, e formalmente eretica per essere espressamente contraria alla sacra Scrittura.

Che la terra non sia centro del mondo, nè immobile, ma che si move etiandio di moto diurno, è parimenti proposizione assurda, e falsa in filosofia, e considerata in teologia, ad minus erronea in fide.

Ma volendosi per allora proceder teco con benignità, fu decretato nella S. Congregazione tenuta avanti Nostro Signore à 25 Febbraro 1616. Che l’ Eminentissimo Signor Cardinale Bellarmino ti ordinasse che tu dovessi onninamente lasciare la detta dottrina falsa, e ricusando tu di ciò fare, che dal Commissario del S. Uffizio ti dovesse esser fatto precetto di lasciar la detta dottrina, e che non potessi insegnarla ad altri, nè difenderla, nè trattarne; al qual precetto non acquietandoti, dovessi esser carcerato; et in esecuzione dell’ istesso decreto, il giorno seguente nel Palazzo, et alla presenza del suddetto Eminentissimo Signore Cardinale Bellarmino, dopo essere stato dall’ istesso Signor Cardinale benignamente avvisato et ammonito, ti fu dal Padre Commissario del Santo Uffizio di quel tempo fatto precetto, con notaro e testimonii, che onninamente dovessi lasciar la detta falsa opinione, e che nell’ avvenire tu non la potessi, nè difendere, nè insegnare in qual si voglia modo, nè in voce, nè in scritto; et avendo tu promesso d’ obbedire fosti licenziato.

Et acciocchè si togliesse affatto così perniciosa dottrina, e non andasse più oltre serpendo, in grave pregiudizio della cattolica verità, usci decreto della Sacra Congregazione dell’ Indice, col quale furono proibiti i libri, che trattano di tal dottrina, et essa dichiarata falsa, et onninamente contraria alla sacra e divina Scrittura.

Et essendo ultimamente comparso quà un libro stampato in Fiorenza l’ anno prossimo passato, la cui inscrizione mostra che tu ne fossi l’ autore, dicendo il titolo: _Dialogo di Galileo Galilei delli due massimi sistemi del Mondo, Tolemaico e Copernicano_. Et informata appresso la sacra Congregazione, che con l’ impressione di detto libro ogni giorno più prendeva piede la falsa opinione del moto della terra, e stabilità del Sole; fu il detto libro diligentemente considerato, e in esso trovata apertamente la transgressione del suddetto precetto che ti fu fatto, avendo tu nel medesimo libro difesa la detta opinione già dannata, et in faccia tua per tale dichiarata, avvenga che tu in detto libro con varii raggiri ti studii di persuadere, che tu la lasci, come idecisa et espressamente probabile. Il che pure è errore gravissimo, non potendo in modo niuno essere probabile un’ opinione dichiarata e definita per contraria alla Scrittura divina.

Che perciò d’ ordine nostro fosti chiamato a questo Santo Uffizio, nel quale con tuo giuramento esaminato riconoscesti il libro come da to composto, e dato alle stampe. Confessasti, che dieci o dodici anni sono in circa, dopo essersi fatto il precetto come sopra, cominciasti a scrivere detto libro. Che chiedesti la facoltà di stamparlo, senza, però significare a quelli che ti diedero simile facoltà, che tu avessi precetto di non tenere, difendere, nè insegnare in qualsivoglia modo tal dottrina.

Confessasti parimenti che la scrittura di detto libro è in più luoghi distesa in tal forma, che il lettore potrebbe formar concetto, che gli argomenti portati per la parte falsa fossero in tal guisa pronunciati, che più tosto per la loro efficacia fossero potenti a stringere, che facili ad esser sciolti; scusandoti d’ esser incorso in errore tanto alieno, come dicesti, dalla tua intenzione, per aver scritto in Dialogo, e per la natural compiacenza, che ciascuno ha delle proprie sottigliezze, e del mostrarsi più arguto del comune degli uomini, in trovar, anco per le proposizioni false, ingegnosi et apparenti discorsi di probabilità.

Et essendoti stato assegnato termine conveniente a far le tue difese producesti una fede scritta di mano dall’ Eminentissimo signor Cardinale Bellarmino da te procurata come dicesti, per difenderti dalle calunnie de tuoi nemici, da’ quali ti veniva opposto, che avevi abiurato, e fossi stato penitenziato dal santo Offizio. Nella qual fede si dice, che tu non avevi abiurato nè meno eri stato penitenziato, ma che ti era solo stata denunciata la dichiarazione fatta da Nostro Signore e pubblicata dalla santa Congregazione dell’ Indice, nella quale si contiene, che la dottrina del moto della terra, e della stabilità del Sole sia contraria alle sacre Scritture, e però non si possa difendere, nè tenere; e che perciò non si facendo menzione in detta fede delle due particole del precetto, cioè _docere, et quovis modo_ si deve credere che nel corso di quattordici o sedici anni, ne avessi perso ogni memoria; e che per questa stessa cagione avevi taciuto il precetto, quando chiedesti licenza di poter dare il libro alle stampe. E tutto questo dicevi non per scusar l’ errore, ma perchè sia attribuito non a malizia, ma a vana ambizione. Ma da detta fede prodotta da te in tua difesa restasti maggiormente aggravato, mentre dicendosi in essa, che detta opinione è contraria alla sacra Scrittura, hai nondimeno ardito di trattarne, di difenderla, e persuaderla probabile; nè ti suffraga la licenza da te artificiosamente, e callidamente estorta, non avendo notificato il precetto che avevi.

E parendo a noi, che non avevi detta intieramente la verità circa la tua intenzione, giudicassimo esser necessario venir contro di te al rigoroso esame, nel quale (senza però pregiudizio alcuno delle cose da te confessate, e contro di te dedotte come di sopra, circa la detta tua intenzione) rispondesti cattolicamente. Per tanto visti, et maturamente considerati i meriti di questa tua causa, con le suddette tue confessioni, e scuse, e quanto di ragione si doveva vedere e considerare, siamo venuti contro di te all’ infrascritta difinitiva sentenza.

Invocato dunque il Santissimo Nome di Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo, e della sua gloriosissima Madre sempre Vergine Maria, per questa nostra difinitiva sentenza, la quale sedendo pro tribunali, di Conseglio e parere dei Reverendi Maestri di sacra Teologia, et Dottori dell’ una e l’ altra legge nostri Consultori, proferiamo in questi scritti, nella causa e cause vertenti avanti di noi tra il Magnifico Carlo Sinceri dell’ una e dell’ altra legge Dottore, Procuratore fiscale di questo Santo Offizio per una parte, e te Galileo Galilei reo, quà presente processato, e confesso come sopra dall’ altra. Diciamo, pronunciamo, sentenziamo, dichiariamo, che tu Galileo suddetto per le cose dedotte in processo, e da te confessate, come sopra, ti sei reso a questo Santo Offizio veementemente sospetto d’ eresia, cioè d’ aver creduto, e tenuto dottrina falsa, e contraria alle sacra, e divine Scritture, che il Sole sia centro della terra, e che non si muova da oriente ad occidente, e che la terra si muova, e non sia centro del mondo; e che si possa tenere difendere per probabile una opinione dopo d’ esser stata dichiarata, difinita per contraria alla sacra Scrittura; e conseguentemente sei incorso in tutte le censure, e pene da’ Sacri Canoni, et altre Constituzioni generali, et particolari, contro simili delinquenti imposte, e promulgate. Dalle quali siamo contenti, che sii assoluto, pur che prima con cuor sincero, et fede non finta avanti di noi abiuri, maledichi, et detesti li suddetti errori, et eresie, e qualunque altro errore, et eresia contraria alla cattolica et apostolica Romana Chiesa, nel modo che da noi ti sarà dato.

_Et acciocchè questo tuo grave, e pernicioso errore, e transgressione non resti del tutto impunito_, e sii più cauto nell’ avvenire; et esempio agli altri, che s’astenghino da simili delitti. Ordiniamo che per pubblico editto sia proibito il libro de’ _Dialoghi di Galileo Galilei_.

Ti condanniamo al carcere formale di questo S. Offizio per tempo ad arbitrio nostro, e per penitenze salutari t’imponiamo, che per tre anni a venire dichi una volta la settimana li sette Salmi Penitenziali.

Riservando a noi facoltà di moderare, mutare, o levar in tutto o in parte le suddette pene, e penitenze.

E cosi diciamo, pronunciamo, sentenziamo, dichiariamo, ordiniamo, condenniamo, e riserviamo in questo, et in ogni altro miglior modo, e forma, che di ragione potemo, e dovemo.

Ita pronunciamus nos Cardinales infrascripti.

F. Cardinalis De Asculo. G. Cardinalis Bentiuolus. F. Cardinalis De Cremona. Fr. Antonius Cardinalis S. Honuphrij. B. Cardinalis Gypsius. F. Cardinalis Verospius. M. Cardinalis Ginettus.

_ABJURA DI GALILEO._

Io Galileo Galilei figlio de q. Vincenzo Galilei da Fiorenza dell’ età mia d’ anni 70 constituito personalmente in judicio, et inginocchio avanti di voi Eminentissimi, e Reverendissimi Signori Cardinali in tutta la Christiana Republica contro l’heretica pravità Generali Inquisitori havendo avanti gli occhi miei li Sacrosanti Evangeli, quali sono con le proprie mani, giuro che sempre ho creduto, credo adesso, e con l’aiuto di Dio crederò per l’ avenire, tutto quello, che tiene, predica, et insegna la Santa Cattolica, et Apostolica Romana Chiesa. Ma perche da questo S. Officio per haverio doppo d’ essermi stato con precetto dall’ istesso giuridicamente intimato, che omninamente dovessi lasciare la falsa opinione, Che il Sole sia centro del Mondo, et immobile, e che la terra non sia Centro, e che si muova, e che non potessi tenere, difendere, ne insegnare in qual si voglia modo, ne in voce, ne in scritto la detta falsa dottrina, e dopò dessermi stato notificato, che detta dottrina è contraria alla Sacra scrittura, scritto, e dato alle stampe un libro nel quale tratto l’ istessa dottrina già dannata et apporto ragioni con molta efficacia a favor d’essa, senza apportar alcuna solutione, son stato giudicato vehementemente sospetto d’heresia, cioè d’haver tenuto, e creduto, che il Solo sia centro del Mondo, et immobile, e che la terra non sia centro, e si muova.

Per tanto volendo io levare dalle menti dell’ Eminenze Vostre, e d’ ogni fedel Christiano, questa vehemente sospittione, contro di me ragionevolmente conceputa, con cuor sincero, e fede non finta, abiuro, maledico, e detesto li sudetti errori, et heresie, e generalmente ogni e qualunque altro errore, e setta contraria alla sudetta Santa Chiesa; E giuro che per l’ avenire, non dirò mai più, ne asserirò in voce, ò in scritto cose tali, per le quali si possi haver di me simil sospittione; ma se conoscero alcuno heretico, ò che sia sospetto d’heresia lo denuntiarò à questo Santo Officio ò vero all’ Inquisitore, et ordinario del luogo, ove me trovero.

Giuro anco, e promesso d’adempire, et ossevra re intieramente, tutte le penitenze, che mi sono state, ò mi saranno da questo Santo Officio imposte. Et contravenendo io ad alcuna delle dette mie promesse, proteste, ò giuramenti (il che Dio non voglia) mi sottopongo a tutte le pene, e castighi, che sono da Sacri Canoni, et altri Constitutioni Generali, e particolari contro simili delinquenti imposte, e promulgate; Cosi Dio m’ aiuti, e questi suoi santi Evangelij, che tocco con le proprie mani.

Io Galileo Galilei sopradetto ho abiurato, giurato, e promesso, e mi sono obligato come sopra, et in fede del vero di propria mia mano hò sottoscritto la presente Cedola di mia abiuratione, e recitata di parola in parola in Roma nel Convento della Minerva questo di 22 Giugno 1633.

Io Galileo Galilei hò abiurato come di sopra di mano propria.

FOOTNOTES

[1] “Die Acten des Gallileischen Processes, nach der Vaticanischen Handschrift, von Karl von Gebler.” Cotta, Stuttgard, 1877.

[2] The above letter is adapted from a draft of one addressed to the Italian Translator, the letter to myself not having, unfortunately, been sent before the Author’s death, nor found among his papers afterwards. He had written but a few weeks before that he would send it shortly, and as it would probably have been almost exactly similar to the above, I have availed myself of it, the Author’s father having sent me a copy with the necessary alterations and authorised its use.—TR.

[3] See Appendix IV.

[4] Riccioli, vol. i. part ii. pp. 496-500.

[5] In the references the name only of the author is given. Albèri’s “Opere” is designated Op. Those marked * are new for the English translation.

[6] This is the writing referred to when Gherardi is quoted.

[7] Compare Nelli, vol. i. pp. 24, 25, and Opere xv. p. 384. The strange mistake, which is without any foundation, that Galileo was an illegitimate child, was set afloat soon after his death by Johann Victor Rossi (Janus Nicius Erythræus) in his “Pinacotheca Illustrium Virorum,” Cologne, Amsterdam, 1643-1648, and afterwards carelessly and sometimes maliciously repeated. Salviati has published the marriage certificate of 5th July, 1563, of Vincenzio di Michel Angelo di Giovanni Galilei and Giulia degli Ammanati Pescia.

[8] Many of these essays, which have never been printed, are among the valuable unpublished MSS. in the National Library at Florence.

[9] Galileo had a younger brother, Michel Angelo, and three sisters, Virginia, Elenor, and Livia. The former married a certain Benedetto Landucci, the latter Taddeo Galetti. Galileo was very kind to his brother and sisters all his life, assisted them in many ways, and even made great sacrifices for their sakes.

[10] Nelli, vol. i. pp. 26, 27.

[11] Op. xv. (Viviani), p. 330; and Op. vi. p. 18.

[12] Op. xv. (Viviani), p. 328.

[13] The correctness of this date is indisputable, as according to Nelli, vol. i. p. 29, it was found in the university registers. It is a pity that Albèri, editor of the “Opere complete di Galileo Galilei,” Florence, 1842-1856, relied for the date on Viviani, who is often wrong.

[14] Op. xv. (Viviani), p. 331; also Jagemann, p. 5.

[15] Op. xv. (Viviani), p. 332; also Nelli, vol. ii. pp. 722, 723.

[16] Op. xv. (Viviani), p. 334.

[17] Nelli, vol. i. pp. 32, 33.

[18] That Galileo had been in Rome before 8th January, 1588, a fact hitherto unknown to his biographers, is clear from the letter of that date addressed from Florence to Clavius. (Op. vi. pp. 1-3.)

[19] See their letters to Galileo. (Op. viii. pp. 1-13.)

[20] About £13.—[TR.]

[21] About 7¼_d._ 100 kreuzers = the Austrian florin.

[22] Op. xv. (Viviani), p. 336; and Nelli, vol. i. p. 44.

[23] Op. xv. (Viviani), pp. 336, 337; Nelli, vol. i. pp. 46, 47; Venturi, vol. i. p. 11.

[24] See the decree of installation of 26th Sept. (Op. xv. p. 388.)

[25] Op. viii. p. 18; Nelli, vol. i. p. 51.

[26] Op. xv. (Viviani), pp. 337 and 389.

[27] Published by Venturi, 1818, vol. i. pp. 26-74.

[28] Op. xv. (Viviani), pp. 339, 340.

[29] Op. xv. (Viviani), pp. 337, 338.

[30] Op. ii. pp. 1-6.

[31] “Prodromus Dissertationum Cosmographicarum.”

[32] Op. vi. pp. 11, 12.

[33] Op. viii. pp. 21-24.

[34] See Humboldt’s “Cosmos,” vol. ii. pp. 345, 346, and 497-499.

[35] Op. xv. p. 390. His salary at first was 72 Florentine zecchini = £18, and rose by degrees to 400 zecchini = £100. (Op. viii. p. 18, note 3.)

[36] Some fragments of these lectures are extant, and are included by Albèri in the Op. v. part ii.

[37] Op. iii. (“Astronomicus Nuncius,” pp. 60, 61.) In his “Saggiatore” also he relates the circumstance in precisely the same way, only adding that he devised the construction of the telescope in one night, and carried it out the next day.

[38] Nelli, pp. 186, 187.

[39] History has acknowledged the optician Hans Lipperhey, of Middelburg, to be the inventor of the telescope. Compare the historical sketch in “Das neue Buch der Erfindungen,” etc., vol. ii. pp. 217-220. (Leipzig, 1865.) The instrument received its name from Prince Cesi, who, on the advice of the learned Greek scholar Demiscianus, called it a “teleskopium.”

[40] Op. vi. pp. 75-77.

[41] See the decree of the senate, 25th Aug., 1609 (Op. xv. pp. 392-393.)

[42] Cosmo II. showed all his life a sincere attachment to his old teacher, Galileo. From 1605, before Cosmo was reigning prince, Galileo had regularly given him mathematical lessons during the academical holidays at Florence, and had thereby gained great favour at the court of Tuscany.

[43] Op. vi. pp. 107-111.

[44] See the letter of Martin Hasdal from Prague, of 15th April, 1610, to Galileo (Op. viii. pp. 58-60); also a letter from Julian de’ Medici, Tuscan ambassador at the Imperial court, to Galileo, from Prague, 19th April, 1610. (Wolynski, “Lettere inedite,” etc., p. 20.)

[45] This reprint bore the following superscription: “Joannis Kepleri Mathematici Cæsarei Dissertatio cum Nuncio Sidereo nuper ad mortales misso a Galilaeo Galilaeo Mathematico Patavino.” Comp. Venturi, vol. i. pp. 99-120.

[46] Op. vi. p. 121, note 1.

[47] Compare the letters of Martin Hasdal, Alexander Sertini, and Kepler to Galileo in 1610. (Op. viii. pp. 60-63, 65-68, 82-85, 88, 89, 101, 113-117.)

[48] See the letter which Kepler wrote about it to Galileo on 25th Oct. 1610. (Op. viii. pp. 113-117.)

[49] Wedderburn’s reply was called: “Quatuor Problematum, quæ Martinius Horky contra Nuncium Sidereum de quatuor Planetis novis proposuit”; Roffeni’s, “Epistola apologetica contra cœcam peregrinationem cujusdam furiosi Martini cognomine Horky editam adversus, Nuncium Sidereum.”

[50] Op. vi. pp. 114, 115.

[51] Op. vi. p. 127.

[52] May 7th, 1610. (Op. vi. pp. 93-99.)

[53] Op. vi. p. 165.

[54] Op. xv. (Viviani), p. 343.

[55] Op. vi. p. 129.

[56] Op. vi. pp. 116-118. Ponsard in his drama, “Galileo,” of which a third edition appeared at Paris in 1873, in which he mostly turns history upside down, in Act i. sc. iii. and iv. takes off capitally the proud and silly opposition of the Aristotelians.

[57] Comp. Op. xv. p. 397, note 11, also Venturi, vol. i. pp. 19, 20. Jagemann (p. 52) even believes “that Gustavus Adolphus, who created an entirely new science of warfare which set all Europe in consternation and terror, had derived his wonderful knowledge from Galileo”!

[58] Op. vi., 71-75. It is unfortunately unknown to whom this letter was addressed; but, as appears from the contents, it must have been to some one high in office at the court of Tuscany.

[59] It is not known that these last mentioned treatises ever appeared. As not the least trace of them is to be found, and yet numerous particulars have come down to us of other works afterwards lost, it may be concluded that these essays were never written.

[60] Op. viii. pp. 63, 64.

[61] Op. viii. pp. 73, 74.

[62] Op. vi. p. 112.

[63] Libri justly says, p. 38: “this mistake was the beginning of all his misfortunes.”

[64] In a letter from Galileo to his brother Michel Angelo, of May 11th, 1606, he describes the somewhat comical scene of the nocturnal deportation of the Jesuits from the city of Lagunes. (Op. vi. p. 32.)

[65] Op. viii. p. 146-150.

[66] 11th Dec., 1610. (Op. vi. p. 128.)

[67] Op. vi. pp. 130-133 and 134-136.

[68] Op. vi. pp. 137, 138.

[69] Op. vi. p. 139, 140.

[70] Op. vi. p. 140, note 1. See also Vinta’s answer to Galileo, 20th Jan. 1611 (Wolynski, “Lettere inedite,” p. 27); also the Grand Duke’s letter to his ambassador at Rome, Giovanni Niccolini, of 27th Feb., 1611 (Wolynski, “La Diplomazia Toscana e Gal. Galilei,” p. 10).

[71] Pieralisi has first published this letter in his work “Urban VIII. and Galileo Galilei,” p. 41.

[72] See, for Bellarmine’s request and the opinion, Op. viii. pp. 160-162.

[73] Op. viii. p. 145.

[74] Gherardi’s Collection of Documents: Doc. i.

[75] Op. vi. p. 274.

[76] The full title was: “Dianoja Astronomica, Optica, Physica, qua Siderei Nuncii rumor de quatuor Planetis a Galilaeo Galilaeo Mathematico celeberrimo, recens perspicilli cujusdam ope conspectis, vanus redditur. Auctore Francisco Sitio Florentino.”

[77] Op. vi. p. 94, note 1; and xv. “Bibliografia Galileiana,” p. vi.

[78] This letter reports the facts above mentioned. (Op. viii. p. 188.)

[79] Op. viii. pp. 222-224.

[80] Op. viii. pp. 241, 242.

[81] Op. vi. pp. 194-197.

[82] “Discorso al Serenissimo D. Cosimo II., Gran-Duca di Toscana intorno alle cose che stanno in su l’aqua o che in quella si muovano.”

[83] Op. viii. p. 231, note 2; Nelli, p. 318; Venturi, vol. i. pp. 195, 196.

[84] Dated 4th May, 14th August, and 1st December, 1612.

[85] “Istoria e Dimostrazioni intorno alle Macchie Solari, e loro accidenti comprese in tre lettere scritte al Sig. Marco Velsero da Galileo Galilei.”

[86] Letter of 20th April, 1613. (Op. viii. p. 262.)

[87] Letter of 26th May, 1613. (Op. viii. p. 271.)

[88] Letter of 8th June, 1613. (Op. viii. pp. 274, 275.)

[89] Op. viii. pp. 290, 291.

[90] Op. viii. pp. 291-293.

[91] Op. ii. pp. 6-13.

[92] Op. viii. pp. 337, 338.

[93] Vol. i. p. 397.

[94] Comp. Govi, p. 47.

[95] Epinois, “La Question de Galilei,” p. 43.

[96] Op. viii. pp. 337-343.

[97] The title of “Eminence” was first given to cardinals by Pope Urban VIII. in 1630.

[98] See Lorini’s Denunciations, fol. 342, Vat. MS. According to Epinois this letter was of the 5th, but Gherardi publishes a document which shows it to have been of the 7th. (Gherardi’s Collection of Documents, Doc. ii.)

[99] Vat. MS. 347 vo.; also Gherardi’s Documents, Doc. ii.

[100] See Castelli’s letter to Galileo, 12th March, 1615, in which this visit is described. (Op. viii. pp. 358, 359.)

[101] In the letter before quoted of 12th March.

[102] Marini, pp. 84-86, and Vat. MS. fol. 349, 350.

[103] Op. viii. p. 365.

[104] Op. viii. pp. 369, 370.

[105] Vat. MS. fol. 341.

[106] Vat. MS. fol. 352 ro.; and Gherardi’s Documents, Doc. iii.

[107] Compare the text of Caccini’s evidence. (Vat. MS. fol. 353 ro.-358 vo.)

[108] See the protocol of both these examinations. (Vat. MS. fol. 371 ro.-373 vo.)

[109] Vat. MS. fol. 375 vo., and Gherardi’s Documents, Doc. v.

[110] Op. ii. pp. 13-17.

[111] Op. ii. pp. 17-26.

[112] Op. viii. pp. 350-353.

[113] Op. viii. pp. 354-356.

[114] As we should say, “as a working hypothesis.” [TR.]

[115] This was the work which was condemned and absolutely prohibited by the Congregation of the Index a year later: “Lettera del R. P. Maestro Paolo Antonio Foscarini, Carmelitano, sopra l’opinione de i Pittagorici e del Copernico della mobilità della Terra e stabilità del Sole, e il nuovo Sisteme del Mondo.” (For Cesi’s letter, Op. viii. pp. 356-358.)

[116] See Dini’s letter to Galileo, March 14th, 1615 (Op. viii. p. 360); and of August 18th, 1615 (Wolynski, “Lettere Inedite,” p. 34); and Ciampoli’s of March 21st (Op. viii. pp. 366, 367.)

[117] Op. viii. p. 368.

[118] Op. viii. pp. 376, 377.

[119] Op. viii. pp. 378, 379.

[120] See his letter to Galileo, May 16th, 1615. (Op. viii. pp. 376, 377.)

[121] Op. ii. pp. 26-64. It did not appear in print until twenty-one years later, in Strasburg.

[122] See the letters of Cosmo II., November 28th, to his ambassador Guicciardini, at Rome, to Cardinal del Monte, Paolo Giordano Orsini, and Abbot Orsini; also to Cardinal Orsini, of December 2nd. (Wolynski: “La Diplomazia Toscana e Gal. Galilei,” pp. 18-20.)

[123] Page 69.

[124] Compare the letters of Sagredo from Venice of 11th March and 23rd April, 1616, to Galileo at Rome. (Op. Suppl. pp. 107-113. Also Nelli, vol. i. p. 414.)

[125] Op. viii. p. 383.

[126] See his letters of 12th Dec., 1615, and 8th Jan., 1616, to the Tuscan Secretary of State, Curzio Picchena, at Florence. (Op. vi. pp. 211, 212, 214, 215.)

[127] Vat. MS. fol. 414 vo.

[128] Compare also Wohlwill, p. 86, note 1.

[129] See his letters to Picchena of 26th Dec., 1615, and 1st Jan., 1616. (Op. vi. pp. 213, 214.)

[130] Op. vi. pp. 215, 216.

[131] 23rd Jan., 1616. (Op. vi. pp. 218, 219.)

[132] Letter to Picchena, 6th Feb. (Op. vi. p. 222.)

[133] Letter to Picchena. (Op. vi. pp. 225-227.)

[134] Op. vi. pp. 221-223.

[135] See the letter of Mgr. Queringhi, from Rome, of 20th January, 1616, to Cardinal Alessandro d’Este. (Op. viii. p. 383.)

[136] Che il sole sij centre del mondo, et per consequenza im̃obile di moto locale.

Che la Terra non è centro del mondo, ne im̃obile, ma si move secondo se tutta etia di moto diurno. (Vat. MS. fol. 376 ro.)

[137] Sol est centrũ mundi, et omnino im̃obilis motu locali;

Censura: Omnes dixerunt dicta propositionẽ ẽe stultã et absurdam in Philosophia, et formaliter hereticã, quatenus contradicit expresse sententijs sacre scripture in multis locis. Secundũ proprietate verbor̃, et secundũ communẽ expositionẽ, et sensũ. Sanct. Patr. et Theologor̃ doctor.

Terra non est centr. mundi, nec im̃obilis, sed secundũ se tota, movetur et moto diurno.

Censura: Omnes dixerunt, hanc propositionẽ recipẽ eandẽ censura in Philosophia; et spectando veritatẽ Theologicã, at minus ẽe in fide erronea. (Vat. MS. folio 377 ro.)

[138] Die Jovis, 25th Februarij, 1616.

Illᵐᵘˢ. D. Cardˡⁱˢ. Millinus notificavit R.R. pp. D.D. Asseosʳ. et Commiss. Sᵗⁱ. Officij, quod relata censura P.P. Theologorũ ad propositⁿᵉˢ. Gallilei Mathemᶜⁱ., q. Sol sit centrũ mundi, et im̃obilis motu locali, et Terra moveatur et motu diurno; Sᵐᵘˢ. ordinavit Illᵐᵒ. D. Cardˡⁱ. Bellarmᵒ., ut vocet corã se dᵐ. Galileum, eumq. moneat ad deserendas dᵃᵐ. op̃onem, et si recusaverit parere, P. Comissˢ. cora Noto (Notario) et Testibus faciat illi preceptum, ut ĩo (omnino) abstineat huõi (huiusmodi) doctrina, et op̃onem docere, aut defendere, seu de ea tractare, si vero nõ acquieverit, carceretur. (Vat. MS. folio 378 vo.)

[139] Die Veneris, 26th eiusdem.

In Palatio solite habitⁿⁱˢ: dⁱ: Illᵐⁱ: D. Cardⁱˢ: Bellarmⁱ. et in mãsionib. Domⁿⁱˢ. sue Illᵐᵒ: Idem Illᵐᵘˢ: D. Cardˡⁱˢ: vocato supradᵗᵒ. Galileo, ipsoq. corã D. sua Illᵐᵃ: ex̃nte (existente) in p̃ntia adm. R. p. Fĩs Michaelis Angeli Seghitij de Lauda ord. Pred. Com̃issarij qualis sᵗⁱ. officij predᵐ. Galileũ monuit de errore supradᵗᵉ op̃onis, et ut illa deserat, et successive, ac icõtinenti in mei &, et Testiũ & p̃nte ẽt adhuc eodem Illᵐᵒ. D. Cardˡⁱ. supradᵒ. P. Com̃issˢ. predᵗᵒ. Galileo adhuc ibidem p̃nti, et Constituto precepit, et ordinavit ... [Here the MS. is defaced. Two words are wanting, the second might be nome (nomine); the first began with a p (proprie?) but is quite illegible.] Sᵐⁱ. D. N. Pape et totius Congregⁿⁱˢ. sᵗⁱ. officij, ut supradᵗᵃ. oponione q. sol sit cẽ: trum mundi, et im̃obilis, et Terra moveatur omnino relinquat, nec eã de Cetero qᵒvis mõ teneat, doceat, aut defendat, verbo, aut scriptis, al̃s (alias) coñ ipsũ procedetur ĩ (in) Sᵗᵒ. offo., cui precepto Idem Galileus aequievit, et parere promisit. Sub. quib. & actum Rome ubi subra p̃ntibus ibidẽ R.D. Badino Nores de Nicosia ĩ Regno Cypri, et Augustino Mongardo de loco Abbatie Rose, dioc. Politianeñ (Poletianensis) familiarib. dⁱ. Illᵐⁱ. D. Cardˡⁱˢ. Testibus. (Vat. MS. folio 379 ro, 379 vo.)

[140] Marini, p. 42.

[141] Marini, pp. 93, 94, and 141.

[142] In the _Zeitschrift für mathematischen u. naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht_, 1st series, part iv., pp. 333-340. See the controversy between Dr. Wohlwill and Dr. Friedlein in the _Zeitschrift für Mathematik_, etc., 17th series. Part ii., pp. 9-31; part iii., pp. 41-45;