GALILEO AND THE PROSE WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
In enumerating the Prose Writers of the Seventeenth Century, we are confronted with the illustrious name of Galileo Galilei, which will continue to be remembered as long as Science is cultivated.
This celebrated man was born at Pisa in 1564, and died at Arcetri, near Florence, in 1642. He was Professor of Mathematics at the University of Pisa, and there would be absolutely nothing of note to tell of his life, had he not happened to come into collision with the Inquisition, for maintaining, or rather for his method of maintaining, that the earth revolved round the sun. He was cited to appear before the Tribunal of the Inquisition, but when he arrived in Rome he was treated with consideration, and even with distinction. His place of arrest was the magnificent palace of the Tuscan Ambassador, near the Trinità de' Monti. But it will be more satisfactory to quote his own statement in a letter to a priest of his acquaintance, Father Vincenzo Renieri.
"From a youth upwards," he writes, "I meditated the composition of a Dialogue on the Two Systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus. My chief inducement was to explain the ebb and flow of the tides by the movement of the earth. That which first acquainted Rome with my opinions on the movement of the earth was a long dissertation which I addressed to Cardinal Orsini, and then I was denounced as a scandalous and impudent writer. After the publication of my Dialogues, I was summoned to Rome by the Congregation of the Holy Office I arrived in Rome on the tenth of February, 1633, and was confined to the delightful palace of the Tuscan Ambassador on the Trinità de' Monti. Next day I was visited by Father Lancio, Commissary of the Holy Inquisition. He took me with him in his carriage. On the way he asked me numerous questions. He was most zealous in his endeavour to make me repair the scandal I had given to the whole of Italy by maintaining the shocking doctrine that the earth revolved round the sun. To all my arguments, drawn from physics and mathematics, he answered in the words of Scripture: 'Terra autem in æternum stabit, quia Terra autem in æternum stat.' Occupied in this conversation, we arrived at the Palace of the Holy Office, situated to the west of the magnificent Church of St. Peter. I was immediately presented by the Commissary to Monsignor Vitrici, the Assessor. Two Dominican Monks were with him. They politely requested me to produce my arguments before the full Congregation, so that in case I should be condemned my defence might be heard. The following Thursday I was presented to the Congregation. I produced my proofs, but unhappily they were not appreciated, and all my endeavours failed to make them acceptable. They zealously endeavoured to convince me of the scandal I had given, and the passage of Scripture was always quoted as a proof of my guilt. I remembered opportunely an argument drawn from Scripture. I alleged it, but with little success. I said that it appeared to me that there were passages in the Bible worded in accordance with the popular views of Astronomy current in antiquity, and that the passage which was quoted against me might be conceived in that spirit. I added that in the Book of Job, chapter xxxvii, v. 18, it is said that the heavens are as if they were made of metal and bronze. Elihu it is who utters these words. Thus we clearly see that he speaks according to the system of Ptolemy, and that system has been proved to be absurd by modern philosophy and common sense. If, therefore, so much stress is laid on Joshua stopping the sun, we ought also to consider that passage where it is said that the heavens are composed of so many skies like mirrors. The inference seemed to me to be perfectly logical. Still, it was always slurred over, and I could extract no reply except a shrug of the shoulders, the usual refuge of those who have made up their minds, and who are deaf to argument from excess of prejudice.
"Finally, I was obliged, as a good Catholic, to retract my opinion, and my Dialogue was placed on the Index of forbidden books. After five months I received permission to leave Rome. Florence was then visited by the Plague, and as the place of my arrest, I was sent, as a great favour, to the abode of the dearest friend I had at Siena, the Archbishop Piccolomini. His company gave me so much pleasure and contributed so much to my peace of mind, that I resumed my studies, and after another five months, when the Plague had lost its virulence in Florence, I was, by the kindness of his Holiness the Pope, allowed to exchange the confinement of that house for the liberty of a country retreat which I so vastly enjoy. Towards the beginning of December of this year, 1633, I returned to the Villa of Belriguardo, and then to Arcetri, where I am now, enjoying salubrious air in the neighbourhood of my cherished Florence."
This letter, dated Arcetri, December, 1633, gives a plain unvarnished account of what took place. It is obvious, from the expressions used by Galileo, that he thought he was let off with considerable leniency. We cannot fail to agree with him when we think of Bruno and Vanini, who, not long before, had been burnt alive by the same Tribunal, and of Campanella, confined in a dungeon for twenty-seven years.
Thus we see that there is no truth in the popular legend that he was put to the torture, and there is probably as little in the anecdote that on rising to his feet after his retractation, he exclaimed, "Eppur si muove!" Doubtless, if he had uttered those words, he would have paid heavily for his temerity.
In his retirement at Arcetri he was at liberty to continue unmolested those researches which have made his name immortal. His invention of the telescope revealed to him many wonders of the Heavens. He discovered the Satellites of Jupiter and the Ring of Saturn, although he did not realise the annular nature of the latter object, a triumph reserved for Huyghens. He observed the spots on the Sun and the Mountains of the Moon. His researches in Chemistry enhanced his renown with many memorable results.
Nor was it only as a man of science that he claimed the admiration of the world. As a writer, he stands foremost in his age. His prose is clear, unaffected, graceful, and occasionally eloquent and impressive. His scientific treatises are models of lucidity. He himself, when praised for that quality, attributed it in a large measure to his constant perusal of the works of Ariosto. Clearness, indeed, is the especial merit of that great poet. In his youth he wrote an essay to prove the superiority of Ariosto to Tasso. He said Tasso gave us words, and Ariosto, realities. This assertion may be somewhat sweeping, but it has a foundation of truth. Still, he admitted that Tasso had many qualities that please the reader, and that it was only the sharp scrutiny of criticism which he could not sustain.
The works of Galileo are not very voluminous. First and foremost in importance, comes the Dialogue on the Two Systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus. His Saggiatore is hardly less important. His Problems contain descriptions of many experiments, and his Letters are as remarkable for wit and vivacity as for strength and boldness of thought. His Essay on the comparative merits of Ariosto and Tasso has already been mentioned. He took great delight in poetry, and we are assured by his biographers that he knew by heart many passages from Virgil, Ovid, Horace, and the Tragedies attributed to Seneca. In Italian, he derived the greatest pleasure from Ariosto, and next to him, from Petrarch and Berni. Dante is not mentioned, but it would be extraordinary if the most profound and graphic of all poets did not appeal to him, although the vagaries of taste are incalculable. It must be remembered that in the Seventeenth Century the appreciation of Dante had sunk to its lowest ebb.
Among those who signed the decree condemning the errors of the illustrious Galileo, was Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, who, in spite of that unfortunate circumstance, deserves honourable mention as an historian and writer of Memoirs. He was employed as Nuncio by several Popes in Flanders and in France. Gregory XV raised him to the Roman purple, and when the Conclave met in 1644, after the death of Urban VIII, there is every reason to believe that he would have been elected Pope, had he not fallen ill and died on the seventeenth of September. There is a magnificent portrait of him by Vandyke at Bologna.
He had many qualities of an able, though not of a great, writer. He had the advantage of seeing and observing much, and the impress of his experience is discernible in all he wrote. Ranke extols his Memoirs as giving an attractive picture of his age, and, in truth, he is one of the few authors, not of French nationality, who approach in merit the great memoir-writers of France. He also wrote an account of his missions as Nuncio, numerous Letters, and a History of the War of Independence of the Netherlands against the despotism of Spain. The History is a readable and spirited narrative, and the historian is seldom prejudiced or bitter. Having himself lived so long in Flanders, he is able to give graphic descriptions of the localities he mentions. Ambrosoli censures his style for its monotony, but I cannot say I ever detected that defect. On the contrary, it seems to me to be as flowing and animated as can be desired. A writer on historical subjects cannot be expected to indulge in the fanciful digressions of novelists or essayists. If Bentivoglio had lived to be Pope, he would doubtless have distinguished his Pontificate in a manner worthy of his abilities.
A greater historian than Bentivoglio appeared in Davila, a native of Padua. In his youth he served in the French army, and then in that of the Republic of Venice. He was of noble origin, and his ancestors occupied the post of Grand Constable of the Island of Cyprus when it was still under the dominion of Venice. They had the privilege of taking their seat next to the Doge when they appeared in the Grand Council, and this privilege was accorded to Davila himself, in such high esteem was he held. In 1630, he published his History of the Civil Wars of France, the work to which he is indebted for his literary fame. He was appointed in the following year Commandant of the garrison of Crema, but on his way from Venice to that town he was foully murdered in a village named San Michele.
Davila was a man of action rather than of letters, and it is therefore not surprising if his style is less purely Tuscan than that of more elegant scholars. But he had great strength of thought, keen penetration, and no contemptible knowledge of affairs. These qualities, added to the interesting events he narrates, secured great attention and applause for his work. He has, however, some defects. He is not always very skilful in presenting vivid pictures to the imagination and he sometimes Italianizes the names of persons and places until they become hardly recognisable. Thus Elboeuf is metamorphosed into Ellebove.
Fra Paolo Sarpi obtained immense reputation, especially in Protestant countries, for his History of the Council of Trent and his bitter pamphlets against the Court of the Vatican. In the great contest between the Republic of Venice and Pope Paul V, he took the part of his native city with intrepidity not unalloyed by ferocity. He was undoubtedly a man of great abilities, but his abilities were sharpened by his rancour and malignity.
Another historian of the Council of Trent, but one who regarded it from the point of view of the Papal party, was Cardinal Sforza Pallavicino, one of the most brilliant men that ever entered the Society of Jesus. He was so amiable and benevolent that Pope Alexander VII used to say of him "Il Cardinal Pallavicino é tutto amore." He died in 1667. His works comprise, besides the History of the Council of Trent, a Treatise on Christian Perfection, an Essay on Style and a Biography of Alexander VII. All these works are remarkable for distinction of style, although he sometimes indulges too much in pointed antitheses. He was very unlike Davila in the care and polish he bestowed upon his compositions.
Another Jesuit, Daniel Bartoli, wrote the History of his Order and the Lives of Eminent Jesuits in a style little short of perfection. He has indeed been accused of elaborating his phrases until they ceased to be natural; and yet in spite of his elaboration, he had his cavillers who pointed out idioms of doubtful correctness, and said Questo non si può dire, (this cannot be said.) He replied to them in a witty pamphlet: The Right and Wrong of the Non Si Può. "A clever work," says Fontanini; "but the Author's cleverness would have been better displayed in avoiding the errors than in defending them with obstinate ingenuity."
An eminent preacher and divine of the age was Father Paul Segneri whose books of devotion are still used in Catholic countries. He, too, was a Jesuit, but his style is not quite so good as that of his two predecessors. It is occasionally too pompous and declamatory; but he had a fertile and vigorous mind and preached and wrote from his heart.
Another writer, less orthodox, but more celebrated, was Giordano Bruno. His works, however, although published on the threshold of the Seventeenth Century, were conceived and written in the Sixteenth. He was burnt alive for his heresies in the year 1601. For some years he took refuge in England, and it would have been well for his prosperity had he stayed there. In these days of greater latitude of speculation, there appears to be little in his works to bring down upon him so terrible a penalty, but the provocation hardly given by the works, seems to have been afforded by the author. He was irritable and vainglorious, and he knew neither prudence nor discretion. His great treatise, Della Causa, Principio ed Uno, is an exposition of Pantheism, but his vague reveries have little foundation in science to recommend them. He also wrote a Comedy, rather more indelicate than should emanate from the pen of a philosopher.
Campanella, a somewhat kindred spirit, though without the latent Atheism of Giordano Bruno, was a Dominican Friar, a native of Cosenza. He was suspected of disaffection, perhaps of heresy, and was cooped up for twenty-seven years in a narrow dungeon. He beguiled his weary captivity by writing long philosophical works. They are, however, all in Latin,[1] and therefore do not come within the scope of this volume. I mention them as a sign of the revival of the long dormant spirit of science and speculation. Campanella wrote in defence of Galileo's theory of the rotation of the earth round the sun. Campanella obtained his liberty in 1629 and retired to France, where he met with some kindness from Cardinal Richelieu.
The first Edition of the celebrated Dictionary of the Accademia della Crusca was published in 1613. It is curious that with the universal attention it aroused, it did not raise the standard of taste and scholarship, for truth to tell, the average run of inferior writers produced works incredibly bad.
There was a dearth of really good writers of stories in prose in the Seventeenth Century. The Stories of Celio Malaspini are racy and amusing, and give a graphic idea of the manners and customs of the early part of the Century, but they are often indelicate and have few graces of style to recommend them. Trajano Boccalini wrote some vivacious political and literary squibs which had a wide circulation in an age long before the introduction of newspapers, where alone writings on such ephemeral topics now appear.
Florence could boast of a select band of philosophers, Magalotti, Viviani, Redi and Dati, but their influence does not seem to have extended beyond Tuscany. Auton Maria Salvini was a laborious grammarian and one of the chief compilers of the Dictionary above named.
Probably the most eminent man of letters of the last ten years of the Seventeenth Century was Crescimbeni, the historian of Italian poetry, and the founder of the Arcadian Academy, still flourishing in Rome. He was a writer of great talent and judgment, and he was more alive than his contemporaries to the evils resulting from the exaggerated metaphors and wild hyperboles introduced by the followers of Marino. He looked out for a perfect model of poetry, and he found it in the works of Angelo di Costanzo, and certainly that writer's equable sweetness and refinement are unruffled by tempestuous passion or towering sublimity. Crescimbeni might, we think, with greater propriety have selected Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto to reform the degraded taste of the age; but still, the beauties of Costanzo are of a high order, and the recommendation bore good fruit.
If it cannot be said of any writer of the Seventeenth Century that he rises to the highest pinnacle of Art, yet, on a review of the whole period, there remains an impression of much ingenuity and much vigour of thought.
[1] His poems, chiefly Sonnets, are in Italian.