Galileo and His Judges

by F. R. Wegg-Prosser

Two untoward events, however, now occurred: one was the death of Prince Cesi, a powerful and devoted friend of Galileo, which took place on the 1st May; and the other was the outbreak of the plague at Florence, a circumstance which interrupted communications, and caused delays resulting in mistakes and misunderstandings. With a view of having the Dialogue printed at Florence, it was arranged that the revision required by the ecclesiastical authorities should take place there instead of at Rome. Father Hyacinthe Stephani, a Dominican, who acted as reviser, marked several passages in the work, thinking that they should be explained before the final permission for publication was conceded.

Then followed mutual delays: the author was tardy in sending to Rome the corrections to which he had in principle agreed, and the Master of the Sacred Palace was late in sending to Florence the preface and the conclusion, so the impatient philosopher began to print his book. The plague still continued, and the result was that communications were still interrupted.

The Inquisitor of Florence however received from Rome the power to approve officially the copy of Galileo’s work that would be submitted to him, with instructions specially added by Father Riccardi that he must bear in mind the wishes of the Pope to the following effect: The title of the work must indicate that it dealt only with the mathematical question connected with Copernicanism, also that the Copernican opinion must not be put forward as a positive truth, but merely as a hypothesis, and this without alluding to the interpretation of Scripture; moreover, that it should be stated that the work was only written to show that if the decree (i.e. of 1616) was made at Rome, nevertheless the authorities knew all the reasons against it that could be urged, and were not ignorant of one of them—an idea conformable to the words of the preface and the conclusion, which he would send from Rome corrected. With this precaution, it was intimated the book would meet with no obstacle at Rome, and thus satisfaction might be given to the author, and also to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who had shown himself to be so eager in the matter.

This remarkable letter points towards a conclusion which has been drawn by some writers, that the preface to the Dialogue was written for Galileo by Father Riccardi or some other person, and was not his own composition; for the above is precisely what was said in the preface as it afterwards appeared, and it seems to me almost incredible that Galileo should have spontaneously written any such words, exposing him to the charge, which has really been made against him, of transparent irony, thereby giving offence in the very quarters where conciliation was desirable.

And it must be remarked that when Father Riccardi on the 19th July of this year sent the preface to Florence, he allowed Galileo the liberty of making verbal alterations only; so that whether he composed it or only revised it, it is Father Riccardi rather than the author of the Dialogue who must be held responsible for the contents, and the same remark applies at least partially to the conclusion also, it having been specially revised by the same hand.

The preface is addressed to the discreet reader, and the words to which I have just alluded are as follows: “Some years ago, a wholesome edict was promulgated in Rome which, in order to check the dangerous scandals of the present age, imposed an opportune silence upon the Pythagorean opinion of the motion of the earth. There were not wanting some who rashly asserted that that decree resulted, not from judicious examination, but from ill-informed passion; and there were heard complaints that Consultors, wholly inexperienced in astronomical observations, ought not to be allowed, with a hasty prohibition, to clip the wings of speculative intellects. My zeal could not keep silence on hearing the temerity of the complaints so made. As one fully informed of that most prudent decision, I judged it right to appear publicly in the theatre of the world, as a witness of pure truth. I happened then to be present in Rome; I had not only audiences, but approbations from the most eminent prelates of that Court, and it was not without my own previous information that the publication of that decree then followed.” The author goes on to say that he wished to show to foreign nations how much was known in Italy, and particularly in Rome, on this subject; and that from this climate there proceed not only dogmas for the salvation of the soul, but ingenious devices for the delight of the mind.

This last clause certainly savours of bitter irony, and probably did not proceed from Father Riccardi’s pen. He then states that for the purpose in hand he had taken the Copernican part in the Dialogue as a pure mathematical hypothesis, endeavouring by every artifice to represent it as superior, not to that of the stability of the Earth absolutely speaking, but to the doctrine as defended by the Peripatetics, to whom he alludes with some contempt.

He adds that he will treat of three principal heads: under the first he would show that all our experience was insufficient to prove conclusively the motion of the Earth, but that it adapted itself equally to either theory; he hoped also to produce many observations unknown to antiquity. In the second place, the celestial phenomena would be examined, by which the Copernican hypothesis would be so reinforced as if it ought to come out of the contest absolutely victorious. In the third place he would propound his theory about the tides: “proporrò una fantasia ingegnosa,” he says. He had long been of opinion that the unknown problem of the tides would receive some light on the assumption of the Earth’s motion. Other persons had adopted his statement on this point as if it had been their own; he therefore thought it desirable to expound it himself. He hints, too, that the willingness to admit the stability of the Earth, and to take the contrary side solely for mathematical caprice, is partly based on piety, religion, the knowledge of the Divine omnipotence, and the consciousness of human weakness.

He had thought it well to cast these thoughts into the form of a dialogue, which gave a certain amount of freedom to digressions.

He then introduces the personages who sustain the discussion, and who are supposed to meet at Venice at the palace of one of their number, Sagredo by name.