[359] Comp. Niccolini’s despatch to Cioli of 16th April. (Op. ix. pp. 440, 441.) During our stay in Rome in the spring of 1877, Leone Vincenzo Sallua, the Father Commissary-General of the Holy Office, was kind enough to show us the apartments occupied by Galileo in the Palace of the Inquisition. The rooms are all large, light, and cheerful, and on one side you enjoy the prospect of the majestic dome of St. Peter’s, and on the other of the beautiful gardens of the Vatican. It is worthy of note that all the rooms assigned to Galileo and his servant are entirely shut off by a single door, so that but one key was required to make the inmates of these handsome apartments prisoners. With all its consideration for Galileo’s person, the Inquisition never forgot a certain prudence which had perhaps become a second nature to it. We prefix a little ground plan of the rooms, made by ourselves on the spot.
[360] See despatch of 23rd April. (Op. ix. p. 441.)
[361] See Op. ix. pp. 334, 339, 345, 346, 354, 355. Pieralisi tries to palliate even this act, but without much success. (Comp. pp. 134, 135.)
[362] Thanks to the kindness of Prof. Riccardi, of Modena, in whose valuable library there is, among other treasures, a copy of Galileo’s “Dialogues” of 1632, I was enabled to compare Inchofer’s quotations with a copy of the very edition which was in the hands of the consultators of the Holy Office. I am able to state that Inchofer quotes them verbatim, or makes faithful extracts without altering the sense. The last quotation only, 25, is a little confused. (Vat. MS. fol. 439 vo.)
[363] Pasqualigus seldom cites verbatim, but makes short quotations; and in comparing them with Galileo’s works, I have found the sense given correctly.
[364] See all these opinions and the arguments, Vat. MS. fol. 429 ro. 447 ro.
[365] There is a passage in a letter of Galileo’s to Geri Bocchineri of 25th February, 1633, in which he says: “The cessation of all bodily exercise which, as you know I am accustomed to take for the benefit of my health, and of which I have now been deprived for nearly forty days, begins to tell upon me, and particularly to interfere with digestion, so that the mucus accumulates; and for three days violent pains in the limbs have occasioned great suffering, and deprived me of sleep. I hope strict diet will get rid of them.” (Op. vii. p. 23.) Since this time two months had elapsed without Galileo’s having been in the open air. Even the Inquisitors saw, as we shall find, that a change must be made in the regulations, if they did not wish to endanger his life.
[366] Op. vii. p. 30.
[367] Pages 197, 198.
[368] Niccolini’s.