1. Galileo did not receive any prohibition, except the cardinal’s admonition not to defend nor hold the Copernican doctrine.
2. Entire silence on the subject was therefore not enjoined upon him.
3. The second part of the note in the Vatican MS. of 26th February, 1616, is therefore untrue.
These three facts are indisputable, and the subsequent course of historical events will confirm them step by step, while it can by no means be made to tally with the assumed strict injunction of the Commissary-General. Next however, the question immediately arises, Through whose means did the falsehood get into the acts of the trial, and was it bona or mala fide? Historical research can only partially answer this question. All these notifications were entered by a notary of the Inquisition, and probably that of 26th February, 1616, also. Did he, perhaps merely from officious zeal, enter a note of an official proceeding as having actually taken place, which undoubtedly was to have taken place under certain circumstances, but in their absence did not occur, or even were not to be permitted at all in consequence of papal instructions? Or was the notary simply the tool of a power which had long been inimical to Galileo, and which, incensed at the failure for the time of its schemes against him, sought to forge secret fetters for future use by the entry of the fictitious note? We have no certain knowledge of the motives and influences which gave rise to the falsification; as however we can scarcely believe in the officious zeal of, or independent falsification by, the notary himself, the conjecture gains in probability that we are concerned with a lying, perfidious trick of Galileo’s enemies,[149] which, as we shall see later on, signally fulfilled its purpose.
Wohlwill, Gherardi, Cantor, and we ourselves have long been of opinion that this note originated, not in 1616, but in 1632, in order to legalise the trial of Galileo. But after having repeatedly and very carefully examined the original acts of the trial, preserved among the papal secret archives, we were compelled to acknowledge that the material nature of the document entirely excludes the suspicion of a subsequent falsification.[150] The note was not falsified in 1632; no, in 1616 probably, with subtle and perfidious calculation, a lie was entered which was to have the most momentous consequences to the great astronomer.
CHAPTER VII.
EVIL REPORT AND GOOD REPORT.
Galileo still lingers at Rome.—Guiccardini tries to effect his recall.—Erroneous idea that he was trying to get the Decree repealed.—Intrigues against him.—Audience of Pope Paul V.—His friendly assurances.—His Character.—Galileo’s return to Florence.
Galileo had humbly submitted, had witnessed the issue of the decree of 5th March by the august council; he knew that the only correct doctrine of the system of the universe had been reduced to the shadow of a hypothesis, and yet he could not make up his mind to leave the capital of the hierarchy where such a slap in the face had been given to science. The story told in most works on Galileo, that though he had submitted to the Holy Office he afterwards used his utmost endeavours to effect a reversal of the decree, is another of the firmly rooted and ineffaceable mistakes of history. It originated in the reports of the Tuscan ambassador, Guiccardini, to the Grand Duke.[151]