But the time appointed had nearly elapsed, and Galileo made no preparations for starting. Shortly before it terminated, in accordance with his instructions, the Inquisitor at Florence sent his vicar to him. On 18th December the Inquisitor sent the following report to Rome:—
“My vicar found Galileo Galilei in bed. He told him he was quite willing to come, but in these times he had no heart for it; besides, just now, owing to having been attacked by sudden illness, he was not in a condition to set out. He has sent me the enclosed medical certificate. So that I have not failed to do my duty.”[315]
The medical certificate, dated 17th December, gives a clear idea of the physical condition of this much-tried man, and we therefore give it in full. It is signed by the doctors Vettorio de Rossi, Giovanni Ronconi, and Pietro Cervieri, and is as follows:—
“We, the undersigned physicians, certify that we have examined Signor Galileo Galilei, and find that his pulse intermits every three or four beats, from which we conclude that his vital powers are affected, and at his great age much weakened. To the above are to be ascribed frequent attacks of giddiness, hypochondriacal melancholy, weakness of the stomach, sleeplessness, and flying pains about the body, to which others also can testify. We have also observed a serious hernia with rupture of the peritoneum. All these symptoms are worthy of notice, as under the least aggravation they might evidently become dangerous to life.”[316]
But much importance does not seem to have been attached to this certificate at Rome; and in a despatch of 26th December, Niccolini expressed his fears to Cioli lest the ecclesiastical authorities at Florence should receive extreme orders.[317] Castelli also, in a letter of 25th December, urged his old master to set out.[318] But in this, as in all his letters of this period, he shows that he had no idea of the real moment to Galileo of the proceedings going on at Rome, and he was altogether ill informed about the course things were taking.[319] Probably great reserve was maintained towards this faithful adherent of Galileo, who was also to be his advocate. Castelli always consoled him with the assurance that, to the best of his belief, the final decision of the holy tribunal would never be against him.[320] Even in his letter of 25th December, Castelli says that he only considers it necessary for Galileo to set out for Rome, because he entertained a singular notion that Galileo’s cunning persecutors desired nothing more than that he should not come to Rome, in order that they might decry him as an obstinate rebel; for he had not committed any crime against the Holy Office! It is plain that the worthy Father Castelli was not very sharp-sighted, as he had abundantly proved before by giving up the original of the celebrated letter of Galileo’s to him of 21st December, 1613.
On 30th December, the fears mentioned by Niccolini in his despatch of 26th December were realised. On that day a papal mandate was issued to the Inquisitor of Florence, which said that neither his Holiness nor the Holy Congregation could or would tolerate such evasions; it must therefore be proved whether Galileo’s state was really such that he could not come to Rome without danger to his life. His Holiness and the Holy Congregation would therefore send a commissioner, with a physician, to Florence, who would visit Galileo and make a true and trustworthy report on his condition, and if he were in a state to travel, bring him a prisoner in irons to Rome (carceratum et ligatum cum ferris). If, out of consideration for his health, or other danger to life, his coming must be postponed, as soon as he had recovered and the danger was over, he was to be brought a prisoner in irons to Rome. The document concluded with the remark that the papal commissioner and the physician would travel at Galileo’s expense, because he had not obeyed the command to appear at Rome when his condition would have permitted it.[321]
To avert these extreme measures from being actually carried out, the Grand Duke told Cioli to write to Galileo on 11th January, 1633, that he (Ferdinand) took a sincere interest in the affair, and regretted that he was unable to spare him the journey, but it was at last necessary that he should obey the supreme authorities. In order that he might perform the journey more comfortably, he would place one of the grand ducal litters and a trustworthy guide at his disposal, and would also permit him to stay at the house of the ambassador, Niccolini, supposing that he would, within a month, be released from Rome.[322]
The pitiful impotence of an Italian ruler of that day in face of the Roman hierarchy is obvious in this letter. His sovereign does not dare to protect the philosopher—the greatest of whom Italy can boast—from papal persecution, but was obliged to give him up to the dreaded Inquisition. It must not, however, be supposed that the young Ferdinand, then only twenty-two, because he had been brought up in the strictest Romish fashion by the two Grand Duchesses and Cioli, acted otherwise than any other Italian ruler would have done in the like situation. Not one of them would have had courage, nor have been independent enough of Rome, to put an energetic veto on a papal mandate like this. The Venetian Republic, in which it had been established as an axiom by Paolo Sarpi that “the power of rulers is derived immediately from God, and spiritual as well as temporal things are subject to it,” was the only State of Italy which would have asserted its sovereignty and would never have delivered up one of its officials to the Roman will. Galileo now suffered a bitter penalty for his former thankless conduct to the Free State. The grand ducal orders had to be unconditionally obeyed; and as any further delay might entail the worst consequences, Galileo fixed 20th January for his departure.[323]
Before setting out, however, on the 15th of the month, he addressed a long letter to the celebrated jurist and advocate in the parliament of Paris, Elia Diodati (not to be confounded with Johannes Diodati, the translator of the Bible), who corresponded with the most learned men of the time, and took a lively interest in Galileo’s studies and fate. Some parts of this letter show how well this strictly theistic, or more properly, Roman Catholic savant, knew how to bring the modern astronomy into agreement with Christian philosophy and the Bible, and this from real conviction, for this letter to his friend at Paris was quite private. From this we may conclude that even his celebrated demonstrations to Father Castelli, of 21st December, 1613, and the still more elaborate ones to the Grand Duchess Christine, 1615, were the result of honest conviction, and were not, as his enemies maintained, mere dialectic fencing, intended to bring Scripture and the Copernican theory into agreement. We give these interesting passages of the letter as well as those which refer to Galileo’s unhappy situation:—