Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia / From Authentic Sources

by Karl von Gebler

Galileo thus repeats for the fifth time that he is only aware of the injunction which agrees with the decree of the Congregation of the Index of 5th March, 1616. He can likewise only remember that Cardinal Bellarmine told him of the decree of the Holy Congregation; that a command was issued to him, as the Inquisitor asserts, he is not aware; but true to his resolve to make no direct contradiction, he says: “It may be, but I do not remember it.” But the Inquisitor treats the issue of the “command” as an established fact; and Galileo, to whom it may have appeared somewhat indifferent whether he was merely informed of the decree of the Congregation, or whether a command in conformity with it was issued to him before witnesses, submissively adopts this assumption of the Inquisitor. He then informs Galileo “that this command issued to him before witnesses contained that he must not in any way hold, defend, nor teach that opinion.” Galileo, to whom the two additions, “in any way whatever” and “nor teach,” sound new, entrenches himself behind his stereotyped answer, “I do not remember it.” Then he appeals to the certificate given him by Cardinal Bellarmine on 26th May, 1616, which does not mention either of these two definitions. To the repeated query who intimated the command to him, he invariably replies: “Cardinal Bellarmine.” He obviously supposes that the Inquisitor regards the cardinal’s communication as the command. Galileo’s depositions do not contain a word from which it can be inferred that (as the document of 26th February reports), after the cardinal’s communication, any further instruction was given him by the Father Commissary of the Inquisition in the name of the Pope and the Holy Congregation, under threat of a trial before the Inquisition. But it is incredible that this most important proceeding should have entirely escaped Galileo’s memory. There are but two alternatives: either it did not take place, and, of course, Galileo cannot remember it; or his ignorance is feigned.

Galileo’s attitude before the Inquisition is such that the latter supposition does not seem altogether unjustifiable; but we must assume with Wohlwill, who has analysed the trial with great judicial acumen, and whom we have followed on many points discussed above, that Galileo would only have availed himself of such a lie and misrepresentation, if it would have helped him before the tribunal of the Inquisition. But the advantage of denying any actual proceeding of 26th February is by no means evident. On the contrary, Galileo must have seen—supposing him to make false depositions—from the Inquisitor’s questions that he had the protocol of 26th February before him. Of what avail then could a fiction be in face of this document? Of none whatever. It would rather injure his cause by stamping him as a liar. Wohlwill has pointed out that it would have been a masterpiece of cunning to play out the comedy of assumed ignorance from beginning to end of the trial in so consistent a manner, never contradicting himself, as appears from Galileo’s depositions. His simplest replies would then have formed parts of a complex tissue of falsehood, and it would be astonishing that throughout the whole course of the trial he should never for a moment deviate from his difficult part.

While the complexity of such a mode of defence renders the assumption of Galileo’s denial, to say the least, improbable, there are other more weighty arguments to show that he states before his judges all that he knows about the proceedings in 1616. These arguments consist of all Galileo’s statements and actions with which we are acquainted, during the seventeen years from 1616-1632, and they form the strongest evidence for the credibility of his depositions. We recur first, simply to the letters of the time of the first trial, in which there is not only no trace of the assumed absolute prohibition, but Galileo openly expresses his satisfaction that his enemies have not succeeded in obtaining an entire prohibition of the Copernican theory, and he again and again mentions that the hypothetical discussion of it still remains open. And the attitude maintained by him during the seventeen years towards the new system is in entire conformity with the decree of the Congregation of the Index of 5th March, 1616, which was in force for everybody, but not with the categorical prohibition of the Commissary-General of the Holy Office. This is shown by his eagerness to get his work on Copernicus published in the very year 1616; by his sending the treatise on the tides to the Archduke Leopold of Austria, in 1618; by the discussion of the Copernican theory in his “Il Saggiatore,” in 1623; by his efforts in 1624 to get the clause of 5th March, 1616, abolished by the new, and, as he thought, more tolerant Pope (there is no trace that he tried to get any special prohibition to himself revoked); by his reply to Ingoli of the same date, which treated exclusively of the marked defence of the Copernican theory; and finally, by the writing of the famous “Dialogues” themselves, in which he made every endeavour not to come into collision with the published decree of 1616, while the very authorship of the work would have infringed an absolute command to silence on the Copernican system.

We now go back to the first hearing of Galileo. Although his statements, in spite of his submissiveness, obviously contradict the assertion of the Inquisitor, that he had, in 1616, received an injunction not to hold, teach, or defend the Copernican opinions in any way, the Inquisitor does not take the least pains to solve the enigma. Everything is also omitted on the part of the judges which might have cleared up the point; for example, to summon the witnesses, whose names are on the note of 26th February, 1616, and confront them with the accused. And as no attempt is made to account for his ignorance of the prohibition, and it is simply taken for granted, it must be allowed that Galileo’s judges, to say the least, were guilty of a great breach of judicial order, in using, without any close examination, a paper as a valid document on the trial, which was destitute of nearly all the characteristics of one, namely, the signatures of the accused, of the notary and witnesses, and in spite of three contradictory depositions of the accused. No special arguments are needed to prove that this breach of order did not proceed from mere carelessness. And so, immediately after the accused has declared that he does not remember any command but that intimated to him by Cardinal Bellarmine, we find the Inquisitor asking him: Whether, after the aforesaid command was issued to him, he had received any permission to write the book which he had acknowledged to be his, and which he afterwards had printed?

Galileo: “After receiving the command aforesaid, I did not ask permission to write the book acknowledged by me to be mine, because I did not consider that in writing it I was acting contrary to, far less disobeying, the command not to hold, defend, or to teach the said opinion.”

The Inquisitor now asks to be informed whether, from whom, and in what way, Galileo had received permission to print the “Dialogues.” Galileo briefly relates the whole course of the negotiations which preceded the printing. As his narrative agrees entirely with what we know, it is not reproduced here. The Inquisitor then asks: Whether, when asking permission to print his book, he had told the Master of the Palace about the command aforesaid, which had been issued to him by order of the Holy Congregation?

Galileo: “I did not say anything about that command to the Master of the Palace when I asked for the imprimatur for the book, for I did not think it necessary to say anything, because I had no scruples about it; for I have neither maintained nor defended the opinion that the earth moves and the sun is stationary in that book, but have rather demonstrated the opposite of the Copernican opinion, and shown that the arguments of Copernicus are weak and not conclusive.”

With this deposition, the last part of which is quite incorrect, the first hearing closed. Silence having been imposed on Galileo on oath on subjects connected with his trial, he was taken to an apartment in the private residence of the fiscal of the Holy Office in the buildings of this tribunal. Here he enjoyed (as appears from his own letters and Niccolini’s reports) kind and considerate treatment. On 16th April he wrote to Geri Bocchineri:—

“Contrary to custom, three large and comfortable rooms have been assigned to me, part of the residence of the fiscal of the Holy Office, with free permission to walk about in the spacious apartments. My health is good, for which, next to God, I have to thank the great care of the ambassador and his wife, who have a watchful eye for all comforts, and far more than I require.”[358]