Niccolini had been permitted to board Galileo, and his servants took the meals to his rooms, so that Galileo could keep his own servant about him, and he was even allowed to sleep in the buildings of the Holy Office.[359] No obstacle was placed in the way of free correspondence between Galileo and Niccolini. The former wrote to his exalted friend and patron daily, and he replied, openly expressing his opinions, without exciting any observation.[360]
While, therefore, as far as his material situation was concerned, nothing but favours unheard of in the annals of the Inquisition were shown him, nothing was left undone to find the best method of effecting his moral ruin. At the beginning of April, when the actual trial was to come on, his faithful friend and advocate, Father Castelli, who was as well versed in theology as he was in mathematics, was sent away from Rome and not recalled until Galileo, who had been meanwhile condemned, had left the city.[361]
Three days after the first examination the three counsellors of the Inquisition, Augustine Oregius, Melchior Inchofer, and Zacharias Pasqualigus delivered their opinions about the trial of Galileo. Oregius declared that “in the book superscribed ‘Dialogues of Galileo Galilei,’ the doctrine which teaches that the earth moves and that the sun is stationary is maintained and defended.” Inchofer’s statements (he drew up two) declared that “Galileo had not only taught and defended that view, but rendered it very suspicious that he was inclined to it, and even held it to this day.” Both these attestations were supported by a memorial, in which the opinions given were founded on passages quoted from the “Dialogues.”[362] The first sought to prove that Galileo in his book had treated the stability of the sun and its central position in the universe, not as a hypothesis, but in a definite manner; the second, that in it Galileo had taught, defended, and held the doctrine of the earth’s motion round the sun.
Zacharias Pasqualigus gave in three opinions. In the first he expresses his view that Galileo, by the publication of his “Dialogues,” had infringed the order given him by the Holy Office not in any way to hold the Copernican Opinion, nor to teach nor defend it in writing or speaking, in respect to teaching and defending, and it was very suspicious that he held it.
In his second opinion, Pasqualigus argues, by quoting passages from the “Dialogues,”[363] that although in the beginning of the book Galileo had stated that he should treat the doctrine of the double motion only as a hypothesis, he had in the course of it departed from hypothetical language, and sought to prove it by decisive arguments.
Finally, in his third opinion, Pasqualigus recurs to the special prohibition of 1616, and argues at length that Galileo has overstepped it both as regards teaching and defending, and is very strongly open to the suspicion of holding it.[364]
By these declarations Galileo’s cause was as good as decided. His transgression of the command of the Holy Office, and particularly of the special prohibition of 26th February, 1616, was proved beyond a doubt. Of his guilt there could be no question—neither could there be any of the penalty.
The prolonged deprivation of exercise in the open air, which had been so essential to the old man’s health,[365] combined with great mental agitation, at length threw him on a sick bed. He wrote on 23rd April to Geri Bocchineri:—
“I am writing in bed, to which I have been confined for sixteen hours with severe pains in my loins, which, according to my experience, will last as much longer. A little while ago I had a visit from the commissary and the fiscal who conduct the inquiry. They have promised and intimated it as their settled intention to set me at liberty as soon as I am able to get up again, encouraging me repeatedly to keep up my spirits. I place more confidence in these promises than in the hopes held out to me before, which, as experience has shown, were founded rather upon surmises than real knowledge. I have always hoped that my innocence and uprightness would be brought to light, and I now hope it more than ever. I am getting tired of writing, and will conclude.”[366]