On 10th May he was summoned for the third time before the Holy Tribunal, where Father Firenzuola, the Commissary-General of the Inquisition, informed him that eight days were allowed him in which to write a defence if he wished to submit one. But Galileo handed it in at once,[377] from which we may conclude that he had been informed of this proceeding beforehand. It was as follows:—
“When asked if I had signified to the Reverend Father, the Master of the Sacred Palace, the injunction privately laid upon me, about sixteen years ago, by order of the Holy Office, not to hold, defend, or ‘in any way’ teach the doctrine of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun, I answered that I had not done so. And not being questioned as to the reason why I had not intimated it, I had no opportunity to add anything further. It now appears to me necessary to state the reason, in order to demonstrate the purity of my intention, ever foreign to the employment of simulation or deceit in any operation I engage in. I say, then, that as at that time reports were spread abroad by evil-disposed persons, to the effect that I had been summoned by the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine to abjure certain of my opinions and doctrines, and that I had consented to abjure them, and also to submit to punishment for them, I was thus constrained to apply to his Eminence, and to solicit him to furnish me with an attestation, explaining the cause for which I had been summoned before him; which attestation I obtained, in his own handwriting, and it is the same that I now produce with the present document.[378] From this it clearly appears that it was merely announced to me that the doctrine attributed to Copernicus of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun must not be held or defended, and ... [Here the MS. is defaced] beyond this general announcement affecting every one, any other injunction in particular was intimated to me, no trace thereof appears there. Having, then, as a reminder, this authentic attestation in the handwriting of the very person who intimated the command to me, I made no further application of thought or memory with regard to the words employed in announcing to me the said order not to hold or defend the doctrine in question; so that the two articles of the order—in addition to the injunction not to ‘hold’ or ‘defend’ it—to wit, the words ‘nor to teach it’ ‘in any way whatsoever’—which I hear are contained in the order intimated to me, and registered—struck me as quite novel and as if I had not heard them before; and I do not think I ought to be disbelieved when I urge that in the course of fourteen or sixteen years I had lost all recollection of them, especially as I had no need to give any particular thought to them, having in my possession so authentic a reminder in writing. Now, if the said two articles be left out, and those two only be retained which are noted in the accompanying attestation, there is no doubt that the injunction contained in the latter is the same command as that contained in the decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Index. Whence it appears to me that I have a reasonable excuse for not having notified to the Master of the Sacred Palace the command privately imposed upon me, it being the same as that of the Congregation of the Index.
Seeing also, that my book was not subject to a stricter censorship than that made binding by the decree of the Index, it will, it appears to me, be sufficiently plain that I adopted the surest and most becoming method of having it guaranteed and purged of all shadow of taint, inasmuch as I handed it to the supreme Inquisitor at the very time when many books dealing with the same matters were being prohibited solely in virtue of the said decree. After what I have now stated, I would confidently hope that the idea of my having knowingly and deliberately violated the command imposed upon me, will henceforth be entirely banished from the minds of my most eminent and wise judges; so that those faults which are seen scattered throughout my book have not been artfully introduced with any concealed or other than sincere intention, but have only inadvertently fallen from my pen, owing to a vainglorious ambition and complacency in desiring to appear more subtle than the generality of popular writers, as indeed in another ... [MS. defaced] deposition I have confessed: which fault I shall be ready to correct by writing whenever I may be commanded or permitted by your Eminences.
Lastly, it remains for me to pray you to take into consideration my pitiable state of bodily indisposition, to which, at the age of seventy years, I have been reduced by ten months of constant mental anxiety and the fatigue of a long and toilsome journey at the most inclement season—together with the loss of the greater part of the years of which, from my previous condition of health, I had the prospect. I am persuaded and encouraged to do so by the clemency and goodness of the most eminent lords, my judges; with the hope that they may be pleased, in answer to my prayer, to remit what may appear to their entire justice ... to such sufferings as adequate punishment—out of consideration for my declining age, which too, I humbly commend to them. And I would equally commend to their consideration my honour and reputation, against the calumnies of ill-wishers, whose persistence in detracting from my good name may be inferred from the necessity which constrained me to procure from the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine the attestation which accompanies this.”[379]
This touching appeal to the mercy of the judges of the Holy Office can scarcely be read without feelings of the profoundest pity for the unhappy old man, who, in the evening of his days, felt compelled by dread of the stake to deny his scientific convictions.
In looking at the defence in a judicial light, in spite of mistrust in the truthfulness of the accused, for which there is some justification, it must be allowed that his statements about the proceedings of sixteen years before, agree entirely with all his letters and actions from 1616 to 1632. In view of this state of the case, Galileo’s remark in his defence that “he had received that certificate from the very person who had intimated the command to him,” possesses increased significance. His whole defence is intended to convince the judges that the two particulars “not to teach” and “in any way” were unknown to him up to the day of his first hearing, or, as he says, to avoid direct contradiction, “he had lost all recollection of them.” He obviously thinks that the gravity of the indictment lies in these words. But he seems to be absolutely ignorant of their having been issued to him after the previous admonition of the Cardinal, by the Commissary-General of the Inquisition, with the threat that “otherwise they would proceed against him in the Holy Office,” indeed, by the above remark he decidedly contradicts it. Apologists of the Inquisition at any price, of the stamp of Mgr. Marini, do not fail to adopt the only means left to them, and call Galileo’s defence “childish evasions unworthy of so great a man, which are sure signs of guilt.”[380] We are of opinion, on the contrary, that the confident hopes of a favourable issue of his trial, by which, as appears from the replies of his correspondents and Niccolini’s despatches, Galileo was animated up to the last moment, by no means comport with consciousness of guilt.
After his defence had been received, and the same obligations imposed on him on oath as after the second hearing, he was allowed to return to the embassy. The nearer the time approached when the old man’s illusions were to be dispelled, the more sanguine was the intelligence he sent to his friends. He reminds one of a consumptive patient, full of hope when in the last stage of his disorder. Galileo receives in reply to his letters the congratulations of his friends on the, as they suppose, doubtless favourable issue of his trial. Cardinal Capponi writes on 21st May, that he had never expected anything else.[381] Bocchineri, Guiducci, Agguinti, Cini, and others heartily express their satisfaction;[382] the Archbishop of Siena, Ascanio Piccolomini, Galileo’s devoted friend, invites him, in expectation of his speedy dismissal from Rome, to come and see him at Siena, that he may await the extinction of the plague at Florence.[383] Galileo accepts the friendly invitation, and informs Bocchineri that he intends to go to Siena immediately after the end of the trial.[384] Archbishop Piccolomini even offers his impatiently expected guest a litter for the journey.[385] A favour granted to Galileo just at the last, on the urgent solicitation of Niccolini, and quite unheard of in the annals of the Inquisition, might have increased these confident hopes. He was permitted to take the air for the sake of his health in the gardens of the Castle of Gandolfo, to which, however, he was always conveyed in a half-closed carriage, as he was not to be seen in the streets.[386]
Niccolini, however, did not share the hopes of his famous guest, and for very good reasons. He had had an audience, on 21st May, of the Pope and Cardinal Barberini, who had told him in answer to his inquiries when the trial might be expected to end, that it would probably be concluded in the congregation to take place in about a fortnight. After reporting this in his despatch to Cioli of 22nd May, Niccolini continues: “I very much fear that the book will be prohibited, unless it is averted by Galileo’s being charged, as I proposed, to write an apology. Some ‘salutary penance’ will also be imposed upon him, as they maintain that he has transgressed the command communicated to him by Cardinal Bellarmine in 1616. I have not yet told him all this, because I want to prepare him for it by degrees, in order not to distress him. It will also be advisable to observe silence about this in Florence, that he may not hear it from his friends there; and the more so, as it may turn out otherwise.”[387] It was indeed “to turn out otherwise,” but in a way that even Niccolini did not in the least suspect.
A momentary lull now took place in Galileo’s trial—the preparation for the great catastrophe that was to take all the world by surprise. Sultry silence reigned for four weeks. No one, not even Niccolini, could learn anything about the progress of the affair; the thunderbolt had already fallen which was to crush the accused before it was known to anyone beyond the Holy Congregation. His fate had been sealed in a private meeting of it presided over by the Pope. Unfortunately we have no written notes of the proceedings of this highly interesting sitting. From two documents, which agree entirely in essentials, we simply know what the decrees were which minutely prescribed the final proceedings to be taken against Galileo. One of these documents is derived from the Vatican collection of the acts of Galileo’s trial; the other is reproduced in Gherardi’s collection of documents, and belongs to the MS. originals of the decrees drawn up in the sittings of the Holy Congregation in the archives of the Inquisition.
It is decreed in both documents[388] which agree almost verbatim: To try Galileo as to his intention, and under threat of torture; if he kept firm, he was to be called upon to recant before a plenary assembly of the Congregation of the Holy Office, condemned to imprisonment according to the judgment of the Holy Congregation, and ordered in future not to discuss, either in writing or speaking, the opinion that the earth moves and the sun is stationary, nor yet the contrary opinion, under pain of further punishment for contumacy; further, the work, “Dialogo di Galileo Galilei, Linceo,” was to be prohibited. And in order to make this known everywhere, copies of the sentence were to be sent to all papal envoys, and all inquisitors into heretical crimes, and specially to the Inquisitor of Florence, who was to proclaim it in a full conclave of the Congregation, and read it publicly to a majority of the professors of mathematics summoned for the purpose.