Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia / From Authentic Sources

by Karl von Gebler

In accordance with this sentence, certainly not passed unanimously by the members of the Holy Tribunal, which forms one of the foulest blots in the melancholy annals of the Inquisition, Galileo was compelled immediately after hearing it to make the following degrading recantation, humbly kneeling, before the whole assembly:—

“I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, arraigned personally before this tribunal, and kneeling before you, most Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinals, Inquisitors general against heretical depravity throughout the whole Christian Republic, having before my eyes and touching with my hands, the holy Gospels swear that I have always believed, do now believe, and by God’s help will for the future believe, all that is held, preached, and taught by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church. But whereas—after an injunction had been judicially intimated to me by this Holy Office, to the effect that I must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the centre of the world, and moves, and that I must not hold, defend, or teach in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing, the said doctrine, and after it had been notified to me that the said doctrine was contrary to Holy Scripture—I wrote and printed a book in which I discuss this doctrine already condemned, and adduce arguments of great cogency in its favour, without presenting any solution of these; and for this cause I have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the centre and moves:—

Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this strong suspicion, reasonably conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church; and I swear that in future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me; but that should I know any heretic, or person suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor and ordinary of the place where I may be. Further, I swear and promise to fulfil and observe in their integrity all penances that have been, or that shall be, imposed upon me by this Holy Office. And, in the event of my contravening, (which God forbid!) any of these my promises, protestations, and oaths, I submit myself to all the pains and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents. So help me God, and these His holy Gospels, which I touch with my hands.

I, the said Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above; and in witness of the truth thereof I have with my own hand subscribed the present document of my abjuration, and recited it word for word at Rome, in the Convent of Minerva, this twenty-second day of June, 1633.

I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above with my own hand.”[404]

Certain Catholic writers express the hope, at the expense of truth, for the sake of Galileo’s salvation and honour, that he really had, from conviction, renounced the opinion which he had been labouring for and advocating up to old age. Indeed, the super-Catholic author of an essay, called “The Holy See against Galileo Galilei and the Astronomical System of Copernicus,”[405] does not hesitate to say: “Probably the physical absurdities of his (Galileo’s) doctrine had achieved a victory for the voice of reason and religion.”[406] Undoubtedly there were many physical difficulties in the way of a general acceptance of the new doctrines (especially the prevailing incorrect ideas about the specific gravity of the air),[407] and they were only finally overcome by the discovery of the law of gravitation by the genius of Newton; but they were not so great as to prevent men, like Kepler, Descartes, Gassendi, Diodati, Philip Landsberg, Joachim Rhäticus, and others, and above all, the great Italian reformer of physics and astronomy, from, even at that time, recognising the truth of the new theory. It does not appear, either, that the author of that article had much faith in his own conjecture, for he proceeds to a demonstration, from opposite premises, which was for a time much in vogue with the Jesuitical defenders of the Inquisition against Galileo, and which must therefore be briefly mentioned.

This was nothing less than an attempt to show that even if Galileo held the Copernican system to be the only true one, he could, thanks to the wording of the formula of recantation, utter it without doing violence to his conscience; or, what is now known to be truth.[408] Galileo swore that he never had believed and never would believe (1) “that the sun was the centre of the earth and immovable.” That he could easily do, says our author, for, in relation to the fixed stars, the sun by no means forms the centre; and heavy bodies on the earth fall towards its centre and not towards the sun, which, also, in this sense, was not the centre! There was no difficulty for Galileo in recanting that the sun was immovable, for he had himself concluded from the motion of the spots that it revolved on its own axis.[409] As to the earth, he abjured it as an error (2) that “the earth is not the centre;” quite right, for it is the centre for heavy bodies: and it was not said—“the centre of the universe;” (3) “that the earth moves;” vast efforts of sophistry were necessary to make this desperately precise proposition square with the arguments of this curious casuist. He therefore says, that as, according to the wording, it is not the diurnal motion of the earth that is in question, this proposition has quite a different meaning, in which, on the one hand, it must be said that the earth is immovable, and on the other, that it is only motion through the air from one place to another that is excluded. The earth may certainly, both in relation to its physical conformation and in contrast to what goes on upon it, be called immovable![410] At the time when these lines were written, in 1875, the author of this article in the “Historisch-politischen Blättern” was unknown to us. Afterwards, through the liberality of the Bavarian Government, among other works relating to Galileo in the Royal Library, the following were lent to us:—(1) “Di Copernico e di Galileo, scritto postumo del P. Maurizio-Benedetto Olivieri, Ex. generale dei domenicani e Commissario della S. Rom. ed Univ. Inquisizione ora per la prima volta messo in luce sull’ autografo per cura d’un religioso dello stesso istituto. Bologna, 1872”; (2) “Il S. Officio, Copernico e Galileo a proposito di un opusculo postumo del P. Olivieri sullo stesso argomento apunti di Gilberto Govi. Torino, 1872.” To our no small surprise we found, on reading the former, that it had by no means “seen the light” for the first time in 1872, but had appeared thirty-one years before in a literal German translation, as the article above mentioned in the “Historisch-politischen Blättern,” with a few insignificant alterations, and a different title, the old one being given in a note. Neither the editor of the first Italian work of Olivieri, the Dominican monk, Fra. Tommaso Bonora, nor the author of the above rejoinder,[411] Gilberto Govi, had, as appears from what they say, the least idea of this singular fact. In Germany, Professor Clemens of Bonn, was universally believed to be the author of this article, which excited great attention; so firmly was it held, that Professor Moritz Cantor, in a notice of the present work, gave no credence to our discovery, but stated in his critique, “The anonymous writer was not Olivieri, but Professor Clemens of Bonn.”[412] Upon this we sent Professor Cantor the essay from the “Historisch-politischen Blättern” and Bonora’s work for examination, when he was constrained to be convinced by the sight of his own eyes.

The wretched attempt thus to clear the Inquisition, by Olivieri’s method, of the reproach of having extorted an oath from Galileo entirely against his convictions, is unworthy of refutation. By impartial posterity the oath is and must be regarded as perjury, and is all the more repulsive because the promise was coupled with it that, “if he met with a heretic, or person suspected of heresy,” he would denounce him to the authorities of the Church; that is, the master would denounce his disciples—for by a “heretic, or any one suspected of heresy,” the adherents of the Copernican system must be chiefly understood—to the persecution of the Inquisition! The taking of this degrading oath may, under the circumstances, be excused, but it never can be justified.

After this painful act of world-wide interest had been completed, Galileo was conducted back to the buildings of the Holy Office. Now that he and the Copernican system had been condemned with becoming solemnity by the Holy Office, Urban VIII. magnanimously gave the word for mercy; that is, Galileo was not, as the sentence prescribed, detained in the prisons of the Inquisition, but a restricted amount of liberty was granted him. The Roman curia never entirely let go its hold upon him as long as he lived. On the day after the sentence was passed, the Pope exchanged imprisonment for temporary banishment, to the villa of the Grand Duke of Tuscany at Trinita de’ Monti, near Rome,[413] whither Niccolini conducted his unfortunate friend on the evening of 24th June, as we find from the despatch before quoted from him to Cioli of 26th of the month.[414]

We learn from the same source that while Galileo took the prohibition of his book, of which he was aware beforehand, with tolerable composure, the unexpected proceedings of the Holy Office against him personally, affected him most deeply. Niccolini did his best to rouse him from his deep depression, but at first with little success.[415] Galileo longed to leave Rome, where he had suffered so much, and therefore addressed the following petition to Urban VIII.:—