“Most Holy Father! Galileo Galilei most humbly begs your Holiness to exchange the place assigned to him for his prison near Rome, for some other in Florence, which may appear suitable to your Holiness, in consideration of his poor health, and also because the petitioner is expecting a sister with eight children from Germany, to whom no one can afford help and protection so well as himself. He will receive any disposition of your Holiness as a great favour.”[416]
But in the Vatican the opinion prevailed that to allow Galileo to return to Florence already would be a superfluity of indulgence. The Pope said to Niccolini: “We must proceed gently, and only rehabilitate Galileo by degrees.”[417] Still Urban was disposed to grant the ambassador’s request, and to alter the penalty so far as to allow the exile to go to Siena, to the house of the Archbishop Ascanio Piccolomini, whom we know as a warm friend of Galileo’s. Niccolini’s urgent entreaties succeeded in obtaining a papal decree of 30th June, ordering Galileo to go by the shortest route to Siena, to go to the Archbishop’s at once, to remain there, and strictly to obey his orders; and he was not to leave that city without permission from the Congregation.[418] Galileo was informed of this decree on 2nd July by the Commissary-General of the Inquisition, Father Vincenzo Maccolani di Firenzuola, in person.[419] On 10th July, Niccolini reported to Cioli: “Signor Galileo set out early on Wednesday, 6th July, in good health, for Siena, and writes to me from Viterbo, that he had performed four miles on foot, the weather being very cool.”[420]
CHAPTER X.
CURRENT MYTHS.
Popular Story of Galileo’s Fate.—His Eyes put out.—“E pur si Muove.”—The Hair Shirt.—Imprisonment.—Galileo only detained twenty-two Days at the Holy Office.—Torture.—Refuted in 18th Century.—Torture based on the words, “examen rigorosum.”—This shown to be untenable.—Assertion that the Acts have been falsified refuted.—False Imputation on Niccolini.—Conclusive Evidence against Torture.—Galileo not truly a “Martyr of Science.”
Before following Galileo’s fate to the end, so far as his relations with the curia are concerned, it seems desirable to glance at the fables and exaggerations, mostly originating in malice and fierce partisanship, which, in defiance of the results of the latest historical research, are not only circulated among the public at large, but introduced, to some extent, even in works which profess to contain history.
According to these legends, Galileo languishes during the trial in the prisons of the Inquisition; when brought before his judges, he proudly defends the doctrine of the double motion; he is then seized by the executioners of the Holy Office, and subjected to the horrors of torture; but even then—as heroic fable demands—he for a long time remains steadfast; under pain beyond endurance he promises obedience, that is, the recantation of the Copernican system. As soon as his torn and dislocated limbs permit, he is dragged before the large assembly of the Congregation, and there, kneeling in the penitential shirt, with fierce rage in his heart, he utters the desired recantation. As he rises he is no longer able to master his indignation, and fiercely stamping with his foot, he utters the famous words: “E pur si muove!” He is, therefore, thrown into the dank dungeons of the dreaded tribunal, where his eyes are put out!
The blinding of Galileo is a creation of the lively popular mind, which, with its love of horrors, embellishes tragical historical events by fictitious additions of this kind, just suited to the palates of people accustomed to coarse diet. Galileo’s subsequent loss of sight may have given rise to the fable, which first appeared in the “History of Astronomy” by Estevius.[421] It is not known who was the inventor of the assumed exclamation, “E pur si muove,” which sounds well, and has become a “winged word;” but besides not being historic, it very incorrectly indicates the old man’s state of mind; for he was morally completely crushed. Professor Heis, who has devoted a treatise to the origin of this famous saying, thinks that he has discovered its first appearance in the “Dictionnaire Historique,” Caen, 1789;[422] Professor Grisar tells us, however, in his studies on the trial of Galileo, that in the “Lehrbuch der philosophischen Geschichte,” published at Würzburg, 1774, fifteen years earlier, by Fr. N. Steinacher, the following edifying passage occurs:—
“Galileo was neither sufficiently in earnest nor steadfast with his recantation; for the moment he rose up, when his conscience told him that he had sworn falsely, he cast his eyes on the ground, stamped with his foot, and exclaimed, ‘E pur si muove.’”[423]