Besides the fact that these words are not attributed to Galileo by any of his contemporaries, not even the best informed, the fallacy of the whole story is obvious; for the witnesses of this outbreak, his judges, in fact, would assuredly not have allowed so audacious a revocation of his recantation to escape unpunished; it is, indeed, impossible to conjecture what the consequences would have been; the recusant would certainly not have been released two days afterwards from the buildings of the Holy Office.
Although this dramatic scene is not mentioned as worthy of credit by any modern historian,[424] it is different with the hair shirt in which Galileo is said to have performed the humiliating act. Libri, Cousin, Parchappe, and very recently Louis Combes,[425] all gravely relate that the philosopher had to recant “en chemise.”
The official document, although it goes very much into detail as to the way in which the oath was performed, says nothing of the shirt, and these authors should have said nothing either. The doubtful source in which this fable originated is an anonymous and very confused note on a MS. in, the Magliabechiana Library at Florence, where among other nonsense we find: “the poor man (Galileo), appeared clad in a ragged shirt, so that it was really pitiable.”[426] We agree with Epinois,[427] that history requires more authentic testimony than that of an anonymous note.
But upon what testimony, then, do a large number of authors speak with much pathos of the imprisonment which Galileo had to undergo? No sort of documents are referred to as evidence of the story; this is quite intelligible, for none exist. Or is the rhetorical phrase, “Galileus nunc in vinculis detinetur,”[428] contained in a letter of May, 1633, from Rome, from Holstein to Peiresc, to be taken as evidence that Galileo was really languishing in the prisons of the Inquisition? One glance at the truest historical source for the famous trial,—the official despatches of Niccolini to Cioli, from 15th August, 1632, to 3rd December, 1633, from which we have so freely quoted,—would have convinced any one that Galileo spent altogether only twenty-two days (12-30th April, and afterwards 21-24th June, 1633) in the buildings of the Holy Office; and even then, not in a prison cell with grated windows, but in the handsome and commodious apartment of an official of the Inquisition. But such writers do not seem to have been in the habit of studying authorities; thus, for example, in the “Histoire des Hérésies,” by P. Domenico Bernini, and in the “Grande Dictionnaire Bibliographique” of Moreri, we find it stated that Galileo was imprisoned five or six years at Rome! Monteula, in his “Histoire des Mathematiques,” and Sir David Brewster, in his “Martyrs of Science,” reduce the period, perhaps from pity for the poor “martyr,” to one year; Delambre, however, felt no such compassion, and says in his “Histoire de l’Astronomie Ancienne,” that Galileo was condemned to an imprisonment which lasted “several years”! Such an error is the more surprising from the last celebrated author, as we know that trustworthy extracts from the original acts of the Vatican MS. were in his hands.[429] Even in a very recent work, Drager’s “Geschichte der Conflicte zwischen Religion und Wissenschaft,” Leipzig, 1875 (“History of the Conflicts between Religion and Science”), it is seriously stated that Galileo was detained three years in the prisons of the Inquisition!
Thus we see that the fable of Galileo’s imprisonment has been adopted by several authors without any historical foundation, and this is to a far greater extent the case with the famous story of the torture to which he is said to have been subjected. As it has held its ground, although only sporadically, even up to the most recent times,[430] it seems incumbent on us to go more deeply into this disputed question.
Curiously enough, it is towards the end of the eighteenth century that we find the first traces of this falsehood, and from the fact that three savans, Frisi,[431] Brenna,[432] and Targioni,[433] who wrote lives of Galileo at that time, raised a protest against it. Although they were not then able, as we are now, to base their arguments upon the Acts of the trial, they had even then authentic materials in their hands—the despatches between Niccolini and Cioli,[434] then recently published by Fabroni—which rendered it utterly improbable that the old man had been placed upon the rack. These materials were thoroughly turned to account eighty years later by T. B. Biot, in his essay, “La verité sur le procès de Galilei.”[435] He clearly showed from the reports of the ambassador that Galileo had neither suffered torture during his first stay in the buildings of the Holy Office, from 12-30th April, when he daily wrote to Niccolini,[436] and was in better health when he returned to the embassy than when he left it;[437] nor during the three days of his second detention, from 21-24th June, at the end of which he was conducted by Niccolini, on the evening of the 24th, to the Villa Medici.[438] On 6th July he set out thence, “in very good health,” for Siena, and in spite of his advanced age performed four miles on foot for his own pleasure,[439] which an infirm old man of seventy, if he had suffered torture a fortnight before, would surely not have been able to do.
But all these plain indications go for nothing with some historians, whose judgment is warped by partisanship, and who are not willing to give up the notion that Galileo did suffer the pangs of torture. And so we find this myth, at first mentioned by a few authors as a mere unauthentic report, assuming a more and more distinct form, until it is brought forward, with acute and learned arguments, as, to say the least, very probable, by Libri, Brewster, Parchappe, Eckert, and others.
These writers base their assertion on the following passage in the sentence:—
“And whereas it appeared to us that you had not stated the full truth with regard to your intention, we thought it necessary to subject you to a rigorous examination (examen rigorosum), at which (without prejudice however, to the matters confessed by you, and set forth as above with regard to your said intention) you answered like a good Catholic.”