Rome, 2nd July, 1633.
Again it is worthy of note, that even in this letter it was deemed necessary to lay special stress on the circumstance that Galileo had acted contrary to a special prohibition issued several years before. But then, to be sure, this formed the only legal ground for the proceedings against him.
From a letter from Guiducci to Galileo from Florence of 27th August,[471] we learn the manner in which the publication had taken place there, on the 12th. Both the documents were read aloud in a large assembly of counsellors of the Holy Office, canons and other priests, professors of mathematics and friends of Galileo, such as Pandolfini, Aggiunti, Rinuccini, Peri, and others, who had been invited to the ceremony. This proceeding was followed in all the more important cities of Italy, as well as in the larger ones of Catholic Europe. It is characteristic of the great split which existed in the scientific world about the Copernican system, that Professor Kellison, Rector of the University of Douai, wrote in reply to a letter of the Nuncio at Brussels, who had sent the sentence and recantation of Galileo to that academy: “The professors of our university are so opposed to that fanatical opinion (phanaticæ opinioni), that they have always held that it must be banished from the schools.... In our English college at Douai this paradox has never been approved, and never will be.”[472]
The Roman curia, however, did not confine itself to trying to frighten all good Catholics from accepting the Copernican doctrine by as wide a circulation as possible of the sentence against Galileo; but in order to suppress it altogether as far as might be, especially in Italy, all the Italian Inquisitors received orders neither to permit the publication of a new edition of any of Galileo’s works, nor of any new work.[473] On the other hand, the Aristotelians, who had been very active since the trial, were encouraged to confute the illustrious dead, Copernicus and Kepler, and the now silenced Galileo, with tongue and pen. Thus in the succeeding decades the book market was flooded with refutations of the Copernican system.[474]
In fighting truth with falsehood very curious demonstrations were sure now and then to come to light on the part of the adherents of the wisdom of the ancients. We will here only mention a book dedicated to Cardinal Barberini, which appeared in 1633: “Difesa di Scipione Chiaramonti da Cesena al suo Antiticone, e libro delle tre nuove stelle, dall’ opposizioni dell’Autore de’ due massimi sistemi Tolemaico e Copernicano,” in which such sagacious arguments as the following are adduced against the doctrine of the double motion of the earth:—
“Animals, which move, have limbs and muscles; the earth has no limbs or muscles, therefore it does not move.
“It is angels who make Saturn, Jupiter, the Sun, etc., turn round. If the earth revolves, it must also have an angel in the centre to set it in motion; but only devils live there, it would therefore be a devil who would impart motion to the earth.
“The planets, the sun, the fixed stars, all belong to one species; namely, that of stars—they therefore all move or all stand still.