Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia / From Authentic Sources

by Karl von Gebler

A passage in a letter from Galileo to Geri Bocchineri at Florence, of 27th April, shows that the excuse was no empty pretext, and that he urgently needed to have medical aid always at hand. He says:—

“I am going to write to you about my health, which is very bad. I suffer much more from the rupture than has been the case before; my pulse intermits, and I have often violent palpitation of the heart; then the most profound melancholy has come over me. I have no appetite, and loathe myself; in short, I feel myself perpetually called by my beloved daughter. Under these circumstances I do not think it advisable that Vincenzo should set out on a journey now, as events might occur at any time which might make his presence desirable, for besides what I have mentioned, continued sleeplessness alarms me not a little.”[488]

A letter to Diodati at Paris, from Galileo, of 25th July, is also of great interest; an insight may be gained from it, not only into his melancholy state of mind, but it also contains some remarkable indications of the motives for the fierce persecution on the part of Rome. We give the portions of the letter which are important for our subject:—

“I hope that when you hear of my past and present misfortunes, and my anxiety about those perhaps still to come, it will serve as an excuse to you and my other friends and patrons there (at Paris), for my long delay in answering your letter, and to them for my entire silence, as they can learn from you the unhappy turn which my affairs have taken. According to the sentence pronounced on me by the Holy Office, I was condemned to imprisonment during the pleasure of his Holiness, who was pleased, however, to assign the palace and gardens of the Grand Duke near the Trinità dei Monti, as my place of imprisonment. As this was in June of last year, and I had been given to understand that if I asked for a full pardon after the lapse of that and the following month, I should receive it, I asked meanwhile, to avoid having to spend the whole summer and perhaps part of the autumn there, to be allowed, on account of the season, to go to Siena, where the Archbishop’s house was assigned to me as a residence. I staid there five months, when this durance was exchanged for banishment to this little villa, a miglio from Florence, with a strict injunction not to go to the city, and neither to receive the visits of many friends at once, nor to invite any. Here, then, I was living, keeping perfectly quiet, and paying frequent visits to a neighbouring convent, where two daughters of mine were living as nuns; I was very fond of them, especially of the eldest, who possessed high mental gifts, combined with rare goodness of heart, and she was very much attached to me. During my absence, which she considered very perilous for me, she fell into a profound melancholy, which undermined her health, and she was at last attacked by a violent dysentery, of which she died after six days’ illness, just thirty-three years of age, leaving me in the deepest grief, which was increased by another calamity. On returning home from the convent, in company with the doctor who visited my sick daughter shortly before her death, and who had just told me that her situation was desperate, and that she would scarcely survive till the next day, as indeed it proved, I found the Inquisitor’s Vicar here, who informed me of a mandate from the Holy Office at Rome, which had just been communicated to the Inquisitor in a letter from Cardinal Barberini, that I must in future abstain from asking permission to return to Florence, or they would take me back there (to Rome), and put me in the actual prison of the Holy Office. This was the answer to the petition, which the Tuscan ambassador had presented to that tribunal after I had been nine months in exile! From this answer it seems to me that, in all probability, my present prison will only be exchanged for that narrow and long-enduring one which awaits us all.

From this and other circumstances, which it would take too long to repeat here, it will be seen that the fury of my powerful persecutors continually increases. They have at length chosen to reveal themselves to me; for about two months ago, when a dear friend of mine at Rome was speaking of my affairs to Father Christopher Griemberger, mathematician at the college there, this Jesuit uttered the following precise words:—‘If Galileo had only known how to retain the favour of the fathers of this college, he would have stood in renown before the world, he would have been spared all his misfortunes, and could have written what he pleased about everything, even about the motion of the earth.’ From this you will see, honoured Sir, that it is not this opinion or that which has brought, and still brings about my calamities, but my being in disgrace with the Jesuits.

I have also other proofs of the watchfulness of my persecutors. One is that a letter from some foreigner, I do not know from whom, addressed to me at Rome, where he supposed me still to be, was intercepted, and delivered to Cardinal Barberini. It was fortunate for me, as was afterwards written to me from Rome, that it did not purport to be an answer to one from me, but a communication containing the warmest praises of my “Dialogues.” It was seen by many persons, and, as I hear, copies of it were circulated at Rome. I have also been told that I might see it. To add to all this, there are other mental disquietudes and many bodily sufferings oppressing me at the age of over seventy years, so that the least exertion is a torment and a burden to me. In consideration of all this, my friends must be indulgent to me for omissions which look like neglect, but really arise from inability.”[489]

This deep dejection, however, could not last long with a man of so active a mind as Galileo. The impulse which had been implanted in him to investigate the problems of nature was too strong to be repressed by either mental or bodily sufferings. So far from it, it was this which, ever re-asserting itself with its normal energy, helped him to bear them with resignation, and he often forgot his painful situation in his scientific speculations. Thus, but a few months after his daughter’s death, we find him rousing himself and eagerly at work again on his masterpiece, the “Dialoghi delle Nuove Scienze.”[490] He also resumed his extensive scientific correspondence, of which unfortunately, and especially of the following year, 1635, the letters of his correspondents only have mostly come down to us.[491]

While the prisoner of Arcetri was thus eagerly fulfilling his great mission to his age, his friends were exerting themselves in vain to obtain at least an extension of his liberty. The Count de Noailles, French ambassador at Rome, had once attended Galileo’s lectures at Padua, and had become so enthusiastic an adherent, that he afterwards told Castelli that he must see Galileo once more before leaving Italy, even if he walked fifty miles on purpose.[492] He therefore united his efforts with Niccolini’s to obtain some amelioration for Galileo. But in vain. At an audience which Niccolini had on 8th December, 1634, Urban said indeed that he esteemed Galileo very highly, and was well disposed towards him; but all remained as before.[493]

In the year 1634 the band of dauntless men, who again and again ventured to attempt to obtain Galileo’s liberty from the papal chair, was increased by the celebrated officer of state and man of learning, Fabri von Peiresc. Like Noailles, he had attended Galileo’s lectures at Padua,[494] had since been one of his most ardent admirers, and had long maintained friendly intercourse with Cardinal Francesco Barberini. Peiresc now interceded eagerly with this prelate for Galileo, and even ventured openly to say, in a long and pressing letter of 5th December, 1634, to Barberini:—[495] ... “Really such proceedings will be considered very harsh, and far more so by posterity than at present, when no one, as it appears, cares for anything but his own interests. Indeed, it will be a blot upon the brilliance and renown of the pontificate of Urban VIII., unless your Eminence resolves to devote your special attention to this affair....” On 2nd January, 1635, Barberini wrote a long letter in reply,[496] in which he was prolix enough on many subjects, but about Galileo he only made the dry remark, towards the end of the letter, that he would not fail to speak to his Holiness about it, but Peiresc must excuse him if, as a member of the Holy Office, he did not go into the subject more particularly. In spite of this, however, only four weeks later, Peiresc again urged Barberini, in a letter of 31st January,[497] to exert his powerful influence on behalf of Galileo. Peiresc justified his zeal by saying, “that it arose as much from regard for the honour and good name of the present pontificate, as from affection for the venerable and famous old man, Galileo; for it might well happen, by a continuance of the harsh proceedings against him, that some day posterity would compare them with the persecutions to which Socrates was subjected.”[498]