Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia / From Authentic Sources

by Karl von Gebler

The starry Galileo, with his woes;

Here Machiavelli’s earth returned to whence it rose.”[605]

On 12th March, 1737, Galileo’s remains were removed, in presence of all the professors of the University of Florence, and many of the learned men of Italy, with great solemnity and ecclesiastical pomp, from their modest resting-place to the new mausoleum in a more worthy place in the Church of Santa Croce itself, and united with those of his last pupil, Viviani.[606]

It had long been perceived at Rome that, in spite of every effort, it was vain to try to bury the Copernican system with Galileo in the grave. It could no longer greatly concern the Roman curia that Galileo’s memory was held in high honour, when the cause for which he suffered had decidedly gained the victory. It was by a singular freak of nature that in the very same year which closed the career of this great observer of her laws, another who was to complete the work begun by Copernicus and carried on by Galileo, entered upon his. He it is, as we all know, who gave to science those eternal forms now recognised as firmly established, and whose genius, by the discovery of the law of gravitation, crowned the edifice of which Copernicus laid the foundations and which Galileo upreared. During the lifetime of the latter, and the period immediately succeeding his death, the truth of the system of the earth’s double motion was recognised by numerous learned men; and in 1696, when Newton published his immortal work, “Philosophiæ naturalis principia Mathematica,” it became thoroughly established. All the scientific world who pursued the paths of free investigation accepted the Copernican system, and only a few ossified devotees of the old school, in common with some theological philosophers, still raised impotent objections to it, which have been continued even up to this day by some wrong-headed people.[607]

At Rome they only accommodated themselves to the new system slowly and reluctantly. In 1757, when it was no longer doubted by any one but a few fanatics, the Congregation of the Index thought the time was come for proposing to Pope Benedict XIV. to expunge the clause from the decree of 5th March, 1616, prohibiting all books which teach that the sun is stationary and the earth revolves. This enlightened pontiff, known as a patron of the arts and sciences, entirely agreed, and signified his consent on 11th May, 1757.[608] But there still remained on the Index the work of Copernicus, “De Revolutionibus Orbium Cœlestium,” Diego di Zuñiga’s “Commentary on the Book of Job” (these two works, however, only “donec corrigantur,” but this was quite worthless for strict Catholics as far as the work of Copernicus was concerned, as since the announcement of these “corrections” by the decree of 15th May, 1620, no new edition had appeared), Foscarini’s “Léttera sópra l’opinione de i Pittagorici e del Copernico della mobilità della Terra et stabilità del Sole, e il nuove Pittagorico Sistéma del Mondo,” Kepler’s “Epitome astronomiæ Copernicæ,” and finally, Galileo’s “Dialogo sopra i due Massimi Sistémi del Mondo.” This last work had indeed been allowed to appear in the edition of Galileo’s collected works,[609] undertaken at Padua in 1744, which had received the prescribed ecclesiastical permission; but the editor, the Abbot Toaldo, had been obliged expressly to state in an introduction that the theory of the double motion can and must be regarded only as a mathematical hypothesis, to facilitate the explanation of certain natural phenomena. Besides this, the “Dialogues on the Two Principal Systems” had to be preceded by the sentence on and recantation of Galileo, as well as by an Essay “On the System of the Universe of the Ancient Hebrews,” by Calmet, in which the passages of Scripture bearing on the order of the world were interpreted in the traditional Catholic fashion.[610]

The celebrated French astronomer Lalande, as he himself relates,[611] tried in vain when at Rome, in 1765, to get Galileo’s works expunged from the Index. The Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of the Index objected that there was a sentence of the Congregation of the Holy Office in existence which must first be cancelled, but this was not done, and all remained as before; and even in the edition of the Index of 1819, strange to say, the five works mentioned above were to be found as repudiated by the Roman curia!

It then happened in the following year, 1820, that Canon Joseph Settele, professor of optics and astronomy at the Archive-gymnasium at Rome, wrote a lesson book, “Elementi d’astronomia,” in which the Copernican system, in accordance with the results of science, was treated ex professo. The Master of the Palace, Philip Anfossi, to whom in his capacity of chief censor of the press the book was submitted, demanded under appeal to the decree of 5th March, 1616, still in force, that the doctrine of the double motion should be only treated hypothetically, and refused the imprimatur until the MS. had been altered. Canon Settele, however, was not disposed to make himself ridiculous in face of the whole scientific world by compliance with these antiquated conditions, and appealed to Pope Pius VII., who referred the matter to the Congregation of the Holy Office. Here at last some regard was had to the times, and in the sitting of 16th August, 1820, it was decided that Settele might treat the Copernican system as established, which was approved by Pius VII. without hesitation. Father Anfossi could not, after this decision, prevent the work from publication as it was, but he resolutely pointed out the contradiction between this permission and the decree of 5th March, 1616, and published a treatise entitled: “Can any one who has made the Tridentine Confession, defend and teach as a thesis, and as an absolute truth and not a mere hypothesis, that the earth revolves and the sun is stationary?”[612] This gave rise to discussions in the College of Cardinals of the Holy Inquisition as to the attitude to be adopted by ecclesiastical authority towards the Copernican system, which had been universally adopted for more than a century. In the sitting of 11th September, 1822, they finally agreed, with express reference to the decree of the Index Congregation of 10th May, 1757, and 16th August, 1820, “that the printing and publication of works treating of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun, in accordance with the general opinion of modern astronomers is permitted at Rome.”[613] This decree was ratified by Pius VII. on 25th September.

But full thirteen years more went by until, in 1835, when the new edition of the catalogue of prohibited books appeared, the five works in which the theory of the double motion was maintained and defended were expunged from the list.

It was not until 1835, therefore, that the last trace was effaced of the memorable warfare so long and resolutely waged by ecclesiastical power against the superior insight of science. If it is denied to history to surround the head of Galileo, the greatest advocate of the new system, with the halo of the martyr, ready to die for his cause, posterity will ever regard with admiration and gratitude the figure of the man, who, though he did not heroically defend the truth, was, by virtue of his genius, one of her first pioneers, and had to bear for her sake an accumulation of untold suffering.