It is painful to see a man's convictions so lightly held. Why, all this voluntary proffer is more than was imposed on Galileo by the decree of 1616, and no more than assumed by the decree of 1633, not yet pronounced!
Alas, poor Galileo! Of such stuff martyrs never yet were made.
It seems strange that this phase and these incidents of the trial should never have been commented upon, as showing the scientific question to be entirely secondary in the estimation of the Congregation.
Had that question been the only point or the important point, this voluntary retraction, confession of judgment, plea of guilty, offer of reparation, and self-imposed sentence on the part of Galileo should have been more than sufficient to end the case, and leave naught for the tribunal to do but to put the self-imposed sentence in legal form.
But not so. As Galileo well knew, he might have gone on to the end of his life teaching, in peace and honor, the astronomy taught by Copernicus and others for the previous century. Copernicanism was not his crime, and therefore his retraction, as made, could not reach his criminal infraction of the decree of 1616, and of his own solemn pledges, nor could it modify the accusation of deception in the matter of the license to print his Dialogues, and the improper means taken to obtain that license.
The Trial Goes On.
On the same day Galileo made his voluntary retraction, he was permitted to return to the palace of the Tuscan ambassador.
On the 10th of May, he was notified that a further delay of eight days would be allowed him for the preparation of a defence, when he immediately presented it already prepared, in a written statement of two pages, accompanied by the Bellarmine certificate of 1616.
Meanwhile, the Congregation deliberated; and such was the friendly feeling in Rome toward Galileo that, as late as the 21st of May, Cardinal Capponi thought he would be acquitted.
Giuducci asserted it positively, and Archbishop Piccolomini made preparations to take Galileo with him to Sienna as his guest.