or the Procès Verbal, still exists in all its original integrity. The history of these documents is singular. The archives of the Inquisition at Rome were carried off to Paris at some time during the reign of Napoleon. Lord Brougham says in 1809. M. Biot (who cites M. Delaborde, Directeur des Archives Françaises) says in 1811. A French translation of the Galileo trial, begun by order of Napoleon, was completed down to April 30th, 1633. Just before the Hundred Days, Louis XVIII. desired to see the documents, and all the papers connected with the trial were brought to his apartments. His hasty flight from Paris soon followed, and the MSS. were forgotten and lost sight of. When the plundered archives were returned to Rome, it was found that the Galileo trial was not among them. Reclamation was made, and it was not until 1846 that Louis Philippe had the documents returned by M. Rossi. They are now in the Vatican.
In this connection, it is an interesting fact to note that seventy folio volumes of the archives of the Inquisition are now in the library of the University of Dublin. The archives at Rome were plundered a second time in 1849, whether by Garibaldians or French is not known. The plunder was brought to Paris by a French officer, and there, in 1850, sold to the late Duke of Manchester, who sold them to the Rev. Mr. Gibbings, a Protestant clergyman of the Irish Establishment. Mr. Gibbings again sold them to the late Dr. Wall, vice-provost of the university, aided by Dr. Singer, Bishop of Meath, who presented them to the library of Trinity College, Dublin.
We return to the Galileo record. In 1850, Signor Marino-Marini, Prefect of the Vatican Archives, published Galileo e l'Inquizitione. This Signor Marini is the same who is so highly spoken of by William von Humboldt. (See Schlesier's Lives of the Humboldts.) His work originally appeared in the form of a discourse addressed to the Archaeological Academy of Rome.
Looked for with anxiety, the book was received with some disappointment. Instead of the text, and the entire text of the trial, Signor Marini gave extracts and fragments, stating at the same time that the French, who had these documents in their possession so many years, had not dared to publish them, because they were disappointed at not finding in them what they sought for.
To this it was objected—and the point was well taken—"Why, then, did not you publish the whole?" The truth is, the choice of Signor Marini for the task was unfortunate. An excellent scholar and accomplished man, he was yet too timid or too narrow-minded for it, and undertook the function of an advocate rather than the far more important one of a historian.
He shrank from the publicity of such passages as, "Devenietur contra ipsum ad remedia juris et facti opportuna," "Alias devenietur ad torturam," as though we were not aware of the universality of the use of torture in all the criminal procedure of all Europe, and that the Inquisition took it not from ecclesiastical, but from the secular tribunals of the day; as though we did not only deplore, but openly reprobate, the fact, and as though we did not hold the Inquisition responsible for the odium it has entailed on the Catholic Church, very much, we presume, as any right-minded Protestant holds star-chambers and Elizabethan tortures responsible for burdens they find hard to bear.
A distinguished French writer, M. Henri de l'Epinois, expressed his regret to the present prefect of the Vatican Archives as to the unsatisfactory manner in which Sig. Marini had presented the Galileo record, whereupon the Rev. Father Theiner immediately offered to place all the documents at his disposition for any examination or publication he might wish to make. The result is M. L'Epinois's work, Galilée, son Procès, sa Condamnation, d'après des Documens Inédits, in which are given all the original passages omitted by Marini.
The record of the trial covers two hundred and twenty pages, and includes, besides the interrogatories and replies of Galileo and of several witnesses, sixty-three letters, orders, opinions, depositions, etc., besides the various decrees and Galileo's defence and abjuration.
The interrogatories are all in Latin, the answers in Italian.
Thus, for example, where Galileo is examined as to the publication of his Dialogues, the record runs: