To complete the chronological statement of events, it is only necessary to add that on the 6th of July Galileo left Rome for Sienna, where he remained with Archbishop Piccolomini, one of his most intimate friends, until the month of December. He then returned to his own home at Arcetri, near Florence.
It was here he received the oft-described and well-known visit of Milton, then in the prime of youth. In 1638, he transferred his residence to Florence, where he occupied himself with scientific pursuits, his negotiation with Holland for the use of his discovery concerning the longitude, the publication of his book Dialoghi delle Nuove Scienze at Leyden, (1638,) correspondence with scientific men, and visits from his friends.
He died on the 8th of January, 1642, in the seventy-eighth year of his age.
"The noblest eye," wrote his friend Father Castelli, announcing his death, "which nature ever made, is darkened; an eye so privileged and gifted with such rare powers that it may truly be said to have seen more than the eyes of all that are gone, and to have opened the eyes of all that are to come."
We now pass to the consideration of the exact condition of
The Scientific Question
as it existed in 1633, leaving, of course, aside all discussion of its theological or scriptural connection.
Without going back so far as Pythagoras, the new system in 1633 was not original with Galileo, nor even with Copernicus, who is said to have received the germ of his new doctrine at Bologna from the hypothesis of Dominicus Maria on the variability of the axis of the earth; and it would be most interesting, did space allow, to review the intellectual struggles of the predecessors (ad astra) of the Polish priest with a theory they felt to be true, but were powerless to demonstrate even to themselves.
Among these men were: