GALILEO GALILEI.

2 vols. Demy 8vo. Cloth, 32s.

THE RENAISSANCE OF ART IN FRANCE. By Mrs. Mark Pattison. With Nineteen Steel Engravings.

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THE CIVILIZATION OF THE PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY. By Jacob Burckhardt. Authorized Translation by S. G. C. Middlemore.

“The whole of the first part of Dr Burckhardt’s work deals with what may be called the Political Preparation for the Renaissance. It is impossible here to do more than express a high opinion of the compact way in which the facts are put before the reader.... The second volume of Dr. Burckhardt’s work is, we think, more full and complete in itself, more rich in original thought, than the first. His account of the causes which prevented the rise of a great Italian drama is very clear and satisfying.”—Saturday Review.

LONDON: C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE.

GALILEO GALILEI
AND THE ROMAN CURIA.

FROM AUTHENTIC SOURCES.

BY
KARL VON GEBLER.

TRANSLATED, WITH THE SANCTION OF THE AUTHOR, BY
MRS. GEORGE STURGE.

LONDON:
C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
1879.

LETTER TO THE TRANSLATOR.

Madam,—

It is the desire of every author, every prosecutor of research, that the products of his labours, the results of his studies, should be widely circulated. This desire arises, especially in the case of one who has devoted himself to research, not only from a certain egotism which clings to us all, but from the wish that the laborious researches of years, often believed to refute old and generally-received errors, should become the common property of as many as possible.

The author of the present work is no exception to these general rules; and it therefore gives him great pleasure, and fills him with gratitude, that you, Madam, should have taken the trouble to translate the small results of his studies into the language of Newton, and thus have rendered them more accessible to the English nation.

But little more than two years have elapsed since the book first appeared in Germany, but this period has been a most important one for researches into the literature relating to Galileo.

In the year 1869 Professor Domenico Berti obtained permission to inspect and turn to account the Acts of Galileo’s Trial carefully preserved in the Vatican, and in 1876 he published a portion of these important documents, which essentially tended to complete the very partial publication of them by Henri de L’Epinois, in 1867. In 1877 M. de L’Epinois and the present writer were permitted to resuscitate the famous volume, which again lay buried among the secret papal archives; that is, to inspect it at leisure and to publish the contents in full. It was, however, not only of the greatest importance to become acquainted with the Vatican MS. as a whole, and by an exact publication of it to make it the common property of historical research; it was at least of equal moment to make a most careful examination of the material form and external appearance of the Acts. For the threefold system of paging had led some historians to make the boldest conjectures, and respecting one document in particular,—the famous note of 26th February, 1616,—there was an apparently well-founded suspicion that there had been a later falsification of the papers.

While, on the one hand, the knowledge gained of the entire contents of the Vatican MS., for the purpose of my own publication of it,[1] only confirmed, in many respects, my previous opinions on the memorable trial; on the other hand, a minute and repeated examination of the material evidence afforded by the suspicious document, which, up to that time, had been considered by myself and many other authors to be a forgery of a later date, convinced me, contrary to all expectation, that it indisputably originated in 1616.

This newly acquired experience, and the appearance of many valuable critical writings on the trial of Galileo since the year 1876, rendered therefore a partial revision and correction of the German edition of this work, for the English and an Italian translation, absolutely necessary. All the needful emendations have accordingly been made, with constant reference to the literature relating to the subject published between the spring of 1876 and the spring of 1878. I have also consulted several older works which had escaped my attention when the book was first written.

May the work then, in its to some extent new form, make its way in the British Isles, and meet with as friendly a reception there as the German edition has met with in Austria and Germany.

To you, Madam, I offer my warm thanks for the care with which you have executed the difficult and laborious task of translation.

Accept, Madam, the assurance of my sincere esteem.

KARL VON GEBLER.[2]

Meran, 1st April, 1878.

NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR.

The Vatican Manuscript alluded to in the foregoing letter, and constantly referred to in the text, was published by the author in the autumn of 1877, under the title of “Die Acten des Gallileischen Processes, nach der Vaticanischen Handschrift, von Karl von Gebler.” Cotta, Stuttgard. This, with some introductory chapters, was intended to supersede the Appendix to the original work, and to form a second volume, when a new German edition should be called for. It did not, however, appear to me that any purpose would be served by reprinting all the Latin and Italian documents of the Vatican MS. in this country, as students who wish to consult them can easily procure them as published in the original languages in Germany, and I hope for a wider circle of readers than that composed exclusively of students. I therefore proposed to Herr von Gebler to give the History, Description, and Estimate of the Vat. MS., etc., in an Appendix, together with a few of the more important documents; to this, with some suggestions, as for instance, that some of the shorter documents should be given as notes to the text, he fully agreed, with the remark that I must know best what would suit my countrymen. The Appendix, therefore, differs somewhat both from the original Appendix and from the introductory portions of the new volume, for these also were revised for the Translation.

The translations from Latin and Italian documents have been made from the originals by a competent scholar, and all the more important letters and extracts from letters of Galileo have been compared with the Italian. The Table of Contents, headings to and titles of the chapters, and Index, none of which exist in the original, have been added by myself.

JANE STURGE.

Sydenham, November, 1878.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR.

Abridged from the “Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung” of 6th December, 1878.

The author of this work died at Gratz on the 7th of September, 1878. In devoting a few lines to his memory we have not a long and distinguished career to describe, for a brief span of life was all that was granted him, but to the last moment he sought to turn it to the best account.

The present work has enjoyed a wide circulation in Germany, but few of its readers could have known anything of the author but his name. The protracted studies which form the basis of it, the skilful handling of documentary material which seemed to betray the practised historian, must have suggested a man of ripe years, whose life had been passed in study, as the author; no one certainly would have sought him among the young officers of a cavalry regiment, whose tastes generally lie in any direction rather than that of historical research.

Karl von Gebler was the son of Field-marshal Wilhelm von Gebler, and was born at Vienna in 1850. Although early destined for the military career, he laid the foundations of a superior education in the grammar schools. Having passed through the gymnasium, in 1869 he joined the 7th regiment of the line as a private, and before long attained the rank of lieutenant in the 4th regiment of Dragoons. Being an excellent draftsman and skilled in military surveying, he was often employed on the general’s staff in drawing maps. In addition to his extensive knowledge of military affairs, he had many of the accomplishments befitting his calling; he was an excellent shot and a bold rider. But the duties of a cavalry officer were soon too limited for his active mind and intellectual tastes, and he sought also to win his spurs on the fields of literature. He occupied his leisure in translating the work of a French staff officer, “Success in War,” to which he made some additions. He also published “The True Portrait of a Royal Hero of the 18th Century,” in a newspaper; and finally, “Historic Sayings.”

A night ride, undertaken in the performance of his official duties, from which he returned at daybreak to exercise at the riding school, brought on severe hemorrhage and inflammation of the lungs. The two physicians who attended him gave him up; in a consultation at his bedside, prudently held in Latin, they gave him twenty-four hours to live. One of them having taken leave, the other returned to the patient, who, with quiet humour, greeted him with the classic words, “Morituri te salutant!” The worthy doctor found, to his horror, that the patient had understood all that had passed, and had no easy task to persuade him that his case was not so bad after all. He had, however, in consequence of some local circumstances, already ordered the coffin.

Gebler’s constitution surmounted the danger; by the spring he was able to join his parents at Gratz. But his health had sustained so severe a shock that he was compelled to abandon the military career. His parents removed to Gries, near Botzen, for the sake of a milder climate on his account. Here he revived wonderfully; he seemed to have taken a new lease of life, and devoted himself altogether to literary pursuits. The critical studies before mentioned of the assumed historic sayings of great men, and among them of Galileo’s famous dictum, “E pur si muove,” brought him into closer acquaintance with this hero of science. He accumulated so large a material for a biographical sketch of the great Italian, that the limits of an essay seemed too narrow, and he resolved to undertake a more comprehensive work on the subject, which he thought would fill up a gap in German literature. In the autumn of 1875 the work, which had occupied him four years, was completed. It was not a little gratifying to the young author that one of the first publishers in Germany, Cotta, of Stuttgard, undertook the publication on very favourable terms, and brought it out in 1876. It met with great approval, and brought him into association with many eminent literary men in Italy and Germany. Galileo’s own country was foremost in recognition of his services. The academies of Padua and Pisa, and the Accadémia dei Lincei sent him special acknowledgments, and King Victor Emmanuel rewarded him with the order of the Crown of Italy.

Before this work was finished he had removed with his father, having in the meanwhile lost his mother, to Meran, and during the first year of his residence there his health improved so much that he was able to take part in social life, and to enlarge the sphere of his labours and influence. Society in this little town owed much in many ways to the intellectual and amiable young officer. Whenever a good and noble cause required support, his co-operation might be reckoned on. In common with many other lovers of art and antiquity, he took a lively interest in the preservation and restoration of the Maultasch-Burg, which promises to be one of the chief sights of Meran. Unhappily he did not live to see the completion of the work.

With increase of health his zest for work increased also, and he addressed himself to a great historical task. The subject he selected was the Maid of Orleans. The preliminary studies were difficult in a place destitute of all aids to learning. His researches were not confined to the collection of all the printed material; in 1876 he had planned to search out the documentary sources wherever they were to be found, but before this he made close studies in the field of psychology and mental pathology. The work of Ruf on the subject, the learned chaplain of a lunatic asylum, attracted his attention, and he entered into communication with the author. Ruf’s great experience and philosophical acquirements were of great service to Gebler in his preliminary studies on Joan of Arc. But the project was not to be carried out. Just as he was about to write the second chapter, an essay of Berti’s at Rome occasioned him to enter on fresh studies on Galileo.

Domenico Berti, who had examined the original Acts of Galileo’s trial, though, as his work shows, very superficially, spoke contemptuously of the German savans, comparing them with blind men judging of colours, as none of them had seen the original Acts in the Vatican. This had special reference to the document of 26th February, 1616, which the German writers on the subject, and Gebler among them, declared to be a forgery. Being a man of the strictest love of truth, this reproach induced him, in spite of his health, which had again failed, in May, 1877, to go to Rome, where he obtained access to the Vatican. For ten weeks, in spite of the oppressive heat, he daily spent fourteen hours in the Papal Archives, studying and copying with diplomatic precision the original Acts of Galileo’s trial. As the result of his labours, he felt constrained to declare the document in question to be genuine. Actuated only by the desire that truth should prevail, in the second part of his work, written at Rome, he without hesitation withdrew the opinion he had previously advocated as an error.

His first work had made a flattering commotion in the literary world, but the additional publication called forth a still more animated discussion of the whole question, which the readers of this journal will not have forgotten. Gebler took part in it himself, and, then suffering from illness, wrote his reply from a sick bed.

His sojourn in Rome had sadly pulled him down. On his return home, in July, 1877, he had lost his voice and was greatly reduced. But in October of the same year he once more roused himself for a journey to Italy. The object of the previous one was to follow his hero in yellow and faded historic papers, but this time the task he had set himself was to pursue the tracks of Galileo in all the cities and places in any way connected with his memory. The result of these travels was an article in the Deutsche Rundschau, No. 7, 1878, “On the Tracks of Galileo.” In this paper Gebler again dispels some clouds in which Galileo’s previous biographers had enveloped him. We in these less romantic days are quite willing to dispense with the shudder at the stories of the dungeon, etc., and are glad to know that Galileo was permitted to enjoy a degree of comfort during his detention not often granted to those who come into collision with the world.

“On the Tracks of Galileo” was Gebler’s last literary work. His strength of will and mental powers at length succumbed to his incurable malady. The mineral waters of Gleichenberg, which he had been recommended to try, did him more harm than good. He wrote thence to a friend, “I am in a pitiable condition, and have given up all hope of improvement.” Unfortunately he was right. He had overtasked his strength. His zeal for science had hastened his end, and he may well be called one of her victims.

His last days were spent at Gratz, where his boyhood had been passed, and he rests beside his only brother. Both were the pride and joy of their father, now left alone.

In appearance Karl von Gebler was distinguished and attractive looking. No one could escape the charm of the freshness and originality of his mind, in spite of constant ill health. The refined young student, with the manners of a man of the world, was a phenomenon to his fellow-workers in the learned world. We have heard some of them say that they could not understand how Gebler could have acquired the historian’s craft, the technical art of prosecuting research, without having had any special critical schooling.

The writer of these lines will never forget the hours spent with this amiable and, in spite of his success, truly modest young man in his snug study. The walls lined with books, or adorned with weapons, betrayed at a glance the character and tastes of the occupant, while a pendulum clock dating from the time of Galileo recalled his work on the first observer of the vibrations of the pendulum to mind. He always liked to wind up the venerable timepiece himself, and took a pleasure in its sonorous tones. When I once more entered the study after his death, the clock had run down, the pendulum had ceased to vibrate, it told the hour no more.

PREFACE TO THE GERMAN EDITION.

While Italy and France possess an ample literature relating to Galileo, his oft-discussed fate and memorable achievements, very little has been written in Germany on this hero of science; and it would almost seem as if Copernicus and Kepler had cast the founder of mechanical physics into the shade. German literature does not possess one exhaustive work on Galileo. This is a great want, and to supply it would be a magnificent and thankworthy enterprise. It could only, however, be carried out by a comprehensive biography of the famous astronomer, which, together with a complete narrative of his life, should comprise a detailed description and estimate of his writings, inventions, and discoveries. We do not feel ourselves either called upon or competent to undertake so difficult a task. Our desire has been merely to fill up a portion of the gap in German literature by this contribution to the Life of Galileo, with a hope that it may be an incentive to some man of learning, whose studies qualify him for the task, to give our nation a complete description of the life and works of this great pioneer of the ideas of Copernicus.

We have also set ourselves another task; namely, to throw as much light as possible, by means of authentic documents, on the attitude Galileo assumed towards the Roman curia, and the history of the persecutions which resulted from it. To this end, however, it appeared absolutely necessary to give, at any rate in broad outline, a sketch of his aims and achievements as a whole. For his conflict with the ecclesiastical power was but the inevitable consequence of his subversive telescopic discoveries and scientific reforms. It was necessary to make the intimate connection between these causes and their historical results perfectly intelligible.

In the narration of historical events we have relied, as far as possible, upon authentic sources only. Among these are the following:—

1. Galileo’s correspondence, and the correspondence relating to him between third persons. (Albèri’s “Opere di Galileo Galilei.” Vols. ii., iii., vi., vii., viii., ix., x., xv., and Suppl., in all 1,564 letters.)

2. The constant reports of Niccolini, the Tuscan ambassador at Rome, to his Government at Florence, during and after Galileo’s trial. (Thirty-one despatches, from August 15th, 1632, to December 3rd, 1633.)

3. The Acts of the Trial, from the MS. originals in the Vatican.

4. The collection of documents published, in 1870, by Professor Silvestro Gherardi. Thirty-two extracts from the original protocols of the sittings and decrees of the Congregation of the Holy Office.[3]

5. Some important documents published by the Jesuit Father Riccioli, in his “Almagestum novum, Bononiæ, 1651.”[4]

We have also been careful to acquaint ourselves with the numerous French and Italian Lives of Galileo, from the oldest, that of his contemporary, Gherardini, to the most recent and complete, that of Henri Martin, 1869; when admissible, we have cautiously used them, constantly comparing them with authentic sources. As the part of the story of Galileo of which we have treated is that which has been most frequently discussed in literature, and from the most widely differing points of view, it could not fail to be of great interest to us to collect and examine, as far as it lay in our power, the views, opinions, and criticisms to be found in various treatises on the subject. We offer our warm thanks to all the possessors of private, and custodians of public libraries, who have most liberally and obligingly aided us in our project.

One more remark remains to be made. Party interests and passions have, to a great extent, and with but few exceptions, guided the pens of those who have written on this chapter of Galileo’s life. The one side has lauded him as an admirable martyr of science, and ascribed more cruelty to the Inquisition than it really inflicted on him; the other has thought proper to enter the lists as defender of the Inquisition, and to wash it white at Galileo’s expense. Historical truth contradicts both.

Whatever may be the judgment passed on the present work, to one acknowledgment we think we may, with a good conscience, lay claim: that, standing in the service of truth alone, we have anxiously endeavoured to pursue none other than her sublime interests.

KARL VON GEBLER.

Meran, November, 1875.

CONTENTS.

WORKS CONSULTED.[5]

Albèri (Eugenio): “Le opere di Galileo Galilei.” Prima edizione completa condotta sugli autentici manoscritti Palatini. Firenze, 1842-1856.

*“Sul Processo di Galileo. Due Lettere in risposta al giornale S’opinione.” Firenze, 1864.

Anonym: “Der heilige Stuhl gegen Galileo Galilei und das astronomische System des Copernicus.” Historisch-politische Blätter für das katholische Deutschland; herausgegeben von G. Phillips und G. Görres. Siebenter Band. München, 1841.

“Galileo Galilei. Sein Leben und seine Bedeutung für die Entwickelung der Naturwissenschaft.” Die Fortschritte der Naturwissenschaft in biographischen Bildern. Drittes Heft. Berlin, 1856.

“Galileo Galilei.” Die Grenzboten. XXIV. Jahrgang. I. Semester. Nr. 24. 1865.

*Arduini (Carlo): “La Primogenita di Galileo Galilei rivelata dalle sue lettere.” Florence, 1864.

Barbier (Antoine Alexandre): “Examen critique et complément des dictionnaires historiques les plus répandus.” Paris, 1820. Article Galilée.

*Berti (Prof. Domenico): “La venuta di Galileo Galilei a Padova. Studii. Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, dal Novembre 1870 all’ ottobre 1871.” Tomo decimosesto, seria terza, dispensa quinta, ottava, nono e decima. Venezia, 1870, 1871.

*“Copernico e le vicende del Sistema Copernicano in Italia nella seconda metà del secolo XVI. e nella prima del secolo XVII.” Roma, 1876.

“Il Processo originale di Galileo Galilei, pubblicato per la prima volta.” Roma, 1876.

“La Critica moderna e il Processo contro Galileo Galilei.” (Nuova Antologia, Gennajo, 1877 Firenze.)

Bouix (L’Abbé): “La condamnation de Galilée. Lapsus des écrivains, qui l’opposent à la doctrine de l’infaillibilité du Pape.”—Revue des Sciences ecclésiastiques. Arras-Paris, février et mars, 1866.

Cantor (Professor Dr. Moritz): “Galileo Galilei.” Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik. 9. Jahrgang. 3. Heft. Leipzig, 1864.

“Recensionen über die 1870 erschienenen Schriften Wohlwill’s und Gherardi’s über den Galilei’schen Process.” Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik. 16. Jahrgang. 1. Heft. 1871.

Caspar (Dr. R.): “Galileo Galilei. Zusammenstellung der Forschungen und Entdeckungen Galilei’s auf dem Gebiete der Naturwissenschaft, als Beitrag zur Geschichte der neueren Physik.” Stuttgart, 1854.

Chasles (Prof. Philarète): “Galileo Galilei, sa vie, son procès et ses contemporains d’après les documents originaux.” Paris, 1862.

*Combes (Louis): “Galilée et L’Inquisition Romaine.” Paris, 1876.

Delambre (Jean Baptiste Joseph): “Histoire de l’astronomie ancienne.” Paris, 1821.

Eckert (Professor Dr.): “Galileo Galilei, dessen Leben und Verdienste um die Wissenschaften.” Als Einladung zur Promotionsfeier des Pädagogiums. Basel, 1858.

Epinois (Henri de L’): “Galilée, son procès, sa condamnation d’après des documents inédits.” Extrait de la Revue des questions historiques. Paris, 1867.

*“Les Pièces du Procès de Galilée, précédées d’un avant-propos.” Rome, Paris, 1877 v. Palmé société Générale de Librairie Catholique.

*“La Question de Galilée, les faits et leurs conséquences.” Paris Palmé, 1878.

Figuier (Louis): “Galilée.” Vies des savants illustres du dix-septième siècle. Paris, 1869.

Friedlein (Rector): “Zum Inquisitionsprocess des Galileo Galilei.” Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik. 17. Jahrgang. 3. Heft. 1872.

Gherardi (Prof. Silvestro): “Il Processo Galileo riveduto sopra documenti di nuova fonte.” Rivista Europea. Anno 1. Vol. III. Firenze, 1870.[6]

“Sulla Dissertazione del dott. Emilio Wohlwill. Il processo di Galileo Galilei.” Estratto della Rivista Europea. Firenze, 1872.

*Gilbert (Prof. Ph.): “Le Procès de Galilée d’après les Documents contemporains.” Extrait de la Revue Catholique tomes I., II. Louvains, 1869.

Govi (Gilberto): “Intorno a certi manuscritti apocrifi di Galileo.” Torino, 1869. Estr. dagli Atti della Accadémia delle Scienze di Torino Vol. V. Adunanza del 21 Nov. 1869.

“Intorno a tre lettere di Galileo Galilei tratte dall’ archivio dei Gonzaga.” Bollettino di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche pubblicato da B. Boncompagni. Tomo III. Roma, 1870.

Govi (Gilberto): “Il S. Offizio, Copernico e Galileo a proposito di un opuscolo postumo del P. Olivieri sullo stesso argomento.” Torino, 1872.

*Grisar (Prof. H. S. J.): “Der Galilei’sche Process auf der neuesten Actenpublicationen historisch und juristisch geprüft.” Zeitschrift für Kath. Theol. II. Jahrgang, pp. 65-128. Innsbruck.

Jagemann: “Geschichte des Lebens und der Schriften des Galileo Galilei.” Neue Auflage. Leipzig, 1787.

Libri: “Galileo Galilei, sein Leben und seine Werke.” Aus dem Französischen mit Anmerkungen von F. W. Carové. Siegen und Wiesbaden, 1842.

Marini (Mgr. Marino): “Galileo e l’inquisizione.” Memorie storico-critiche. Roma, 1850.

Martin (Henri Th.): “Galilée, les droits de la science et la méthode des sciences physiques.” Paris, 1868.

Nelli (Gio. Batista Clemente de): “Vita e commercio letterario di Galileo Galilei.” Losanna (Firenze), 1793.

Olivieri (P. Maurizio-Benedetto Ex. generale dei domenicani e Commissario della S. Rom. ed Univer. Inquisizione): “Di Copernico e di Galileo scritto postumo ora per la prima volta messo in luce sull’ autografo per cura d’un religioso dello stesso istituto.” Bologna, 1872.

Parchappe (Dr. Max): “Galilée, sa vie, ses découvertes et ses travaux.” Paris, 1866.

*Pieralisi (Sante, Sacerdote e Bibliotecario della Barberiniana): “Urbano VIII. e Galileo Galilei: Memorie Storiche.” Roma, 1875. Tipografia poliglotta della L. P. di Propaganda Fide.

*“Correzioni al libro Urbano VIII. Galileo Galilei proposte dall’ autore Sante Pieralisi con osservazione sopra il processo originale di Galileo Galilei pubblicato da Domenico Berti.” Settembre, 1876.

Reitlinger (Prof. Edmund): “Galileo Galilei.” Freie Blicke. Populärwissenschaftliche Aufsätze. Berlin, 1875.

Reumont (Alfred von): “Galilei und Rom.” Beiträge zur italienischen Geschichte. 1 Bd. Berlin, 1853.

Reusch (Professor Dr. F. H.): “Der Galilei’sche Procesz.” Ein Vortrag. Historische Zeitschrift; herausgegeben von Prof. Heinrich von Sybel. 17. Jahrgang. 1875. 3. Heft.

Rezzi (M. Domenica): “Sulla invenzione del microscopio, giuntavi una notizia delle Considerazioni al Tasso attribuite a Galileo Galilei.” Roma, 1852.

*Riccardi (Prof. Cav. Pietro): “Di alcune recenti memorie sul processo e sulla condanna del Galilei. Nota e Documenti aggiunti alla bibliografia Galileiana.” Modena, 1873.

Riccioli (P. Jo. Bapt.): “Almagestum novum.” Bonioniae, 1651.

Rosini (M. Giovanni): “Per l’inaugurazione solenne della statua di Galileo.” Orazione. Pisa, 1839 (2 Oct).

Rossi (Prof. Giuseppe): “Del Metodo Galileiano.” Bologna, 1877.

*Scartazzini (Dr. T. A.): “Der Process des Galileo Galilei.” Unsere Zeit. Jahrgang 13. Heft 7 and 18.

*“Il processo di Galileo Galilei e la moderna critica tedesca.” Revista Europea, Vol. IV. Part V., Vol. V. Parts I and II., 1 and 16 Jan. 1878.

*Schneemann (P. S. J.): “Galileo Galilei und der Römische Stuhl.” Stimmen aus Maria Laach. Kath. Blättern. Nos. 2, 3, 4, Feb. Mar. April, 1878.

Snell (Dr. Carl): “Ueber Galilei als Begründer der mechanischen Physik und über die Methode derselben.” Jena, 1864.

Targioni Tozzetti: “Notizie degli aggrandimenti delle scienze fisiche in Toscana.” Firenze, 1780. (Contains in Vol. ii.: “Vita di Galileo scritta da Nic. Gherardini.”)

Venturi (Cav. Giambattista): “Memorie e lettere inedite finora o disperse di Galileo Galilei.” Modena, 1818-1821.

Viviani: “Raconto istorico della vita di Galileo Galilei.” (Enthalten im XV. Bande der Opere di Galileo Galilei. Prima edizione completa. Firenze, 1856.)

Vosen (Dr. Christian Hermann): “Galileo Galilei und die Römische Berurtheilung des Copernicanischen Systems.” Broschürenverein Nr. 5. Frankfurt am M. 1865.

Wohlwill (Dr. Emil): “Der Inquisitionsprocess des Galileo Galilei. Eine Prüfung seiner rechtlichen Grundlage nach den Acten der Römischen Inquisition.” Berlin, 1870.

*“Ist Galilei gefoltert worden? Eine kritische Studie.” Leipzig, 1877.

“Zum Inquisitionsprocesz des Galileo Galilei.” Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik. 17. Jahrgang. 2. Heft. 1872.

*Wolynski (Dott. Arturio): “Lettere inedite a Galileo Galilei.” Firenze, 1872.

*“Relazione di Galileo Galilei colla Polonia esposte secondo i documenti per la maggior parte non pubblicati.” Firenze, 1873.

“La Diplomazia Toscana e Galileo Galilei.” Firenze, 1874.

PART I.
GALILEO’S EARLY YEARS, HIS IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES, AND FIRST CONFLICT WITH THE ROMAN CURIA.

CHAPTER I.
EARLY YEARS AND FIRST DISCOVERIES.

Birth at Pisa.—Parentage.—His Father’s Writings on Music.—Galileo destined to be a Cloth Merchant.—Goes to the Convent of Vallombrosa.—Begins to study Medicine.—Goes to the University of Pisa.—Discovery of the Isochronism of the Pendulum.—Stolen Lessons in Mathematics.—His Hydrostatic Scales.—Professorship at Pisa.—Poor Pay.—The Laws of Motion.—John de’ Medici.—Leaves Pisa.—Professorship at Padua.—Writes various Treatises.—The Thermoscope.—Letter to Kepler.—The Copernican System.—“De Revolutionibus Orbium Cœlestium.”

The same memorable day is marked by the setting of one of the most brilliant stars in the firmament of art and the rising of another in the sphere of science, which was to enlighten the world with beams of equal splendour. On the 18th February, 1564, Michael Angelo Buonarotti closed his eyes at Rome, and Galileo Galilei first saw the light at Pisa.

He was the son of the Florentine nobleman, Vincenzo Galilei, and of Julia, one of the ancient family of the Ammanati of Pescia, and was born in wedlock, as the documents of the church clearly attest.[7] His earliest years were spent at Pisa, but his parents soon returned to Florence, which was their settled home. Here he received his early education. His father had distinguished himself by his writings on the theory of music, particularly the mathematical part of it.[8] They were not merely above mediocrity, but aimed at innovation, and if they did not achieve reform, it was to be attributed to the conservative spirit then reigning in Italy, which asserted itself in every department of life, and especially in the spheres of art and science.

Galileo’s father had no property. His income was but scanty, and the fates had endowed him with a numerous family instead of with fortune.[9] Under these untoward circumstances he at first destined the little Galileo, as is related by Gherardini, his earliest biographer, to a career by no means distinguished, though advantageous in a material point of view, and one that conferred much of their wealth on the Florentines, so that it was held in high esteem—he was to be a cloth dealer. But the young noble first received the education befitting his station, that is, a very mediocre teacher instructed him in the Humanities.[10] Fortunately for the clever young scholar, he was handed over to the pious brethren of the convent of Vallombrosa for further education. Here he at once made rapid progress. He acquired great facility in the classics. His thorough study of the masterpieces of antiquity was of the greatest advantage to him. He doubtless thereby laid the foundation of the admirable style to which he afterwards, in some measure, owed his brilliant successes.

Galileo had a great variety of talent. Besides ardent pursuit of the solid branches of learning, he had considerable skill in drawing and music, in which he afterwards attained so much perfection that his judgment was highly esteemed, even by great artists.[11] He played the lute himself with the skill of a master. He also highly appreciated poetry. His later essays on Dante, Orlando Furioso, and Gerusalemme Liberata, as well as the fragment of a play, bear witness to his lively interest in belles lettres. But from his earliest youth he showed the greatest preference for mechanics. He made little machines with an ingenuity and skill which evinced a really unusual talent for such things.[12]

With these abilities his father must soon have arrived at the conclusion that his son was born for something better than for distributing wool among the people, and resolved to devote him to science; only it was necessary that the branch of it to which he turned his attention should offer a prospect of profit. Medicine was decided on as the most likely to be lucrative, although it may not seem the one most suited to his abilities.

On 5th November, 1581, Galileo, then just seventeen, entered the University of Pisa.[13] Even here the young medical student’s independent ideas and aims made way for themselves. At that time any original ideas and philosophical views not derived from the dogmas of Aristotle were unheard of. All the theories of natural science and philosophy had hitherto been referred to theology. It had been held to be the Alpha and Omega of all human knowledge. But now the period was far advanced in which it was felt to be necessary to cast off the narrow garments fashioned by religion, though at first the will to do so exceeded the power. A stir and ferment agitated men’s minds. A period of storm and stress had begun for the study of nature and the philosophical speculation so closely connected with it. Men did not as yet possess energy and ability for direct advance, so they turned with real fanaticism to ancient learning, which, being independent, and not based on religious notions, afforded them satisfaction. Under these circumstances recurrence to the past was real progress.

Unconditional surrender to the ideas of others, entire adoption of opinions, some of which were not too well verified, might suit mediocrity, but it could not suffice for the powerful mind of Galileo, who was striving to find out the truth for himself. The genius of the young student rebelled fiercely against rigid adherence to an antiquated standpoint. To the horror of the followers of Aristotle, who were quite taken aback at such unheard-of audacity, he resolutely attacked in public disputations many oracular dicta of their great master hitherto unquestioned, and this even then made him many enemies, and acquired for him the epithet of “the Wrangler.”[14]

Two circumstances occur during Galileo’s student years, which, in their main features, are not without historical foundation, although in detail they bear an anecdotal impress. One, which is characteristic of Galileo’s observant eye, shows us the student of nineteen devoutly praying in the Cathedral at Pisa; but he seems to have soon wearied of this occupation, for he dreamily fixed his eye on the Maestro Possenti’s beautiful lamp, hanging from an arch, which, in order to light it more readily, had been moved out of its vertical position and then left to itself. The oscillations were at first considerable, became gradually less and less, but notwithstanding the varying distances, they were all performed in the same time, as the young medical student discovered to a nicety by feeling his pulse. The isochronism of the vibrations of the pendulum was discovered![15]

The other story refers to Galileo’s first mathematical studies. Gherardini relates that he was scarcely acquainted with the elements of mathematics up to his twentieth year, which, by the by, seems almost incredible. But while he was diligently studying medicine at Pisa, the court of Tuscany came there for some months. Among the suite was Ostilio Ricci, governor of the pages, a distinguished mathematician and an old friend of the Galilei family; Galileo, therefore, often visited him. One morning when he was there, Ricci was teaching the pages. Galileo stood shyly at the door of the schoolroom, listening attentively to the lesson; his interest grew greater and greater; he followed the demonstration of the mathematical propositions with bated breath. Strongly attracted by the science almost unknown to him before, as well as by Ricci’s method of instruction, he often returned, but always unobserved, and, Euclid in hand, drank deeply, from his uncomfortable concealment, of the streams of fresh knowledge. Mathematics also occupied the greater part of his time in the solitude of his study. But all this did not satisfy his thirst for knowledge. He longed to be himself taught by Ricci. At last he took courage, and, hesitatingly confessing his sins of curiosity to the astonished tutor, he besought him to unveil to him the further mysteries of mathematics, to which Ricci at once consented.

When Galileo’s father learnt that his son was devoting himself to Euclid at the expense of Hippocrates and Galen, he did his utmost to divert him from this new, and as it seemed to him, unprofitable study. The science of mathematics was not then held in much esteem, as it led to nothing practical. Its use, as applied to the laws of nature, had scarcely begun to be recognised. But the world-wide mission for which Galileo’s genius destined him had been too imperiously marked out by fate for him to be held back by the mere will of any man. Old Vincenzo had to learn the unconquerable power of genius in young Galileo, and to submit to it. The son pursued the studies marked out for him by nature more zealously than ever, and at length obtained leave from his father to bid adieu to medicine and to devote himself exclusively to mathematics and physics.[16]

The unexpected successes won by the young philosopher in a very short time in the realm of science, soon showed that his course had now been turned into the proper channel. Galileo’s father, who, almost crushed with the burden of his family, could with difficulty bear the expense of his son’s residence at the University, turned in his perplexity to the beneficence of the reigning Grand Duke, Ferdinand de’ Medici, with the request that, in consideration of the distinguished talents and scientific attainments of Galileo, he would grant him one of the forty free places founded for poor students at the University. But even then there were many who were envious of Galileo in consequence of his unusual abilities and his rejection of the traditional authority of Aristotle. They succeeded in inducing the Grand Duke to refuse poor Vincenzo’s petition, in consequence of which the young student had to leave the University, after four years’ residence, without taking the doctor’s degree.[17]

In spite of these disappointments, Galileo was not deterred, on his return home, from continuing his independent researches into natural phenomena. The most important invention of those times, to which he was led by the works of Archimedes, too little regarded during the Middle Ages, was his hydrostatic scales, about the construction and use of which he wrote a treatise, called “La Bilancetta.” This, though afterwards circulated in manuscript copies among his followers and pupils, was not printed until after his death, in 1655.

Galileo now began to be everywhere spoken of in Italy. The discovery of the movement of the pendulum as a measurement of time, the importance of which was increasingly recognised, combined with his novel and intellectual treatment of physics, by which the phenomena of nature were submitted, as far as possible, to direct proof instead of to the a priori reasoning of the Aristotelians, excited much attention in all scientific circles. Distinguished men of learning, like Clavius at Rome, with whom he had become acquainted on his first visit there in 1587,[18] Michael Coignet at Antwerp, Riccoboni, the Marquis Guidubaldo del Monte, etc., entered into correspondence with him.[19] Intercourse with the latter, a distinguished mathematician, who took the warmest interest in Galileo’s fate, became of the utmost importance to him. It was not merely that to his encouragement he owed the origin of his excellent treatise on the doctrine of centres of gravity, which materially contributed to establish his fame, and even gained for him from Del Monte the name of an “Archimedes of his time,” but he first helped him to secure a settled and honourable position in life. By his opportune recommendation in 1589, the professorship of mathematics at the University of Pisa, just become vacant, was conferred on Galileo, with an income of sixty scudi.[20] It is indicative of the standing of the sciences in those days that, while the professor of medicine had a salary of two thousand scudi, the professor of mathematics had not quite thirty kreuzers[21] a day. Even for the sixteenth century it was very poor pay. Moreover, in accordance with the usage at the Italian Universities, he was only installed for three years; but in Galileo’s needy circumstances, even this little help was very desirable, and his office enabled him to earn a considerable additional income by giving private lessons.

During the time of his professorship at Pisa he made his grand researches into the laws of gravitation, now known under the name of “Galileo’s Laws,” and wrote as the result of them his great treatise “De Motu Gravium.” It then had but a limited circulation in copies, and did not appear in print until two hundred years after his death, in Albèri’s “Opere complete di Galileo Galilei.” Aristotle, nearly two thousand years before, had raised the statement to the rank of a proposition, that the rate at which a body falls depends on its weight. Up to Galileo’s time this doctrine had been generally accepted as true, on the mere word of the old hero of science, although individual physicists, like Varchi in 1544, and Benedetti in 1563, had disputed it, maintaining that bodies of similar density and different weight fall from the same height in an equal space of time. They sought to prove the correctness of this statement by the most acute reasoning, but the idea of experiment did not occur to any one. Galileo, well aware that the touchstone of experiment would discover the vulnerable spot in Aristotelian infallibility, climbed the leaning tower of Pisa, in order thence to prove by experiment, to the discomfiture of the Peripatetic school, the truth of the axiom that the velocity with which a body falls does not depend on its weight but on its density.[22]

It might have been thought that his opponents would strike sail after this decisive argument. Aristotle, the master, would certainly have yielded to it—but his disciples had attained no such humility. They followed the bold experiments of the young professor with eyes askance and miserable sophistries, and, being unable to meet him with his own weapons of scientific research, they eagerly sought an opportunity of showing the impious and dangerous innovator the door of the aula.

An unforeseen circumstance came all at once to their aid in these designs. An illegitimate son of the half-brother of the reigning Grand Duke,—the relationship was somewhat farfetched, but none the less ominous for Galileo—John de’ Medici, took an innocent pleasure in inventing machines, and considered himself a very skilful artificer. This ingenious semi-prince had constructed a monster machine for cleaning the harbour of Leghorn, and proposed that it should be brought into use. But Galileo, who had been commissioned to examine the marvel, declared it to be useless, and, unfortunately, experiment fully confirmed the verdict. Ominous head-shakings were seen among the suite of the deeply mortified inventor. They entered into alliance with the Peripatetic philosophers against their common enemy. There were cabals at court. Galileo, perceiving that his position at Pisa was untenable, voluntarily resigned his professorship before the three years had expired, and migrated for the second time home to Florence.[23]

His situation was now worse than before, for about this time, 2nd July, 1591, his father died after a short illness, leaving his family in very narrow circumstances. In this distress the Marquis del Monte again appeared as a friend in need. Thanks to his warm recommendation to the Senate of the Republic of Venice, in the autumn of 1592 the professorship of mathematics at the University of Padua, which had become vacant, was bestowed on Galileo for six years.[24] On 7th December, 1592, he entered on his office with a brilliant opening address, which won the greatest admiration, not only for its profound scientific knowledge, but for its entrancing eloquence.[25] His lectures soon acquired further fame, and the number of his admirers and the audience who eagerly listened to his, in many respects, novel demonstrations, daily increased.

During his residence at Padua, Galileo displayed an extraordinary and versatile activity. He constructed various machines for the service of the republic, and wrote a number of excellent treatises, intended chiefly for his pupils.[26] Among the larger works may be mentioned his writings on the laws of motion, on fortification, gnomonics (the making of sun-dials), mechanics, and on the celestial globe, which attained a wide circulation even in copies, and were some of them printed long afterwards—the one on fortification not until the present century;[27] others, including the one on gnomonics, are unfortunately lost. On the wide field of inventions two may be specially mentioned, one of which was not fully developed until much later. The first was his proportional circle, which, though it had no special importance as illustrative of any principle, had a wide circulation from its various practical uses. Ten years later, in 1606, Galileo published an excellent didactic work on this subject, dedicated to Cosmo de’ Medici, and in 1607 a polemical one against Balthasar Capra, of Milan, who, in a treatise published in 1607, which was nothing but a plagiarism of Galileo’s work disfigured by blunders, gave himself out as the inventor of the instrument. Galileo’s reply, in which he first exhibited the polemical dexterity afterwards so much dreaded, excited great attention even in lay circles from its masterly satire.[28] The other invention was a contrivance by which heat could be more exactly indicated. Over zealous biographers have therefore hastened to claim for their hero the invention of the thermometer, which, however, is not correct, as the instrument, which was not intended to measure the temperature, could not be logically called a thermometer, but a thermoscope, heat indicator. Undoubtedly it prepared the way by which improvers of the thermoscope arrived at the thermometer.[29]

Before proceeding further with Galileo’s researches and discoveries, so far as they fall within our province, it seems important to acquaint ourselves with his views about the Copernican system. From a letter of his to Mazzoni, of 30th May, 1597,[30] it is clear that he considered the opinions of Pythagoras and Copernicus on the position and motion of the earth to be far more correct than those of Aristotle and Ptolemy. In another letter of 4th August of the same year to Kepler, he thanks him for his work, which he had sent him, on the Mysteries of the Universe,[31] and writes as follows about the Copernican system:—

“I count myself happy, in the search after truth, to have so great an ally as yourself, and one who is so great a friend of the truth itself. It is really pitiful that there are so few who seek truth, and who do not pursue a perverse method of philosophising. But this is not the place to mourn over the miseries of our times, but to congratulate you on your splendid discoveries in confirmation of truth. I shall read your book to the end, sure of finding much that is excellent in it. I shall do so with the more pleasure, because I have been for many years an adherent of the Copernican system, and it explains to me the causes of many of the appearances of nature which are quite unintelligible on the commonly accepted hypothesis. I have collected many arguments for the purpose of refuting the latter; but I do not venture to bring them to the light of publicity, for fear of sharing the fate of our master, Copernicus, who, although he has earned immortal fame with some, yet with very many (so great is the number of fools) has become an object of ridicule and scorn. I should certainly venture to publish my speculations if there were more people like you. But this not being the case, I refrain from such an undertaking.”[32]

In an answer from Grätz, of 13th October of the same year, Kepler urgently begs him to publish his researches into the Copernican system, advising him to bring them out in Germany if he does not receive permission to do so in Italy.[33] In spite of this pressing request of his eminent friend, however, Galileo was not to be induced to bring his convictions to the light yet, a hesitation which may not appear very commendable. But if we consider the existing state of science, which condemned the Copernican system as an unheard of and fantastic hypothesis, and the religious incubus which weighed down all knowledge of nature irrespective of religious belief, and if, besides all this, we remember the entire revolution in the sphere both of religion and science involved in the reception of the Copernican system, we shall be more ready to admit that Galileo had good reason to be cautious. The Copernican cause could not be served by mere partisanship, but only by independent fresh researches to prove its correctness, indeed its irrefragability. Nothing but the fulfilment of these conditions formed a justification, either in a scientific or moral point of view, for taking part in overturning the previous views of the universe.

Before the powerful mind of Copernicus ventured to question it, our earth was held to be the centre of the universe, and about it all the rest of the heavenly bodies revolved. There was but one “world,” and that was our earth; the whole firmament, infinity, was the fitting frame to the picture, upon which man, as the most perfect being, held a position which was truly sublime. It was an elevating thought that you were on the centre, the only fixed point amidst countless revolving orbs! The narrations in the Bible, and the character of the Christian religion as a whole, fitted this conception exceedingly well; or, more properly speaking, were made to fit it. The creation of man, his fall, the flood, and our second venerable ancestor, Noah, with his ark in which the continuation of races was provided for, the foundation of the Christian religion, the work of redemption;—all this could only lay claim to universal importance so long as the earth was the centre of the universe, the only world. Then all at once a learned man makes the annihilating assertion that our world was not the centre of the universe, but revolved itself, was but an insignificant part of the vast, immeasurable system of worlds. What had become of the favoured status of the earth? And this indefinite number of bodies, equally favoured by nature, were they also the abodes of men? The bare possibility of a number of inhabited worlds could but imperil the first principles of Christian philosophy.

The system of the great Copernicus, however, thanks to the anonymous preface to his famous work, “De Revolutionibus Orbium Cœlestium,” had not, up to this time, assumed to be a correct theory, but only a hypothesis, which need not be considered even probable, as it was only intended to facilitate astronomical calculations. We know now that this was a gigantic mistake, that the immortal astronomer had aimed at rectifying the Ptolemaic confusion, and was fully convinced of the correctness of his system; we know that this unprincipled Introduction is by no means to be attributed to Copernicus, but to Andreas Osiander, who took part in publishing this book, which formed so great an epoch in science, and whose anxious soul thereby desired to appease the anticipated wrath of the theologians and philosophers. And we know further that the founder of our present system of the universe, although he handled the first finished copy of his imperishable work when he was dying, was unable to look into it, being already struck by paralysis, and thus never knew of Osiander’s weak-minded Introduction, which had prudently not been submitted to him.[34]

A few days after receiving a copy of the great work of his genius, Copernicus died, on 24th May, 1543; and his system, for which he had been labouring and striving all his life, was, in consequence of Osiander’s sacrilegious act, reduced to a simple hypothesis intended to simplify astronomical calculations! As such it did not in the least endanger the faith of the Church. Even Pope Paul III., to whom Copernicus had dedicated his work, received it “with pleasure.” In 1566 a second edition appeared at Basle, and still it did not excite any opposition from the Church. It was not till 1616, when it had met with wide acceptance among the learned, when its correctness had been confirmed by fresh facts, and it had begun to be looked upon as true, that the Roman curia felt moved to condemn the work of Copernicus until it had been corrected (donec corrigantur).

Having thus rapidly glanced at the opposition between the Copernican system and the Ptolemaic, which forms the prelude to Galileo’s subsequent relations with Rome, we are at liberty to fulfil the task we have set ourselves, namely, to portray “Galileo and the Roman Curia.”

CHAPTER II.
THE TELESCOPE AND ITS REVELATIONS.

Term of Professorship at Padua renewed.—Astronomy.—A New Star.—The Telescope.—Galileo not the Inventor.—Visit to Venice to exhibit it.—Telescopic Discoveries.—Jupiter’s Moons.—Request of Henry IV.—“Sidereus Nuncius.”—The Storm it raised.—Magini’s attack on Galileo.—The Ring of Saturn.—An Anagram.—Opposition of the Aristotelian School.—Letter to Kepler.

The first six years of Galileo’s professorship at Padua had passed away, but the senate were eager to retain so bright a light for their University, and prolonged the appointment of the professor, whose renown was now great, for another six years, with a considerable increase of salary.[35]

As we have seen, he had for a long time renounced the prevailing views about the universe; but up to this time he had discussed only physical mathematical questions with the Peripatetic school, the subject of astronomy had not been mooted. But the sudden appearance of a new star in the constellation of Serpentarius, in October, 1604, which, after exhibiting various colours for a year and a half, as suddenly disappeared, induced him openly to attack one of the Aristotelian doctrines hitherto held most sacred, that of the unchangeableness of the heavens. Galileo demonstrated, in three lectures to a numerous audience, that this star was neither a mere meteor, nor yet a heavenly body which had before existed but had only now been observed, but a body which had recently appeared and had again vanished.[36] The subject, though not immediately connected with the Copernican question, was an important step taken on the dangerous and rarely trodden path of knowledge of nature, uninfluenced by dogmatism or petrified professorial wisdom. This inviolability of the vault of heaven was also conditioned by the prevailing views of the universe. What wonder then that most of the professors who had grown grey in the Aristotelian doctrine (Cremonio for instance, Coressio, Lodovico delle Colombo, and Balthasar Capra) were incensed at these opinions of Galileo, so opposed to all their scientific prepossessions, and vehemently controverted them.

The spark, however, which was to set fire to the abundant inflammable material, and to turn the scientific and religious world, in which doubt had before been glimmering, into a veritable volcano, the spark which kindled Galileo’s genius and made him for a long time the centre of that period of storm and stress, was the discovery of the telescope.

We will not claim for Galileo, as many of his biographers have erroneously done, priority in the construction of the telescope. We rely far more on Galileo’s own statements than on those of his eulogists, who aim at effect. Galileo relates with perfect simplicity at the beginning of the “Sidereus Nuncius,” published at Venice in 1610, that he had heard about ten months ago that an instrument had been made by a Dutchman, by means of which distant objects were brought nearer and could be seen very plainly. The confirmation of the report by one of his former pupils, a French nobleman, Jean Badovere of Paris, had induced him to reflect upon the means by which such an effect could be produced. By the laws of refraction he soon attained his end. With two glasses fixed at the ends of a leaden tube, both having one side flat and the other side of the one being concave and of the other convex, his primitive telescope, which made objects appear three times nearer and nine times larger, was constructed. But now, having “spared neither expense nor labour,” he had got so far as to construct an instrument which magnified an object nearly a thousand times, and brought it more than thirty times nearer.[37] Although, therefore, it is clear from this that the first idea of the telescope does not belong to Galileo, it is equally clear that he found out how to construct it from his own reflection and experiments. Undoubtedly also the merit of having made great improvements in it belongs to him, which is shown by the fact that at that time, and long afterwards, his telescopes were the most sought after, and that he received numerous orders for them from learned men, princes and governments in distant lands, Holland, the birthplace of the telescope, not excepted.[38] But the idea which first gave to the instrument its scientific importance, the application of it to astronomical observations, belongs not to the original inventor but to the genius of Galileo. This alone would have made his name immortal.[39]

A few days after he had constructed his instrument, imperfect as it doubtless was, he hastened with it to Venice, having received an invitation, to exhibit it to the doge and senate, for he at once recognised its importance, if not to the full extent. We will now let Galileo speak for himself in a letter which he wrote from Venice to his brother-in-law, Benedetto Landucci:—

“You must know then that about two months ago a report was spread here that in Flanders a spy-glass had been presented to Prince Maurice, so ingeniously constructed that it made the most distant objects appear quite near, so that a man could be seen quite plainly at a distance of two miglia. This result seemed to me so extraordinary that it set me thinking; and as it appeared to me that it depended upon the theory of perspective, I reflected on the manner of constructing it, in which I was at length so entirely successful that I made a spy-glass which far surpasses the report of the Flanders one. As the news had reached Venice that I had made such an instrument, six days ago I was summoned before their highnesses the signoria, and exhibited it to them, to the astonishment of the whole senate. Many noblemen and senators, although of a great age, mounted the steps of the highest church towers at Venice, in order to see sails and shipping that were so far off that it was two hours before they were seen steering full sail into the harbour without my spy-glass, for the effect of my instrument is such that it makes an object fifty miglia off appear as large and near as if it were only five.”[40]

Galileo further relates in the same letter that he had presented one of his instruments to the senate, in return for which his professorship at Padua had been conferred on him for life, with an increase of salary to one thousand florins.[41]

On his return to Padua he became eagerly engrossed in telescopic observation of the heavens. The astonishing and sublime discoveries which were disclosed to him must in any case have possessed the deepest interest for the philosopher who was continually seeking to solve nature’s problems, and were all the more so, since they contributed materially to confirm the Copernican theory.

His observations were first directed to the moon, and he discovered that its surface was mountainous, which showed at all events that the earth’s satellite was something like the earth itself, and therefore by no means restored it to the aristocratic position in the universe from which it had been displaced by Copernicus. The milky way, as seen through the telescope, revealed an immense number of small stars. In Orion, instead of the seven heavenly bodies already known, five hundred new stars were seen; the number of the Pleiades, which had been fixed at seven, rose to thirty-six; the planets showed themselves as disks, while the fixed stars appeared as before, as mere bright specks in the firmament.

But the indefatigable observer’s far most important discovery, in its bearing on the Copernican theory, was that of the moons of Jupiter, in January 1610. As they exhibited motions precisely similar to those which Copernicus had assumed for the whole solar system, they strongly fortified his theory. It was placed beyond all doubt that our planet was not the centre of all the heavenly bodies, since Jupiter’s moons revolved round him. The latter was brought, so to speak, by the discovery of his attendants, into relations with the earth which, considering the prevailing views, were humiliating enough, and the more so since Jupiter had four satellites while the earth had only one. There remained, however, the consoling assurance that he and they revolved round our abode!

In honour of the reigning house of his native country, and as an acknowledgment of favours received from it (for since the accession of Cosmo II.[42] Galileo had been in high favour), he called Jupiter’s moons “Medicean stars.” The urgent solicitude of the French court to gain, by Galileo’s aid, a permanent place on the chart of the heavens, is very amusing. Thus, on 20th April, 1610, he received a pressing request, “in case he discovered any other fine star, to call it after the great star of France, Henry IV., then reigning, the most brilliant in the whole universe, and to give it his proper name of Henry rather than that of the family name of Bourbon.” Galileo communicated this flattering request, as he seems to have considered it, with much satisfaction to the secretary of the Tuscan court, Vincenzo Giugni, in a letter from Padua, on 25th June, 1610,[43] as an evidence of the great importance attached to his telescopic discoveries. He added that he did not expect to find any more planets, as he had already made many very close observations.

Galileo published by degrees all the discoveries he had made at Padua, of which we have only noticed the most important, in the work before mentioned, the “Sidereus Nuncius”; it was dedicated to the Grand Duke, Cosmo II., and the first edition appeared at Venice, in March, 1610.

Although the unexpected discoveries which Galileo had made with his telescope had confirmed his opinion that the system of Copernicus was the only one consistent with the facts of nature, had indeed made it his absolute conviction, he had not yet ventured to defend it in his works. He contented himself with stating bare facts, without showing their relation to the ideas of Copernicus, leaving this to the learning and insight of the reader. Moreover, the logical inferences from Jupiter’s moons must surely stare every thoughtful man in the face, and so indeed they did in a way very unwelcome to the scientific conservatives.

The storm raised by Galileo’s latest announcements was tremendous. People heard with amazement the extraordinary things which the new invention had brought to light, and paid a just tribute of admiration to the man to whose labours it was due. But these discoveries were so directly opposed to the traditional natural philosophy, still regarded as the highest wisdom, that the “Sidereus Nuncius” had met with many opponents. It must however be borne in mind that at the time of its first publication very few of the learned were in a position to convince themselves with their own eyes of the correctness of the appearances seen with the telescope, simply because they had not the instrument at hand. From this cause, even Kepler did not see the satellites of Jupiter till 30th August, 1610. But men so free from jealousy and prejudice as Kepler (who, on reading the “Sidereus Nuncius,” at once recognised the truth of the discoveries, and said with enthusiasm that “Galileo had in this book given evidence of the divinity of his genius”[44]), have at all times been rare.

At first, therefore, the majority of the learned world shook their heads incredulously about the phenomena announced by the “Nuncius,” especially in Italy, where envy lent its aid to bring an armed opposition into the field. Little did it at first avail that Kepler, renowned as the first astronomer in Germany, was on the side of the “Sidereus Nuncius”; for in May of the same year he had a reprint of the work issued at Prague, with an introduction in which he expressed his entire conviction of the truth of the telescopic discoveries made known by it, and answered all objections.[45] In vain. These new discoveries were too revolutionary to be believed. Even upright and estimable scientific men, like Welser in Augsburg, and Clavius at Rome, did not give credit to Galileo’s statements until they learnt better by their own observations. The latter, who was the first mathematician in Rome in his day, even said “he laughed at the pretended satellites of Jupiter; you must construct a telescope which would first make them and then show them.” Let Galileo hold his own opinions, and he (Clavius) would hold his.[46]

But the leader of an unworthy agitation in Italy against Galileo was a man who assumed this attitude from very different motives from the sacred service of science. This was the well-known Professor Magini, astronomer at the university of Bologna, who, next to Galileo, enjoyed the highest reputation for learning in Italy. He could not brook that his famous countryman should all at once obtain the highest fame with seven-league boots, leaving a pigmy like himself far behind, by means of the discoveries made known in his “Sidereus Nuncius.” He must not only be refuted, the refutation must be circulated as widely as possible. But the most repulsive feature in Magini’s conduct towards Galileo is his double-facedness. He never openly ventured with any work into the arena himself, but incited others all the more from behind concealment.[47] Even if we do not, with Martin Hasdal and Alexander Sertini, accuse him of being exactly the instigator of the famous libel “Peregrinatio contra Nuncium Sidereum,” published by his assistant, Martin Horky, against Galileo in 1610, which excited the indignation of all the right-minded learned world, we cannot acquit him of complicity with him, and of having had a hand, more or less, in that pamphlet. The suspicion is strongly confirmed by the ostentation with which Magini, when told of the publication of the “Peregrinatio,” drove the author, with disgust and ridicule, out of his house, and took occasion to assert on all hands that he had nothing whatever to do with the shameful act of his famulus, an assertion in strange contradiction with the excuse afterwards made by Horky to Kepler.[48] By Kepler’s advice Galileo did not do him the honour of answering. The task was undertaken by Wedderburn, a Scotchman, formerly a pupil of Galileo’s, and Antonio Roffeni, professor of philosophy at the university of Bologna; the former at Padua during the same year, the latter at Bologna in 1611.[49]

Meanwhile, in July, 1610, Galileo had observed a new appearance in the heavens by means of his telescope, the ring of Saturn. In consequence, however, of the imperfection of the instrument, it did not appear like a ring, but Saturn looked like a triple star. Galileo, who on the one hand did not wish to make the new discovery public until he had sufficiently observed it, yet feared on the other that some one might claim priority, at once communicated it in a letter from Padua, 30th July, 1610,[50] to his influential friend Belisario Vinta, chief secretary of state to Cosmo II., but urgently begged him to keep it a secret. But even this did not seem sufficient to secure his right to the first observation of Saturn, so he announced it to his friends in the following absurd anagram:—

SMAJSMRMJLMEPOETALEVNJPVNENVGTTAVJRAS.

Kepler puzzled for a long time over this enigma, and at last only made out the barbaric line, “Salve umbistineum geminatum Martia proles,” which he incorrectly applied to the planet Mars. At length, after repeated requests, and after Julian de’ Medici, Tuscan ambassador at the Imperial court, had been charged by the Emperor to ask for a solution, he complied with the illustrious wish, and in a letter to Julian of 13th November, 1610,[51] gave the following startling explanation:—

Altissimum Planetam tergeminum observavi.

The learned and semi-learned world of Italy had not yet had time to become reconciled to the surprising discoveries announced in the “Sidereus Nuncius” of March in the same year, when the asserted triple nature of Saturn contravened the prevailing idea that there was nothing new to be discovered in the heavens. The recognition of Galileo’s telescopic discoveries made way very slowly. From the first he spared no pains in popularising them. He did this repeatedly in public lectures, and with so much success that he could write to Vinta: “even the most exalted personages, who have been most vehement in attacking my doctrines, at length gave up the game for lost, and acknowledged, coram populo, that they were not only convinced but ready to defend them against those philosophers and mathematicians who ventured to attack them.”[52]

But it was only at the University of Padua that Galileo could report such rapid progress; and until the Maginis, Clavios, and others were convinced by their own eyes, and confirmed to their own party the truth of Galileo’s disclosures, he had to sustain a hard struggle with incredulity, malice, and peripatetic fanaticism. Some rabid Aristotelians went so far as to say that Galileo’s telescope was so constructed as to show things that did not exist! Nor did it mend the matter much when he offered 10,000 scudi to any one who should construct so cunning an instrument.[53] Others resolutely refused even to look through the telescope, giving it as their firm conviction that they would not be able to see appearances which Aristotle had not said a word about in all his books! The answer that Aristotle was not acquainted with the telescope, and could not have known anything of telescopic appearances, rebounded without effect from the petrified infallibility of Aristotelian wisdom. Nor must it be supposed that these short-sighted conservatives only numbered a few would-be savans of the Peripatetic school; on the contrary, celebrities like Cesare Cremonino da Cento, and Julius Libri, denied Galileo’s discoveries a priori.[54] When Libri died in December, 1610, without having been willing to look through a telescope, and protesting against Galileo’s “absurdities,” Galileo wrote in a letter of 17th December that this rigid opponent of his “absurdities,” as he was never willing to look at them from earth, might perhaps see them on his way to heaven![55]

Some passages from a letter of Galileo’s to Kepler, of 19th August, 1610, will best show how some of these men of science turned away with a righteous awe from the inconvenient recognition of the truth. Galileo writes among other things:—

“You are the first and almost the only person who, even after but a cursory investigation, has, such is your openness of mind and lofty genius, given entire credit to my statements.... We will not trouble ourselves about the abuse of the multitude, for against Jupiter even giants, to say nothing of pigmies, fight in vain. Let Jupiter stand in the heavens, and let the sycophants bark at him as they will.... In Pisa, Florence, Bologna, Venice, and Padua many have seen the planets; but all are silent on the subject and undecided, for the greater number recognise neither Jupiter nor Mars and scarcely the moon as planets. At Venice one man spoke against me, boasting that he knew for certain that my satellites of Jupiter, which he had several times observed, were not planets because they were always to be seen with Jupiter, and either all or some of them, now followed and now preceded him. What is to be done? Shall we side with Democritus or Heraclitus? I think, my Kepler, we will laugh at the extraordinary stupidity of the multitude. What do you say to the leading philosophers of the faculty here, to whom I have offered a thousand times of my own accord to show my studies, but who with the lazy obstinacy of a serpent who has eaten his fill have never consented to look at planets, nor moon, nor telescope? Verily, just as serpents close their ears, so do these men close their eyes to the light of truth. These are great matters; yet they do not occasion me any surprise. People of this sort think that philosophy is a kind of book like the Æneid or the Odyssey, and that the truth is to be sought, not in the universe, not in nature, but (I use their own words) by comparing texts! How you would laugh if you heard what things the first philosopher of the faculty at Pisa brought against me in the presence of the Grand Duke, for he tried, now with logical arguments, now with magical adjurations, to tear down and argue the new planets out of heaven.”[56]

CHAPTER III.
REMOVAL TO FLORENCE.

Galileo’s Fame and Pupils.—Wishes to be freed from Academic Duties.—Projected Works.—Call to Court of Tuscany.—This change the source of his Misfortunes.—Letter from Sagredo.—Phases of Venus and Mercury.—The Solar Spots.—Visit to Rome.—Triumphant Reception.—Letter from Cardinal del Monte to Cosmo II.—The Inquisition.—Introduction of Theology into the Scientific Controversy.—“Dianoja Astronomica.”—Intrigues at Florence.

Galileo’s fame, especially through his telescopic discoveries, and partly also through the exertions of his noisy opponents, had long extended beyond the narrow bounds of Italy, and the eyes of all central Europe were directed to the great astronomer. Numbers of pupils flocked to him from all countries, so that no lecture room in Padua was large enough to hold them. There were some distinguished personages among them, such as the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, the princes of Alsace, Mantua, etc., who mostly came to attend the lectures of the versatile master on fortification. It is, however, another fable of over zealous biographers to state that even Gustavus Adolphus, the hero of the thirty years’ war, went to school for some months to Galileo.[57]

This close occupation, with lectures and private lessons of all kinds, took him too much away from his own studies, and after twenty years’ professorship Galileo longed for a post in which he could prosecute his own researches, and devote himself to the completion of his works, free from academic duties. A letter from Padua, even in the spring of 1609,[58] shows his longing for this salaried leisure. But he is aware that the republic can never offer him such a post, “for it would not be suitable to receive a salary from a free state, however generous and magnanimous, without serving the public for it; because if you derive benefit from the public, you have the public to please, and not a mere private person.” He also mentions that he can only hope for such a favour from some absolute sovereign; but it must not be supposed that he wishes for an income without doing anything for it; he was in possession of various inventions, was almost daily making new ones, and should make more if he had the necessary leisure. Galileo adds that it has always been his intention “to offer them to his own sovereign and natural lord before any other, that he may dispose of them and the inventor according to his pleasure; and if it seemed good to his serene highness to accept it, to present him not only with the jewel but with the casket also.”

This first attempt of Galileo’s, however, to gain a footing at the court of Tuscany seems to have been unsuccessful. At any rate in the extant correspondence of this period there is not a word more on the subject; and a few months later, after the construction of the telescope, he thankfully accepted the chair of mathematics at Padua offered to him for life by the republic. But this invention and the consequent discoveries had meanwhile acquired such vast importance, and had, as we have seen, raised such a storm in the whole educated world, that it now appeared very desirable to the court of Tuscany to attach to itself for ever the man on whom the eyes of scientific Europe were fixed.

The first steps towards this end were taken when Galileo went to Florence in the Easter recess of 1610 to show his telescopic discoveries to Cosmo II., especially the stars which bore the name of the reigning house. We afterwards find Galileo entering eagerly into the negotiations which followed. In the letter to Vinta before mentioned, of May 7th, 1610, he presses for a decision, for, he says, observing that day after day goes by, he was determined to set a definite purpose before him in the ordering of the life that may be left to him, and to devote all his powers to perfect the fruits of his previous efforts and studies, from which he might look for some fame. He then mentions the conditions on which he at present serves the republic, perhaps in order that they might be guided by it at Florence; but what he lays most stress on is that it is of the utmost moment to him that leisure should be assured him for the completion of his labours, by his being freed from the obligation to give public lectures; but it will always confer on him the highest honour to give lectures to his sovereign, to whom also he will dedicate all his writings.

The same letter is also of the highest interest as giving us an insight into the scientific projects he was then cherishing. He communicates to the Tuscan secretary of state the works the completion of which lies so near his heart. He says:—

“The works which I have to finish are chiefly two books de systemate, seu constitutione universi, a vast project full of philosophy, astronomy, and geometry; three books de motu locali, an entirely new science, for no other inquirer, ancient or modern, has discovered any of the wonderful phenomena which I show to be present in natural and induced motion; I may therefore with perfect justice call it a new science discovered by me from its first principles; three books on mechanics, two relating to the demonstration of the principles and fundamental propositions, one containing the problems; although others have treated of the same subject, what has been hitherto written upon it is neither as to extent nor in other respects a fourth part of what I am writing. I have also various smaller works in view on matters connected with nature, such as de sono et voce, de visu et coloribus, de maris æstu, de compositione continui, de animalium motibus, and others. I am also thinking of writing some books for the soldier, not only to cultivate his mind, but to teach him by select instruction all those things connected with mathematics which it would be an advantage to him to know, as, for instance, castrametation, military tactics, fortification, sieges, surveying, estimate of distances, artillery, the use of various instruments, etc.”[59]

We regard with astonishment the wonderful versatility which we find displayed in Galileo’s works. And amongst them are not only all the larger ones announced in the above letter; his important telescopic discoveries and his ceaselessly active mind led him far to surpass the bounds he had set himself, for he was the first to infuse conscious life into the slumbering idea of the Copernican system.

This memorable letter of Galileo’s soon brought the court of Tuscany to a decision. Fourteen days later, 22nd May, Vinta wrote to him, as a preliminary, that the Grand Duke seemed well disposed to recall him to his native country and to grant all his wishes.[60] He promised to inform Galileo as soon as it was all settled. On 5th June he wrote that Cosmo II. was willing to nominate him as first philosopher and mathematician of the University of Pisa, with an annual stipend of 1000 Florentine scudi, without any obligation to live at Pisa or to give lectures. Vinta requested Galileo to let him know whether he agreed to these conditions, in order that he might have the necessary application drawn up in Galileo’s name, as well as the decree and rescript; the time of their publication shall be left to Galileo, and meanwhile all shall be kept secret.[61] Galileo wished particularly that nothing should be known at Venice of these negotiations, which did not place his gratitude to the republic which had shown him so much favour in the best light, until all was decided and therefore irrevocable.

Having declared himself entirely satisfied with the proposed conditions, in a letter to the secretary of state, the only alteration being that he should like not only to be first mathematician at Pisa, but also first mathematician and philosopher to the Grand Duke himself,[62] the decree summoning him to the court of Tuscany in this twofold capacity was issued on 12th July, 1610.

Notwithstanding all the great advantages which this new post secured to him, it was a very bad exchange for Galileo from the free republican soil to the doubtful protection of a princely house which, although very well disposed towards him, could never offer so decided an opposition to the Roman curia as the republic of Venice. It was indeed the first step which precipitated Galileo’s fate.[63] In the Venetian republic full liberty of doctrine was really enjoyed, in religious Tuscany it was only nominal. In Venice politics and science were secure from Jesuitical intrigues; for when Pope Paul V. thought proper to place the contumacious republic under an interdict in April, 1606, the Jesuit fathers had been compelled to quit the soil of Venice “for ever.”[64] In Tuscany, on the contrary, where they felt quite at home, their influence weighed heavily on everything affecting their own interests, and especially therefore on politics and science. Had Galileo never left the pure, wholesome air of the free city for the stifling Romish atmosphere of a court, he would have escaped the subsequent persecutions of Rome; for the republic which, not long before, had been undaunted by the papal excommunication of their doge and senate, would assuredly never have given up one of its university professors to the vengeance of the Inquisition.

At the beginning of September, 1610, Galileo, to the no small displeasure of the Paduans, left their university, at which eighteen years before he had found willing reception and support when his longer tarriance at Pisa had become impossible; deserted his noble friends, Fra Paolo Sarpi, Francesco Sagredo, and others; and proceeded to the capital of the court of Tuscany on the lovely banks of the Arno, where at first, it is true, much honour was done him, but where afterwards envy, jealousy, narrowness, ill will, and fanaticism combined together to his destruction. One of his most devoted friends, Francesco Sagredo, foresaw it. When Galileo left Venice he was in the East, in the service of the republic, and did not return till the spring of 1611, when he wrote a remarkable letter to his friend at Florence. After having heartily expressed his regret at not finding Galileo on his return home, he states his doubts about the step his friend had taken. He asks, among other things, “where will he find the same liberty as in the Venetian territory? And notwithstanding all the generous qualities of the young ruler, which permitted the hope that Galileo’s merits will be justly valued, who can promise with any confidence that, if not ruined, he may not be persecuted and disquieted on the surging billows of court life, by the raging storms of envy?” It is evident from another passage in the letter that Galileo’s behaviour had made a bad impression at Venice, where they had not long before raised his salary to a thousand florins, and conferred his professorship on him for life; towards the end of the letter Sagredo lets fall the ominous words that he “was convinced that as Galileo could not regain what he had lost, he would take good care to hold fast what he had gained.”[65]

Only a month after Galileo’s arrival at Florence he made a fresh discovery in astronomy which eventually contributed to confirm the Copernican theory, namely, the varying crescent form of the planet Venus. With this the important objection to the new system seemed to be removed, that Venus and Mercury did not exhibit the same phases of light as the moon, which must be the case if the earth moved, for they would vary with her position in the universe. Galileo communicated this appearance, which entailed conclusions so important, and which he therefore wished to investigate more thoroughly before making it known, to his friend and correspondent Julian de’ Medici at Prague, in an alphabetical enigma, as in the case of the singular appearance of Saturn. It was as follows:

“Hæc immatura a me jam frustra leguntur o y.”[66]

Having fully convinced himself by nearly three months’ observations that Venus and Mars exhibited phases similar to those of the moon, he made it known in two letters of 30th December[67] to Father Clavius, at Rome, and to his former distinguished pupil Benedetto Castelli, abbot of the congregation of Monte Cassino, in Brescia; and in a letter of 1st January, 1611, he sent the following solution of the anagram to Julian de’ Medici:—

“Cynthiæ figuras æmulatur mater amorum.”

In this letter he draws the important conclusions, first that none of the planets shine by their own light, and secondly “that necessarily Venus and Mercury revolve round the sun; a circumstance which was surmised of the other planets by Pythagoras, Copernicus, Kepler, and their followers, but which could not be proved by ocular demonstration, as it could now in the case of Venus and Mercury. Kepler and the other Copernicans may now be proud to have judged and philosophised correctly, and it may well excite disgust that they were regarded by the generality of men of book learning as having little understanding and as not much better than fools.”[68]

At this time Galileo was also eagerly occupied with a phenomenon which was to be a further confirmation of the Copernican view of the universe, the spots on the sun. By attentively observing their motions on the sun’s disk he afterwards discovered the sun’s motion on its own axis, a fatal blow to the Ptolemaic system. Although to science it may be quite indifferent whether Galileo, or Fabricius, or the Jesuit father Scheiner first espied the spots on the sun (for they all lay claim to the discovery), for us it has its importance, because the bitter contention between Galileo and Scheiner on the subject materially contributed to set the stone rolling which, in its fall, was no less disastrous to the moral greatness of Galileo than to the erudition of Rome.

In consideration of the intense interest excited by Galileo’s “epoch-making” discoveries, the Roman curia, which still held it to be one of its most important duties to guard mankind as much as possible from precocious knowledge, was of course eager to learn more about them, and above all, of the conclusions which the discoverer drew from them. It must also have appeared of great importance to Galileo to acquaint the Roman savans and dignitaries of the Church with his scientific achievements, for the authority and influence then exercised by them over the free progress of science made their opinions of the utmost moment to him. They must, if possible, be first made to see the premises with their own eyes, that they might afterwards be able to comprehend and assent to the conclusions. Galileo clearly saw this, as appears from a letter of 15th January, 1611, to Vinta[69] (who was then with the court at Pisa), in which he urgently begs permission for a visit to the papal residence. The request was not only immediately granted, but the court placed a litter at his disposal, undertook to defray all his expenses, and directed the Tuscan ambassador at Rome to prepare quarters for him at the embassy and to entertain him during the whole of his stay.[70] Meanwhile, however, Galileo was attacked by an illness which delayed his journey for nearly two months. On 22nd March he received a cordial letter of introduction[71] from Michel Angelo the younger to Cardinal Barberini, afterwards Urban VIII., and on the next day he set out provided with his most convincing arguments, namely several excellent telescopes.

He was received with the greatest honour. His triumphs were really extraordinary, so great that they were sure to secure for him numerous personal enemies in addition to the opponents of his doctrines. He exhibited the oft discussed appearances to cardinals and learned men through the telescope, and, whenever he could, dispelled their doubts by the incontrovertible evidence of their own eyes. People could not refuse to believe this, and Galileo’s success in the papal city was complete. Of still greater importance, however, was the opinion given on 24th April by four scientific authorities of the Roman College, on the character “of the new astronomical discoveries of an excellent astronomer,” at the request of Cardinal Robert Bellarmine. This commission, consisting of the learned fathers Clavius, Griemberger, Malcotio, and Lembo, confirmed what they had long denied and ridiculed, convinced by the evidence of their own senses of the truth of the facts maintained by Galileo.[72] By this opinion of the papal experts his discoveries received, to a certain extent, the sanction of the Church, and became acknowledged truths. The care with which the mention of Galileo’s name is avoided both in the request and the opinion is remarkable.

Attentions of all sorts were heaped upon the astronomer. Pope Paul V. granted him a long audience and graciously assured him of his unalterable good will, which however did not remain quite unaltered in the sequel. The highest dignitaries of the Church testified their admiration; the Accadémia dei Lincei (of the Lynxes), founded six years before by Prince Cesi, made the renowned guest a member; when he took his departure at the beginning of June he left behind him in the metropolis of catholicism as many sincere friends and admirers as envious foes, the fate of all really great men.

A letter from Cardinal del Monte of 31st May, 1611, to Cosmo II., best shows how successful Galileo’s visit to Rome was. He writes with real enthusiasm:—

“Galileo has during his stay at Rome given great satisfaction, and I think he must have felt it no less himself, for he had the opportunity of showing his discoveries so well that to all clever and learned men in this city they seemed no less true and well founded than astonishing. Were we still living under the ancient republic of Rome, I verily believe there would have been a column on the Capitol erected in his honour. It appeared to me to be my duty to accompany his return with this letter, and to bear witness to your Highness of the above, as I feel assured that it will be agreeable to you, since your Highness entertains such gracious good will towards your subjects, and to distinguished men like Galileo.”[73]

But the watchful Inquisition had already directed its attention to the man who had made such portentous discoveries in the heavens. How far this had gone we unfortunately do not exactly know. The only well authenticated indication we possess is the following notice in the protocols of the sittings of the Holy Congregation: “Feria iii. die, 17 Maii, 1611. Videatur an in Processu Doctoris Cæsaris Cremonini sit nominatus Galilaeus Philosophiæ ac Mathematicæ Professor.”[74] This is the first time that the name of Galileo occurs in the papers of the Congregation of the Holy Office, and it was in the midst of the applause which greeted him in the eternal city. Whether, and in what way, this official query was answered is not to be found in the documents of the Inquisition. But it looks ominous that there should be an inquiry about a connection between Galileo and Cremonini who was undergoing a trial. The causes and course of the trial of Cremonini by the Inquisition are not yet known. All that is known is that he was Professor of the philosophy of Aristotle at the University of Padua; and it appears from the letters of Sagredo to Galileo, that his lectures and writings had given rise to suspicions of atheism. For the rest, Cremonini was all his life one of Galileo’s most decided enemies.

The very triumphs of Galileo and his telescopic discoveries were the causes, to a great extent, of those ceaseless and relentless persecutions which were to restrict his labours and embitter his life. The Aristotelians perceived with rage and terror the revolutionary discoveries of this dangerous innovator were surely, if slowly, gaining ground. Every one of them, with its inevitable logical consequences, pulled down some important stone in the artistic structure of their views of nature; and unless some measures were taken to arrest the demolition, it was clear that the venerable edifice must fall and bury the inmates beneath the ruins. This must be averted at any price, even at the price of knowledge of the acts of nature. If Galileo’s reformed physics offered no point of attack, his astronomy did; not indeed in the honourable contest of scientific discussion, but by bringing theology into the field against science.

Galileo had never openly proclaimed his adoption of the earth’s double motion, but the demonstration of his telescopic observations alone sufficed to make it one of the burning questions of the day. What were the phases of Venus and Mercury, the motions of the solar spots, and above all Jupiter and his moons, this little world within our large one, as Galileo afterwards called it himself,[75] but telling proofs of the truth of the Copernican theory? The question of the two systems had been hitherto an exclusively scientific one. How else could the famous philosopher and astronomer Nicholas of Casa, who taught the double motion of the earth in the fifteenth century, have gained a cardinal’s hat? How could the German, Widmanstadt, have explained his theory, which was based upon the same principles, to Pope Clement VII. in 1533? How could learned men like Celio Calganini, Wurteis, and others, have given public lectures on the subject in Italy in the second half of the sixteenth century? Neither Casa, however, nor Widmanstadt, Calganini, Wurteis, nor even Copernicus, had ventured openly to declare war with the school of Aristotle, nor to overthrow by the crushing evidence of experiment the dogmas of natural science based upon philosophy and a priori arguments alone. These learned men had been tolerated because they fought with the same weapons as the followers of Ptolemy, logic and philosophy. They did not possess the powerful lever of direct evidence, because they were not acquainted with the telescope. But Galileo, with his fatal system of demonstration by observation of nature, was far too dangerous a foe. Peripateticism was no match for the home thrusts of arguments obvious to the senses, and its defenders were well aware that if they would not yield their position they must call in some other ally than mere science. And they adopted the means best adapted for putting a temporary drag on the wheels of truth, and for ruining Galileo; in order to prop up the failing authority of Aristotle they called in the inviolable authority of Holy Scripture!

This dragging of the Bible into what had previously been a purely scientific controversy, a proceeding which proved so fatal to Galileo, must not however, as has been done by several authors, be attributed solely to party considerations or even personal motives. This is absolutely false. Greatly as these factors were concerned in it, it must be admitted that at first they were only incidentally mixed up with it. The multitude of the learned, who still adhered entirely to the old system of the universe, and regarded the theories of Copernicus (not yet based on ocular demonstration) as mere fantasies, were really aghast at the telescopic discoveries of Galileo which threatened to overturn all their previous beliefs. The learned, and still more the semi-learned, world of Italy felt the ground tremble beneath their feet; and it seemed to them as if the foundations of all physics, mathematics, philosophy, and religion, were, with the authority of Aristotle, which had reigned for two thousand years, being borne to the grave. This did not present itself to them as progress but as sacrilege.

A young fanatic, the monk Sizy (the same who seven years later was broken on the wheel for political crimes at Paris), was the first to transfer what had been a purely scientific discussion to the slippery arena of theology. At the beginning of 1611 he published at Venice a work called “Dianoja Astronomica”[76] in answer to the “Sidereus Nuncius,” in which he asserted that the existence of the moons of Jupiter was incompatible with the doctrines of Holy Scripture. He appropriately dedicated his book to that semi-prince of the blood, John de’ Medici, who was known to be the mortal enemy of Galileo. The author, as we learn from his own work, was one of those contemptible men who carefully abstained from even looking through a telescope, although firmly convinced that the wonders announced by Galileo were not to be seen. Galileo did not vouchsafe to defend himself from this monkish attack any more than from Horky’s libel the year before. He contented himself with writing on the back of the title page of the copy still preserved in the National Library at Florence the following lines from Ariosto:—

“Soggiunse il duca: Non sarebbe onesto

Che io volessi la battaglia torre,

Di quel che m’ offerisco manifesto,

Quando ti piaccia, innanci agli occhi torre.”[77]

But Galileo’s envious foes at once consorted with the, at all events, honourable fanatics of the old school, and eagerly seized the opportunity of pursuing their miserable designs “to the glory of God and imperilled religion.” It was in Florence itself, in the palace of the Tuscan Archbishop Marzimedici, who had once studied under Galileo at Pisa, that secret consultations were held, presided over by this prelate, how the inconvenient philosopher and his revolutionary system might best be ruined. They even then went so far as to request a preacher to hurl at Galileo from the pulpit the accusation, more dangerous than any other in the sixteenth century, that he was attacking the Bible with his doctrines. But for this time these pious gentlemen had gone to the wrong man, for the priest, seeing through the foul purpose of the commission, declined it.

Galileo had not the slightest knowledge of the secret conspiracy which was plotting against him, and was first roused from the security into which he had been lulled by the brilliant success of his visit to Rome by a letter from his friend there, Cigoli the painter, of 16th December, 1611.[78] But he did not at first attach to these communications the importance they deserved, and it was not until several months afterwards that he addressed himself to Cardinal Conti, who was very friendly to him, to ask how far the Holy Scriptures did really favour the Aristotelian views of the universe, and whether the Copernican system contradicted them.

Conti answered him in a letter of 7th July, 1612,[79] that the statements of Holy Scripture were rather against the Aristotelian principle of the unchangeableness of the heavens than in favour of it, for all the fathers had held the contrary opinion. But the case was different with the doctrine of the earth’s revolution round the sun, as held by the Pythagoreans, Copernicus and others. This certainly did not seem to agree with Holy Scripture, unless it was assumed that it merely adopted the customary mode of expression. But, added the cardinal, that was a method of interpretation to be employed only in case of the greatest necessity. Diego di Zuñiga had indeed explained in this way, conformably with the Copernican opinions, the passage in which Joshua commanded the sun to stand still; but the explanation was not generally admitted.

Father Lorini also, professor of ecclesiastical history at Florence, afterwards a ringleader of the base intrigues against Galileo and an informant against him, wrote to him 5th November, 1612,[80] to deny a report that he had publicly preached against Galileo. He only confessed to having given it as his opinion, in a conversation about the two systems, that the View of this Ipernic, or whatever his name might be, appeared to be contrary to Holy Scripture. Galileo wrote in a letter of 5th January, 1613,[81] to Prince Cesi: “The good man is so well acquainted with the author of these doctrines that he calls him Ipernic. You can see how and by whom poor philosophy suffers.” It appears also from the same letter that Galileo was now well aware of the intrigues being carried on against him in Florence, for he says among other things: “I thank you and all my dear friends very much for your anxiety for my protection against the malice which is constantly seeking to pick quarrels even here, and the more so since the enemy is so near at hand; but as they are but few in number, and their ‘league,’ as they call it among themselves, is but of limited extent, I laugh at it.”

CHAPTER IV.
ASTRONOMY AND THEOLOGY.

Treatise on Floating Bodies.—Controversy with Scheiner about the Solar Spots.—Favourable reception of Galileo’s work on the subject at Rome.—Discussion with the Grand Duchess Christine.—The Bible brought into the controversy.—Ill-fated Letter to Castelli.—Caccini’s Sermon against Galileo.—Lorini denounces the Letter to the Holy Office.—Archbishop Bonciani’s attempts to get the original Letter.—“Opinion” of the Inquisition on it.—Caccini summoned to give evidence.—Absurd accusations.—Testimony of Ximenes and Attavanti in Galileo’s favour.

While the storm which was to burst over Galileo’s head was thus slowly gathering, he was making important progress in the departments of physics and mechanics.

His treatise on the motion of floating bodies led to very important results.[82] In it he again took the field against the Peripatetic philosophers, and refuted the assertion of Aristotle that the floating or partial immersion of bodies in water depended chiefly on their form, for by his approved method of studying the open book of nature he clearly showed the error of that opinion. In this work Galileo laid the foundations of hydrostatics as mostly held to this day. The old school rose up once more to refute him, as a matter of course; but their polemics cut a pitiful figure, for the champions of antiquated wisdom had in their impotence mostly to content themselves with wretched sophisms as opposed to Galileo’s hard facts, and as a last resort to insist on the authority of Aristotle.

The combatants who took the field with various writings to defend the Peripatetic school against these fresh attacks of Galileo were the professors Giorgio Corressio, Tommaso Palmerini, Lodovico delle Colombo, in 1612, and in 1613 Vincenzo di Grazia. Corressio was answered by Benedetto Castelli; but the work, which is preserved in MS. in the National Library at Florence, was not published, out of pity for his opponent who, in the meantime, had been overtaken by severe misfortune. Although professing to be a Roman Catholic, he was discovered to belong to the Greek Non-Uniat church, which entailed the loss of his professorship at the University of Pisa. Galileo intended himself to answer Palmerini, but while he was doing so Palmerini died, and not wishing to fight a dead man, he laid his reply aside. The lame objections of the other two received a brilliant refutation in a work published in 1615 by Castelli. From the original MS., however, in the National Library at Florence, which is mostly in Galileo’s handwriting, it is evident that he was the real author.[83]

During the same year in which he had so alarmed the Peripatetics by the treatise on floating bodies, he was much occupied with the controversy with the Jesuit father, Scheiner, before mentioned, professor of mathematics at Ingolstadt, about the solar spots and the priority of their discovery. In three letters to Welser of Augsburg (published there in 1612) he had claimed for himself, under the pseudonym of “Apelles,” the earliest observation of these appearances, and explained them conformably to the traditional opinions. He propounded the ingenious idea that these spots were a multitude of little planets, passing over the sun’s disk as they revolved round the earth. By this clever explanation he secured the applause of all the Peripatetic school, and proclaimed himself the decided foe of Galileo. Challenged to do so by Welser, Galileo replied in three letters addressed to him, in which “Apelles” came off but poorly.[84] Galileo convincingly refuted his opponent’s explanation of the spots, and brilliantly defended his own right to the priority of their discovery by appealing to witnesses to whom he had made it known in 1610. These letters, together with Scheiner’s, were published in March, 1613, under the title “History and Explanation of the Solar Spots,”[85] with a fine portrait of Galileo, and a dedication to his illustrious friend Salviati, of the “Accadémia dei Lincei.”

The publication of this work was of especial significance, because it was the first in which Galileo decidedly takes the side of the Copernican system. This accounts for the extraordinary sensation made by these essays. The controversy on the two systems came more and more to the front. And yet, notwithstanding all this, no theological scruples seem at first to have been felt at Rome, even in the highest ecclesiastical circles. On the contrary, we find the cardinals Maffeo Barberini[86] (afterwards Pope Urban VIII.), and Federigo Borromeo,[87] thanking Galileo in the most friendly terms for sending them his work, and expressing their sincere admiration for the researches described in it. And Battista Agucchia, then one of the first officials at the court of Rome, and afterwards secretary of Pope Gregory XV., in a similar letter of thanks,[88] not only fully endorsed these opinions, but expressed his firm belief that they would in time be universally acknowledged, although now they had many opponents, partly from their novelty and remarkable character, and partly from the envy and obstinacy of those who had from the first maintained the contrary view.

The scientific circles of the university town of Pisa were far less friendly to the Copernican ideas than the higher ecclesiastics at the papal residence. Father Castelli, who in October of the same year was called to the chair of mathematics at this university, reports in a letter of 6th November,[89] in which he tells Galileo what reception he had met with from the heads of the college, that the proveditor of the university, Mgr. d’Elci, had expressly forbidden him at his first interview to treat in his lectures of the double motion of the earth, or even to take occasion in any digression to mention it as probable!

An accidental circumstance, however, was the immediate cause of turning the controversy into the channel which proved so fatal to Galileo. One day in December, 1613, Castelli and several other learned men were guests at the Grand Duke’s table at Pisa, where the court was then staying. The conversation turned chiefly on the remarkable phenomena of the Medicean stars, whose veritable existence in the heavens Boscaglia, professor of physics at the university, was constrained with a heavy heart to confirm, in answer to a question of the Grand Duke’s mother, Christine. Castelli eagerly seized the opportunity of applauding Galileo’s splendid discovery. Boscaglia, a Peripatetic of the purest water, could not master his displeasure, and whispered meanwhile to the Grand Ducal mother that all Galileo’s telescopic discoveries were in accord with the truth, only the double motion of the earth seemed incredible, nay impossible, as the Holy Scriptures were clearly opposed to it. The repast was then over, and Castelli took leave; but he had scarcely left the palace when he saw Christine’s porter hastening after him and calling him back. He obeyed, and found the whole company still assembled in the Grand Duke’s apartments. Christine now began, after a few introductory remarks, to attack the Copernican doctrines, appealing to Holy Scripture. Castelli at first made some humble attempts to avoid bringing the Bible into the controversy; but as this was of no avail he resolutely took the theological standpoint, and defended the modern views of the universe so impressively and convincingly that nearly all present, even the Grand Duke and his consort, took his side, and the Duchess dowager alone made any opposition. Boscaglia, however, who had been the cause of the unedifying scene, took no part whatever in the discussion.

Castelli hastened to apprise Galileo of this incident, but remarked expressly in his striking letter that it appeared to him that the Grand Duchess Christine had merely persisted in opposition, in order to hear his replies.[90]

This then was the provocation to that famous letter of Galileo’s to his friend and pupil Castelli, in which for the first time theological digressions occur, and which therefore, although by no means intended for publication, was to be eagerly turned to account by his opponents, and to form the groundwork of the subsequent trial. From what has been related it will be seen that the reproach often brought against Galileo that it was he who first introduced the theological question into the scientific controversy about the two systems is entirely unwarranted. On the contrary, these explanations to Castelli, of 21st December, bear telling testimony to the indignation which Galileo felt in seeing the Scriptures involved in a purely scientific discussion, and that the right of deciding the question should even be accorded to them. He sharply defines the relation in which the Bible stands to natural science, marking the limits which it can only pass at the expense of the healthy understanding of mankind. As a good Catholic he fully admits that the Scriptures cannot lie or err, but thinks that this does not hold good of all their expositors. They will involve themselves in sad contradictions, nay, even in heresies and blasphemy, if they always interpret the Bible in an absolutely literal sense. Thus, for instance, they must attribute to God hands, feet, and ears, human feelings such as anger, repentance, hatred, and make Him capable of forgetfulness and ignorance of the future.

“As therefore,” continues Galileo, “the Holy Scriptures in many places not only admit but actually require a different explanation from what seems to be the literal one, it seems to me that they ought to be reserved for the last place in mathematical discussions. For they, like nature, owe their origin to the Divine Word; the former as inspired by the Holy Spirit, the latter as the fulfilment of the Divine commands; it was necessary, however, in Holy Scripture, in order to accommodate itself to the understanding of the majority, to say many things which apparently differ from the precise meaning. Nature, on the contrary, is inexorable and unchangeable, and cares not whether her hidden causes and modes of working are intelligible to the human understanding or not, and never deviates on that account from her prescribed laws. It appears to me therefore that no effect of nature, which experience places before our eyes, or is the necessary conclusion derived from evidence, should be rendered doubtful by passages of Scripture which contain thousands of words admitting of various interpretations, for every sentence of Scripture is not bound by such rigid laws as is every effect of nature.”

Galileo goes on to ask: if the Bible, in order to make itself intelligible to uneducated persons, has not refrained from placing even its main doctrines in a distorted light, by attributing qualities to God which are unlike His character and even opposed to it, who will maintain that in speaking incidentally of the earth or the sun it professes to clothe its real meaning in words literally true? Proceeding on the principle that the Bible and nature are both irrefragable truths, Galileo goes on to draw the following conclusions.

“Since two truths can obviously never contradict each other, it is the part of wise interpreters of Holy Scripture to take the pains to find out the real meaning of its statements, in accordance with the conclusions regarding nature which are quite certain, either from the clear evidence of sense or from necessary demonstration. As therefore the Bible, although dictated by the Holy Spirit, admits, from the reasons given above, in many passages of an interpretation other than the literal one; and as, moreover, we cannot maintain with certainty that all interpreters are inspired by God, I think it would be the part of wisdom not to allow any one to apply passages of Scripture in such a way as to force them to support, as true, conclusions concerning nature the contrary of which may afterwards be revealed by the evidence of our senses or by necessary demonstration. Who will set bounds to man’s understanding? Who can assure us that everything that can be known in the world is known already? It would therefore perhaps be best not to add, without necessity, to the articles of faith which refer to salvation and the defence of holy religion, and which are so strong that they are in no danger of having at any time cogent reasons brought against them, especially when the desire to add to them proceeds from persons who, although quite enlightened when they speak under Divine guidance, are obviously destitute of those faculties which are needed, I will not say for the refutation, but even for the understanding of the demonstrations by which the higher sciences enforce their conclusions.

I am inclined to think that the authority of Holy Scripture is intended to convince men of those truths which are necessary for their salvation, and which being far above man’s understanding cannot be made credible by any learning, or any other means than revelation by the Holy Spirit. But that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and understanding, does not permit us to use them, and desires to acquaint us in any other way with such knowledge as we are in a position to acquire for ourselves by means of those faculties, that it seems to me I am not bound to believe, especially concerning those sciences about which the Holy Scriptures contain only small fragments and varying conclusions; and this is precisely the case with astronomy, of which there is so little that the planets are not even all enumerated.”

Having emphatically declared that thus dragging the Bible into a scientific controversy was only a subterfuge of his opponents, who, feeling that they could not successfully fight him on his own ground, had entrenched themselves behind an unassailable bulwark, Galileo proceeds to discuss the well known passage in Joshua which the Aristotelians were fond of adducing to demonstrate the contradictions between the modern views and Holy Scripture. His object is to beat his adversaries with their own weapons, by showing that if this passage is taken literally, and God really arrested the sun in his course in answer to Joshua’s prayer, and thus prolonged the day, it makes the incorrectness, nay the impossibility, of the Ptolemaic system quite clear, while the Copernican agrees with it very well. According to the Ptolemaic ideas, Galileo goes on, the sun has two motions, the annual one from west to east, and the daily one from east to west. Being diametrically opposed to each other, they cannot both be the sun’s own motions. The annual motion is the one which belongs to it; the other originates in the primum mobile, which carries the sun round the earth in twenty-four hours and occasions day and night. If therefore God desired to prolong the day (supposing the Ptolemaic system to be the right one) He must have commanded, not the sun but the primum mobile, to stand still. Now, as it is stated in the Bible that God arrested the sun in its course, either the motions of the heavenly bodies must be different from what Ptolemy maintained them to be, or the literal meaning must be departed from, and we must conclude that the Holy Scriptures, in stating that God commanded the sun to stand still, meant the primum mobile, but, accommodating themselves to the comprehension of those who are scarcely able to understand the rising and setting of the sun, said just the opposite of what they would have said to scientifically educated people. Galileo also says that it was highly improbable that God should have commanded the sun alone to stand still, and have allowed the other stars to pursue their course, as all nature would have been deranged by it without any occasion, and his belief was that God had enjoined a temporary rest on the whole system of the universe, at the expiration of which all the heavenly bodies, undisturbed in their mutual relations, could have begun to revolve again in perfect order: doubtless his inmost conviction, although to us it sounds like irony.

At the close of this long letter he explains how the literal sense of the passage accords with the Copernican system. By his discovery of the solar spots the revolution of the sun on its axis is demonstrated; moreover it is also very probable that the sun is the chief instrument of nature, the heart of the universe so to speak, and not only, as is known with certainty, is the source of light to the planets revolving round it, but also lends them their motion. If, further, we accept with Copernicus a revolution of the earth, at any rate a diurnal motion on its own axis, it would certainly suffice merely to stop the sun in his course, in order to bring the whole system to a standstill, and thus to prolong the day without disordering nature.[91]

Castelli saw nothing ominous in this exhaustive reply to the Grand Duchess Christine’s objections, and took care to give it a wide circulation by means of numerous copies. Galileo’s enemies, however, eagerly grasped the dangerous weapon thus guilelessly placed in their hands by his friend. They ingeniously gave a meaning to the epistle which exactly adapted it to their purpose. They turned Galileo’s emphatic opinion that the Scriptures had no business in a scientific controversy into the reproach that he assailed the universal authority of the Bible; by making Joshua’s miracle the subject of his disquisitions he laid himself open to the cutting remark that the statements of Holy Scripture must be protected from the arbitrary interpretations of profane laymen.

Gherardini, the worthy bishop of Fiesole, who was apparently entirely unaware of the existence of Copernicus, was so enraged about the system that Galileo had defended that he publicly insulted him, and threatened to bring the matter before the Grand Duke. He could only be pacified by being informed that the founder of that system was not any man then living in Tuscany, but a German who had died seventy years before, and that his work had been dedicated to Pope Paul III., and had been graciously accepted by him.

Meanwhile, the league formed in Florence against Galileo had found in Father Caccini, a Dominican monk, the right tool for setting on foot the long-desired scandal. He had had some experience in misuse of the pulpit, for he had before this got up a scene in church at Bologna. And as the favourable moment for action had now arrived, Caccini appeared as Galileo’s first public accuser by thundering out a fierce sermon against the astronomer and his system on the fourth Sunday after Advent, 1614, in the church of Santa Maria Novella, at Florence. He showed his wit by selecting as the two texts for his philippic the tenth chapter of Joshua and the first chapter of Acts. He began with the words: Viri Galilæi quid statis aspicientes in cœlum: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?” Astronomy was thus happily introduced into the pulpit. The furious preacher asserted that the doctrine taught by Galileo in Florence, of the earth’s revolution round the sun, was quite irreconcilable with the Catholic religion, since it glaringly contradicted several statements in Holy Scripture, the literal meaning of which, as adopted by the fathers, was opposed to it. And, as he further asserted that no one was permitted to interpret the Bible in any other sense than that adopted by the fathers, he as good as denounced the doctrine as heretical. The sermon ended with a coarse attack on mathematicians in general, whose science he called an invention of the devil; and with a wish that they should be banished from all Christian states, since all heresies proceeded from them.

As was to be expected, the affair caused a great sensation. Father Luigi Maraffi, a Dominican monk distinguished for his learning, who was all his life an admirer of Galileo, told him in a letter of 10th January, 1615,[92] how heartily he regretted this miserable exhibition. He said, among other things: “I have been extremely annoyed at the scandal which has taken place, and the more so because the author of it is a brother of my order; for, unfortunately, I have to answer for all the stupidities (tutte le bestialità) which thirty or forty thousand brothers may and do actually commit.” This sentence has caused all Galileo’s biographers who mention this letter, with the exception of Nelli,[93] to conclude that Maraffi was the general of the order of Dominicans; yet a glance at the Scriptores Ordinis Prædicatorum, etc., edited by the Fathers Quetif and Echard, would have shown them that from 1612 to 1629 Father Seraphin Secco, of Pavia, was general, and was succeeded by Nicholas Ridolfi.[94] Perhaps, however, Father Maraffi bore the title of a preacher of the Dominican order, which fully explains his letter to Galileo.[95]

Galileo thought of complaining to the ecclesiastical authorities of the insult which had been offered him, and of demanding satisfaction. But Prince Cesi, whom he consulted about it, strongly advised him, if any steps were taken against Caccini, to keep himself entirely out of the affair and to avoid all mention of the Copernican theory; for Cardinal Bellarmine, the first authority of the sacred college, had told him (Cesi) that he held the opinion to be heretical, and that the principle of the earth’s double motion was undoubtedly contrary to Holy Scripture. In this complicated state of affairs the prince recommended that several mathematicians should complain of the public insults to the science of mathematics and its disciples. But he gave another express warning to leave the Copernican system entirely alone, or they might take occasion at Rome to consult whether the further spread of this opinion was to be permitted or condemned. Cesi added that in that case it would very likely be condemned, as the Peripatetic school was in the majority there, and its opponents were generally hated; besides, it was very easy to prohibit and suspend.[96]

Although Galileo took this hint, and the affair of Caccini was prudently allowed to drop, it must be regarded as the first impetus to all the later persecutions of Galileo.

The questionable merit of having brought Galileo’s affairs before the tribunal of the Inquisition belongs to Father Lorini, a friend of Caccini, and brother of the same order. Galileo’s fatal letter to Castelli had fallen into his hands; and when, later on, thanks to Caccini’s zeal, a great ferment began about it in monkish circles at Florence, Lorini was moved to send a denunciation of the letter and a copy of it secretly to the Holy Office at Rome. The whole statement, which was addressed to Cardinal Mellini, President of the Congregation of the Index, is couched in a most artful and miserable style. The denunciator, too cowardly and too cunning to mention Galileo by name (for he still had powerful friends even among the highest dignitaries of the Church), only speaks of the “Galileists” in general, “who maintain, agreeably to the doctrine of Copernicus, that the earth moves and the heavens stand still.” He even ascribes the enclosed letter to Copernicus, in order to leave the honoured philosopher quite out of the question. Lorini goes on to say: “all the fathers of this (his own) devout convent of St. Mark find many passages in this letter which are suspicious, or presumptuous, as when it says that many expressions of Holy Scripture are indefinite; that in discussions about natural phenomena the lowest place must be assigned to them; that the commentators have often been mistaken in their interpretations; that the Holy Scriptures should not be mixed up with anything but matters of religion; that in nature philosophical and astronomical evidence is of more value than holy and Divine (which passages your reverence[97] will find underlined by me in the said letter, of which I send an exact copy); and, finally, that when Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, we must only understand that the command was addressed to the primum mobile, as this itself is the sun.” In these statements Lorini perceives great peril for the Church; he is indignant “that they (the Galileists) should explain the Holy Scriptures after their own fashion, and differently from the usual interpretation of the fathers, and should defend an opinion which the Holy Scriptures appear to be entirely opposed to.... They tread the entire philosophy of Aristotle, of which scholastic philosophy has made so much use, under foot,” he exclaims: “in short, to show how clever they are, they (the Galileists) say a thousand shameless things and scatter them abroad in our city, which holds fast to the Catholic faith, both from its own good spirit and the watchfulness of our august rulers.” He feels moved to inform the cardinal of all this, that he may keep an eye on it, and that if any remedy seems called for he may take the necessary measures. After this ominous hint he hypocritically adds: “I, who hold that all those who call themselves Galileists are orderly men and good Christians, but a little over wise and self conceited in their opinions, declare that I am actuated by nothing in this business but zeal for the sacred cause.” After this assurance he begs that this letter of his, (“I do not say the enclosed letter,”) he hastens to add in a parenthesis, “may be kept secret and considered merely a friendly exchange of opinion between servant and master,” and not as a legal deposition.[98] In conclusion, he expressly mentions the celebrated sermon of Caccini, probably in order that he might be called as a witness against Galileo, an object which, as we shall see, was attained.

In consequence of this denunciation the Holy Office felt itself called upon at once to institute a secret inquiry about the astronomer. As Lorini had only been able to show a copy of Galileo’s letter to Castelli in confirmation of his accusations, it appeared to the Inquisition to be of great importance to obtain possession of the original, written and signed by Galileo. To attain this end the worthy gentlemen acted on the principle that “the end sanctifies the means.” Cardinal Mellini, under date of 26th February, ordered the secretary of the Holy Congregation to write to the Archbishop of Pisa and the Inquisitor there, that they were to procure that document “in a skilful manner.” On the very next day the order was despatched.[99]

It happened that a few days later Castelli, who had returned from a short stay at Florence to Pisa, paid a visit to the archbishop, Francesco Bonciani. He seized the opportunity of executing his commission. With this end in view he began by adjuring the father, who was quite taken aback by such an exhortation, to give up certain extravagant opinions, particularly that of the revolution of the earth, adding that it would be to his salvation, while to hold them would be to his ruin, for those opinions (to say nothing of their folly) were dangerous, repulsive, and mischievous, for they were directly opposed to Holy Scripture. The philosophical arguments with which the archbishop tried to convert Castelli to orthodox astronomy rose to a climax in the profound remark that as all things (creatura) had been created for the use and benefit of man, it was obvious that the earth could not move like a star.[100] After giving this affectionate counsel to Castelli he offered the same for Galileo, and declared himself ready to demonstrate to all the world the folly of that opinion. But, in order to do it successfully, he must first acquaint himself thoroughly with Galileo’s arguments; and, therefore (and now comes the gist of the matter) he urgently begs Castelli to let him see Galileo’s apologetic letter.

Fortunately it was no longer in Castelli’s possession, for he had returned it to the author. For not only did he not in the least perceive the trap that was laid for him, but was so innocent as to inform Galileo of the request and warmly to second it.[101] But Galileo had suspicions, and delayed to reply. The archbishop was annoyed, and reported in two letters to Rome, of 8th and 28th of March,[102] that Castelli was convinced that he only wanted to see the letter out of curiosity, and as the common friend of both had written to Galileo; still Galileo had not sent it. Bonciani therefore asks “whether he shall be more open with Castelli?” But this time cunning did not attain its end; at the repeated urgency of Castelli,[103] Galileo at last sent him a mere copy without signature, and with the express reservation that he was not to let it go out of his hands. From a letter of Castelli’s[104] to Galileo we learn that in obedience to this injunction Castelli read it to the archbishop in presence of several canons, and that he diplomatically concealed his annoyance at the failure of his intrigue, and put a good face on it, for Castelli adds with great satisfaction that the archbishop had highly praised Galileo’s demonstrations, and lauded to the ecclesiastics present the modesty and reverence for Holy Scripture therein displayed.

So Cardinal Mellini had to content himself with a copy of Galileo’s criminated epistle, to lay before the consultor of the Holy Office for his opinion. He pronounced that some words and phrases occurred in the document that were unsuitable; but, although at first sight they looked ill, they were capable of being taken in a good sense, and were not of that nature that they could be said to deviate from Catholic doctrine.[105]

Meanwhile a papal mandate had been issued, under date of 19th March, to summon Caccini as a witness, as being specially well informed about Galileo’s errors.[106] He appeared before the holy tribunal the very next day, and eloquently poured forth his accusations; but, although upon oath, he did not adhere very strictly to truth. For not only did he denounce the opinion of Copernicus as quasi heretical, being opposed to all scholastic theology and to the customary interpretation of many passages of Scripture, and assert that these doctrines were to be found both in the letter to Castelli and in the purely scientific treatise on the solar spots, but added the far more serious charge that he had heard that Galileo maintained the three following propositions: “God is not a self existent being, but an accident; God is sentient because the Divine sentiments reside in Him; the miracles said to be performed by the saints are not real miracles.” He further says that Galileo is at any rate “suspicious in religious matters,” because he belongs to “a certain Accadémia dei Lincei,” and corresponds with the godless Fra Paolo Sarpi at Venice, and with many dissolute Germans. More absurd deductions from real facts can hardly be conceived. To make a hotbed of heresy out of an academy founded by Prince Cesi, a man of known piety, and to place Galileo’s religion in doubt on account of his scientific correspondence with magnates of science like Sarpi, Welser, Kepler, etc., was almost like madness.[107]

In confirmation of his damaging statements Caccini appealed to the testimony of a Dominican, Ferdinand Ximenes, and a young nobleman, Attavanti. Both of them were afterwards called in November of the same year. It then came out that Caccini was not only an eavesdropper but a bad listener. Attavanti, who moreover was far more a disciple of the Dominicans than of Galileo, had once had a discussion with Ximenes, in their convent of Santa Maria Novella, about the proposition concerning the nature of the Godhead, but it originated entirely in scholasticism and had nothing to do with Galileo. Caccini, listening behind a partition, caught something of the conversation; and, thinking that Attavanti was a well instructed follower of Galileo, and was merely repeating what he had taught him, explained the fragments of the disputation in his own fashion, and formed them into these stupid accusations. It also appeared from the evidence of Ximenes and Attavanti that neither of them knew of anything suspicious about Galileo, except that he propounded the doctrine of the double motion of the earth.[108]

After the favourable testimony of Ximenes and Attavanti the evidence of Caccini was only so far of importance that it gave rise to an inquiry into the “History and Explanation of the Solar Spots.”[109] This, and the oft discussed letter to Father Castelli then, were the grounds upon which Galileo’s enemies based the accusation of philosophical and theological error.

CHAPTER V.
HOPES AND FEARS.

Galileo’s Fears.—Allayed by letters from Rome.—Foscarini’s work.—Blindness of Galileo’s Friends.—His Apology to the Grand Duchess Christine.—Effect produced by it.—Visit to Rome.—Erroneous opinion that he was cited to appear.—Caccini begs pardon.—Galileo defends the Copernican system at Rome.—His mistake in so doing.

Galileo knew no more than the rest of the world of the secret proceedings of the Inquisition against him and his system. He had only discovered that some Dominican monks wanted to make use of his letter to Castelli to effect the condemnation of the Copernican doctrines, and that they were spreading all sorts of calumnies against him based upon it. Fearing that the copy of it on which they relied might have been tampered with, he sent a correct copy on 16th February, 1615, to his sincere friend Mgr. Dini at Rome, with a request that he would forward it to the mathematician, Father Griemberger, and perhaps even to Cardinal Bellarmine. Galileo observed in the accompanying letter that he had written the one to Castelli “currente calamo,” that since then he had made many researches into the subject therein discussed, and announced the speedy completion of a larger work, in which he should carry out his reasoning far more in detail; as soon as it was finished he would send it to Mgr. Dini. (This was his great Apology to the Grand Duchess Christine.) In conclusion, he bitterly complains that his enemies were daily increasing in number, and, in order to injure him the more, were spreading the strange report among the people that he was the founder of the system of the double motion of the earth, which gave rise to incidents like that with Bishop Gherardini.[110]

The philosopher, who it is evident was a good deal discomfited, received in reply consolatory assurances from Mgr. Dini and others of his ecclesiastical friends. But they earnestly advised him to treat the subject of the Copernican system purely from the mathematical, physical point of view, and carefully to avoid religious discussion. This hint came rather late in the day, and could not now be of much use to Galileo, when his doctrines were already attacked as heretical, although secretly at that time, and the accusation was based on the purely scientific work on the solar spots. War had been declared with the Copernican system in the name of the Bible.

Galileo’s letters to Mgr. Dini of 16th February and 28th March,[111] plainly show how unwillingly he had been driven into the theological field by his opponents. After he had in the second letter decidedly rejected Dini’s suggestion that he should treat the Copernican system merely as a hypothesis, he added that it had been his earnest desire to keep strictly to his part as a man of science, and not to be compelled to defend his astronomical system against religious scruples. He entirely agrees with those who say that the task of bringing natural science into agreement with Holy Scripture should be left to theologians, and shows that he has been compelled to defend himself on this dangerous ground. He says besides that his letter to Castelli was not originally intended to go any farther, and regrets that Castelli had had copies made of it without his knowledge.

It is a noteworthy circumstance that at the very time when the secret denunciation had been laid before the tribunal of the Inquisition at Rome, all the letters and reports which Galileo received from Rome, even from trustworthy friends, Mgrs. Dini, Ciampoli, and Prince Cesi, were calculated to allay his anxious fears. None of those persons, although in influential positions, and likely it would seem to have been better informed, knew, as appears from their correspondence with Galileo, anything of the proceedings which were being instituted at Rome against him and the Copernican system. The Inquisition knew well enough how to keep its secrets. On 28th February[112] Mgr. Ciampoli writes confidently to Galileo that, notwithstanding all the inquiries he had made, he could learn nothing of any measures against him or the new doctrines; he sets down the whole rumour to the incautious talk of some hot-headed fellow.

On 7th March[113] Dini tells Galileo that Cardinal Bellarmine had said “he did not think that the work of Copernicus would be prohibited, and the worst that would happen would be that some addition would be made to it, stating that this theory was only accepted to explain phenomena,[114] or some such phrase, and with this reservation Galileo would be able to discuss the subject whenever he had occasion.” Under the same date Prince Cesi tells Galileo that a work had just been published by a Dominican monk, which brilliantly defended the opinion of Copernicus and made it agree with Holy Scripture. He adds that the work could not have appeared more opportunely.[115]

But what seems the most strange are the express and repeated assurances of the cardinals Barberini, Del Monte, and Bellarmine, to Galileo, through Dini and Ciampoli, that so long as he did not go beyond the province of physics and mathematics, nor enter into any theological interpretations of Scripture, he had nothing to fear.[116] How could Cardinal Bellarmine, who had not long before expressly stated to Prince Cesi that the new system was not compatible with the doctrines of Holy Scripture, and who, as a member of the Inquisition, must have been aware of the transactions which had been going on about Galileo since 5th February, give these assurances so directly opposed to the truth? And yet these three prelates afterwards gave many proofs of good will towards Galileo. How then is their ambiguous conduct to be explained? It was simply that they were friendly to Galileo, but not to his doctrines. They certainly desired to shield his person, and afterwards honestly endeavoured to do so even under most difficult circumstances; but the system he defended, which endangered the faith of the Church, must be suppressed at all hazards. In order to this end it appeared advisable to keep it a secret from Galileo that the statement of Copernicus that the earth moved was assailed from the theological standpoint, until the Holy Office had issued the interdict against its circulation and defence. It was thus that they prudently rounded the rocks which the dreaded dialectics of the clever Tuscan had exposed to view.

And the nearer the period was drawing when the verdict of the Church was to be pronounced on the Copernican theory, and the more eagerly the secret inquiries about Galileo were being prosecuted, the more confident became the tone of the letters of his friends from the very city where this ominous web was being woven. It seems as if all Galileo’s trusty adherents had been struck with blindness, for we should not be justified in doubting the sincerity of a Dini, a Ciampoli, and a Cesi, men who afterwards proved by their actions their true friendship for the great astronomer. On 20th March the evidence of Caccini was taken, and on the 21st Ciampoli communicates to Galileo the consoling observations of the cardinals Del Monte and Bellarmine mentioned above. Ciampoli also adds to these comforting assurances by telling him that Foscarini’s work was no doubt in great danger of being prohibited by the Congregation of the Holy Office to take place next month, but only because it meddled with matters concerning Holy Scripture. He goes on to say with real satisfaction that he can only confirm his previous information, and that all this noise originated with four or five persons who are hostile to Galileo; he and Dini had taken all possible pains to find out this assumed agitation, but had discovered absolutely nothing. He repeats this most decidedly in a letter of a week later;[117] and in another of 16th May[118] he cannot at all understand what has so disconcerted Galileo, and adds that it was no longer doubtful that the Copernican doctrine would not be prohibited, and expresses his conviction that it would be a great satisfaction to every one if Galileo would come to Rome for a time, and the more so because he had heard that many of the Jesuits were secretly of Galileo’s opinion, and were only keeping quiet for the present.

A private note enclosed in a letter from Prince Cesi to Galileo, of June 20th, is equally sanguine. He tells him that Foscarini’s work, of which a new and enlarged edition is to appear immediately, has had great success at Rome, and that the opponents of Galileo and of the new system are much cast down about it; he adds that neither the author of that treatise nor the doctrines in question are in any danger, if only a little prudence is exercised. Cesi even thinks that the new edition, in which the author refutes all the objections to his work, will satisfy the ecclesiastical authorities, convince opponents, and put an end to the whole business. “Then,” continues the prince confidently, “when every difficulty is removed and attack rendered impossible, the doctrine will be so fully permitted and recognised, that everybody who wishes to maintain it will be at liberty to do so, as in all other purely physical and mathematical questions.”[119]

This is the last letter we have from Galileo’s friends of this period. From this date to the time of his stay in Rome, in 1616, there are no letters to him extant. This is the more to be regretted, as the gap occurs at a very interesting juncture. Perhaps after the Copernican doctrines were condemned Galileo may have destroyed this correspondence out of regard for his friends, for it may have contained allusions to very delicate matters.