Court was courted and flattered by princes and nobles, he enjoyed a
world-wide reputation, lived as luxuriously as he cared for, had his
time all to himself, and lectured but very seldom, on great occasions or
to a few crowned heads.
His position was in fact analogous to that of Tycho Brahe in his island
of Huen.
Misfortune overtook both. In Tycho's case it arose mainly from the death
of his patron. In Galileo's it was due to a more insidious cause, to
understand which cause aright we must remember the political divisions
of Italy at that date.
Tuscany was a Papal State, and thought there was by no means free.
Venice was a free republic, and was even hostile to the Papacy. In 1606
the Pope had placed it under an interdict. In reply it had ejected every
Jesuit.
Out of this atmosphere of comparative enlightenment and freedom into
that hotbed of mediaevalism and superstition went Galileo with his eyes
open. Keen was the regret of his Paduan and Venetian friends; bitter
were their remonstrances and exhortations. But he was determined to go,
and, not without turning some of his old friends into enemies, he went.
Seldom has such a man made so great a mistake: never, I suppose, has one
been so cruelly punished for it.
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--Map of Italy.]
We must remember, however, that Galileo, though by no means a saint, was
yet a really religious man, a devout Catholic and thorough adherent of
the Church, so that he would have no dislike to place himself under her
sway. Moreover, he had been born a Tuscan, his family had lived at
Florence or Pisa, and it felt like going home. His theological attitude
is worthy of notice, for he was not in the least a sceptic. He quite
acquiesces in the authority of the Bible, especially in all matters
concerning faith and conduct; as to its statements in scientific
matters, he argues that we are so liable to misinterpret their meaning
that it is really easier to examine Nature for truth in scientific
matters, and that when direct observation and Scripture seem to clash,
it is because of our fallacious interpretation of one or both of them.
He is, in fact, what one now calls a "reconciler."
It is curious to find such a man prosecuted for heresy, when to-day his
opinions are those of the orthodox among the orthodox. But so it ever
is, and the heresy of one generation becomes the commonplace of the
next.
He accepts Joshua's miracle, for instance, not as a striking poem, but
as a literal fact; and he points out how much more simply it could be
done on the Copernican system by stopping the earth's rotation for a
short time, than by stopping the sun and moon and all the host of heaven
as on the old Ptolemaic system, or again by stopping only the sun and
not any of the other bodies, and so throwing astronomy all wrong.
This reads to us like satire, but no doubt it was his genuine opinion.
These Scriptural reconciliations of his, however, angered the religious
authorities still more. They said it was bad enough for this heretic to
try and upset old _scientific_ beliefs, and to spoil the face of
_Nature_ with his infidel discoveries, but at least he might leave the
Bible alone; and they addressed an indignant remonstrance to Rome, to
protect it from the hands of ignorant laymen.
Thus, wherever he turned he encountered hostility. Of course he had many
friends--some of them powerful like Cosmo, all of them faithful and
sincere. But against the power of Rome what could they do? Cosmo dared
no more than remonstrate, and ultimately his successor had to refrain
from even this, so enchained and bound was the spirit of the rulers of
those days; and so when his day of tribulation came he stood alone and
helpless in the midst of his enemies.
You may wonder, perhaps, why this man should excite so much more
hostility than many another man who was suffered to believe and teach
much the same doctrines unmolested. But no other man had made such
brilliant and exciting discoveries. No man stood so prominently forward
in the eyes of all Christendom as the champion of the new doctrines. No
other man stated them so clearly and forcibly, nor drove them home with
such brilliant and telling illustrations.
And again, there was the memory of his early conflict with the
Aristotelians at Pisa, of his scornful and successful refutation of
their absurdities. All this made him specially obnoxious to the
Aristotelian Jesuits in their double capacity both of priests and of
philosophers, and they singled him out for relentless official
persecution.
Not yet, however, is he much troubled by them. The chief men at Rome
have not yet moved. Messages, however, keep going up from Tuscany to
Rome respecting the teachings of this man, and of the harm he is doing
by his pertinacious preaching of the Copernican doctrine that the earth
moves.
At length, in 1615, Pope Paul V. wrote requesting him to come to Rome to
explain his views. He went, was well received, made a special friend of
Cardinal Barberino--an accomplished man in high position, who became in
fact the next Pope. Galileo showed cardinals and others his telescope,
and to as many as would look through it he showed Jupiter's satellites
and his other discoveries. He had a most successful visit. He talked, he
harangued, he held forth in the midst of fifteen or twenty disputants at
once, confounding his opponents and putting them to shame.
His method was to let the opposite arguments be stated as fully and
completely as possible, himself aiding, and often adducing the most
forcible and plausible arguments against his own views; and then, all
having been well stated, he would proceed to utterly undermine and
demolish the whole fabric, and bring out the truth in such a way as to
convince all honest minds. It was this habit that made him such a
formidable antagonist. He never shrank from meeting an opposing
argument, never sought to ignore it, or cloak it in a cloud of words.
Every hostile argument he seemed to delight in, as a foe to be crushed,
and the better and stronger they sounded the more he liked them. He knew
many of them well, he invented a number more, and had he chosen could
have out-argued the stoutest Aristotelian on his own grounds. Thus did
he lead his adversaries on, almost like Socrates, only to ultimately
overwhelm them in a more hopeless rout. All this in Rome too, in the
heart of the Catholic world. Had he been worldly-wise, he would
certainly have kept silent and unobtrusive till he had leave to go away
again. But he felt like an apostle of the new doctrines, whose mission
it was to proclaim them even in this centre of the world and of the
Church.
Well, he had an audience with the Pope--a chat an hour long--and the two
parted good friends, mutually pleased with each other.
He writes that he is all right now, and might return home when he liked.
But the question began to be agitated whether the whole system of
Copernicus ought not to be condemned as impious and heretical. This view
was persistently urged upon the Pope and College of Cardinals, and it
was soon to be decided upon.
Had Galileo been unfaithful to the Church he could have left them to
stultify themselves in any way they thought proper, and himself have
gone; but he felt supremely interested in the result, and he stayed. He
writes:--
"So far as concerns the clearing of my own character, I might
return home immediately; but although this new question regards me
no more than all those who for the last eighty years have supported
those opinions both in public and private, yet, as perhaps I may be
of some assistance in that part of the discussion which depends on
the knowledge of truths ascertained by means of the sciences which
I profess, I, as a zealous and Catholic Christian, neither can nor
ought to withhold that assistance which my knowledge affords, and
this business keeps me sufficiently employed."
It is possible that his stay was the worst thing for the cause he had at
heart. Anyhow, the result was that the system was condemned, and both
the book of Copernicus and the epitome of it by Kepler were placed on
the forbidden list,[11] and Galileo himself was formally ordered never
to teach or to believe the motion of the earth.
He quitted Rome in disgust, which before long broke out in satire. The
only way in which he could safely speak of these views now was as if
they were hypothetical and uncertain, and so we find him writing to the
Archduke Leopold, with a presentation copy of his book on the tides, the
following:--
"This theory occurred to me when in Rome whilst the theologians
were debating on the prohibition of Copernicus's book, and of the
opinion maintained in it of the motion of the earth, which I at
that time believed: until it pleased those gentlemen to suspend the
book, and declare the opinion false and repugnant to the Holy
Scriptures. Now, as I know how well it becomes me to obey and
believe the decisions of my superiors, which proceed out of more
knowledge than the weakness of my intellect can attain to, this
theory which I send you, which is founded on the motion of the
earth, I now look upon as a fiction and a dream, and beg your
highness to receive it as such. But as poets often learn to prize
the creations of their fancy, so in like manner do I set some value
on this absurdity of mine. It is true that when I sketched this
little work I did hope that Copernicus would not, after eighty
years, be convicted of error; and I had intended to develop and
amplify it further, but a voice from heaven suddenly awakened me,
and at once annihilated all my confused and entangled fancies."
This sarcasm, if it had been in print, would probably have been
dangerous. It was safe in a private letter, but it shows us his real
feelings.
However, he was left comparatively quiet for a time. He was getting an
old man now, and passed the time studiously enough, partly at his house
in Florence, partly at his villa in Arcetri, a mile or so out of the
town.
Here was a convent, and in it his two daughters were nuns. One of them,
who passed under the name of Sister Maria Celeste, seems to have been a
woman of considerable capacity--certainly she was of a most affectionate
disposition--and loved and honoured her father in the most dutiful way.
This was a quiet period of his life, spoiled only by occasional fits of
illness and severe rheumatic pains, to which the old man was always
liable. Many little circumstances are known of this peaceful time. For
instance, the convent clock won't go, and Galileo mends it for them. He
is always doing little things for them, and sending presents to the Lady
Superior and his two daughters.
He was occupied now with problems in hydrostatics, and on other matters
unconnected with astronomy: a large piece of work which I must pass
over. Most interesting and acute it is, however.
In 1623, when the old Pope died, there was elected to the Papal throne,
as Urban VIII., Cardinal Barberino, a man of very considerable
enlightenment, and a personal friend of Galileo's, so that both he and
his daughters rejoice greatly, and hope that things will come all right,
and the forbidding edict be withdrawn.
The year after this election he manages to make another journey to Rome
to compliment his friend on his elevation to the Pontifical chair. He
had many talks with Urban, and made himself very agreeable.
Urban wrote to the Grand Duke Ferdinand, son of Cosmo:--
"For We find in him not only literary distinction but also love of
piety, and he is strong in those qualities by which Pontifical good
will is easily obtainable. And now, when he has been brought to
this city to congratulate Us on Our elevation, We have very
lovingly embraced him; nor can We suffer him to return to the
country whither your liberality recalls him without an ample
provision of Pontifical love. And that you may know how dear he is
to Us, We have willed to give him this honourable testimonial of
virtue and piety. And We further signify that every benefit which
you shall confer upon him, imitating or even surpassing your
father's liberality, will conduce to Our gratification."
Encouraged, doubtless, by these marks of approbation, and reposing too
much confidence in the individual good will of the Pope, without heeding
the crowd of half-declared enemies who were seeking to undermine his
reputation, he set about, after his return to Florence, his greatest
literary and most popular work, _Dialogues on the Ptolemaic and
Copernican Systems_. This purports to be a series of four conversations
between three characters: Salviati, a Copernican philosopher; Sagredo, a
wit and scholar, not specially learned, but keen and critical, and who
lightens the talk with chaff; Simplicio, an Aristotelian philosopher,
who propounds the stock absurdities which served instead of arguments to
the majority of men.
The conversations are something between Plato's _Dialogues_ and Sir
Arthur Helps's _Friends in Council_. The whole is conducted with great
good temper and fairness; and, discreetly enough, no definite conclusion
is arrived at, the whole being left in abeyance as if for a fifth and
decisive dialogue, which, however, was never written, and perhaps was
only intended in case the reception was favourable.
The preface also sets forth that the object of the writer is to show
that the Roman edict forbidding the Copernican doctrine was not issued
in ignorance of the facts of the case, as had been maliciously reported,
and that he wishes to show how well and clearly it was all known
beforehand. So he says the dialogue on the Copernican side takes up the
question purely as a mathematical hypothesis or speculative figment, and
gives it every artificial advantage of which the theory is capable.
This piece of caution was insufficient to blind the eyes of the
Cardinals; for in it the arguments in favour of the earth's motion are
so cogent and unanswerable, and are so popularly stated, as to do more
in a few years to undermine the old system than all that he had written
and spoken before. He could not get it printed for two years after he
had written it, and then only got consent through a piece of
carelessness or laziness on the part of the ecclesiastical censor
through whose hands the manuscript passed--for which he was afterwards
dismissed.
However, it did appear, and was eagerly read; the more, perhaps, as the
Church at once sought to suppress it.
The Aristotelians were furious, and represented to the Pope that he
himself was the character intended by Simplicio, the philosopher whose
opinions get alternately refuted and ridiculed by the other two, till he
is reduced to an abject state of impotence.
The idea that Galileo had thus cast ridicule upon his friend and patron
is no doubt a gratuitous and insulting libel: there is no telling
whether or not Urban believed it, but certainly his countenance changed
to Galileo henceforward, and whether overruled by his Cardinals, or
actuated by some other motive, his favour was completely withdrawn.
The infirm old man was instantly summoned to Rome. His friends pleaded
his age--he was now seventy--his ill-health, the time of year, the state
of the roads, the quarantine existing on account of the plague. It was
all of no avail, to Rome he must go, and on the 14th of February he
arrived.
[Illustration: FIG. 52.--Portrait of Galileo.]
His daughter at Arcetri was in despair; and anxiety and fastings and
penances self-inflicted on his account, dangerously reduced her health.
At Rome he was not imprisoned, but he was told to keep indoors, and show
himself as little as possible. He was allowed, however, to stay at the
house of the Tuscan Ambassador instead of in gaol.
By April he was removed to the chambers of the Inquisition, and examined
several times. Here, however, the anxiety was too much, and his health
began to give way seriously; so, before long, he was allowed to return
to the Ambassador's house; and, after application had been made, was
allowed to drive in the public garden in a half-closed carriage. Thus in
every way the Inquisition dealt with him as leniently as they could. He
was now their prisoner, and they might have cast him into their
dungeons, as many another had been cast. By whatever they were
influenced--perhaps the Pope's old friendship, perhaps his advanced age
and infirmities--he was not so cruelly used.
Still, they had their rules; he _must_ be made to recant and abjure his
heresy; and, if necessary, torture must be applied. This he knew well
enough, and his daughter knew it, and her distress may be imagined.
Moreover, it is not as if they had really been heretics, as if they
hated or despised the Church of Rome. On the contrary, they loved and
honoured the Church. They were sincere and devout worshippers, and only
on a few scientific matters did Galileo presume to differ from his
ecclesiastical superiors: his disagreement with them occasioned him real
sorrow; and his dearest hope was that they could be brought to his way
of thinking and embrace the truth.
Every time he was sent for by the Inquisition he was in danger of
torture unless he recanted. All his friends urged him repeatedly to
submit. They said resistance was hopeless and fatal. Within the memory
of men still young, Giordano Bruno had been burnt alive for a similar
heresy. This had happened while Galileo was at Padua. Venice was full of
it. And since that, only eight years ago indeed, Antonio de Dominis,
Archbishop of Salpetria, had been sentenced to the same fate: "to be
handed over to the secular arm to be dealt with as mercifully as
possible without the shedding of blood." So ran the hideous formula
condemning a man to the stake. After his sentence, this unfortunate man
died in the dungeons in which he had been incarcerated six years--died
what is called a "natural" death; but the sentence was carried out,
notwithstanding, on his lifeless body and his writings. His writings for
which he had been willing to die!
These were the tender mercies of the Inquisition; and this was the kind
of meaning lurking behind many of their well-sounding and merciful
phrases. For instance, what they call "rigorous examination," we call
"torture." Let us, however, remember in our horror at this mode of
compelling a prisoner to say anything they wished, that they were a
legally constituted tribunal; that they acted with well established
rules, and not in passion; and that torture was a recognized mode of
extracting evidence, not only in ecclesiastical but in civil courts, at
that date.
All this, however, was but poor solace to the pitiable old philosopher,
thus ruthlessly haled up and down, questioned and threatened, threatened
and questioned, receiving agonizing letters from his daughter week by
week, and trying to keep up a little spirit to reply as happily and
hopefully as he could.
This condition of things could not go on. From February to June the
suspense lasted. On the 20th of June he was summoned again, and told he
would be wanted all next day for a rigorous examination. Early in the
morning of the 21st he repaired thither, and the doors were shut. Out of
those chambers of horror he did not reappear till the 24th. What went on
all those three days no one knows. He himself was bound to secrecy. No
outsider was present. The records of the Inquisition are jealously
guarded. That he was technically tortured is certain; that he actually
underwent the torment of the rack is doubtful. Much learning has been
expended upon the question, especially in Germany. Several eminent
scholars have held the fact of actual torture to be indisputable
(geometrically certain, one says), and they confirm it by the hernia
from which he afterwards suffered, this being a well-known and frequent
consequence.
Other equally learned commentators, however, deny that the last stage
was reached. For there are five stages all laid down in the rules of the
Inquisition, and steadily adhered to in a rigorous examination, at each
stage an opportunity being given for recantation, every utterance,
groan, or sigh being strictly recorded. The recantation so given has to
be confirmed a day or two later, under pain of a precisely similar
ordeal.
The five stages are:--1st. The official threat in the court. 2nd. The
taking to the door of the torture chamber and renewing the official
threat. 3rd. The taking inside and showing the instruments. 4th.
Undressing and binding upon the rack. 5th. _Territio realis._
Through how many of these ghastly acts Galileo passed I do not know. I
hope and believe not the last.
There are those who lament that he did not hold out, and accept the
crown of martyrdom thus offered to him. Had he done so we know his
fate--a few years' languishing in the dungeons, and then the flames.
Whatever he ought to have done, he did not hold out--he gave way. At one
stage or another of the dread ordeal he said: "I am in your hands. I
will say whatever you wish." Then was he removed to a cell while his
special form of perjury was drawn up.
The next day, clothed as a penitent, the venerable old man was taken to
the Convent of Minerva, where the Cardinals and prelates were assembled
for the purpose of passing judgment upon him.
The text of the judgment I have here, but it is too long to read. It
sentences him--1st. To the abjuration. 2nd. To formal imprisonment for
life. 3rd. To recite the seven penitential psalms every week.
Ten Cardinals were present; but, to their honour be it said, three
refused to sign; and this blasphemous record of intolerance and bigoted
folly goes down the ages with the names of seven Cardinals immortalized
upon it.
This having been read, he next had to read word for word the abjuration
which had been drawn up for him, and then sign it.
THE ABJURATION OF GALILEO.