BRUNO AND GALILEO.
When the Roman Catholic authorities awoke to the dangers of the new
teaching, they struck with force. The first to suffer was the famous
monk-philosopher, Giordano Bruno, whose trial by the Holy Office was
premonitory of trouble to come for Galileo.[205]
[Footnote 205: Berti: 285.]
After an elementary education at Naples near his birth-place,
Nola,[206] Filippo Bruno[207] entered the Dominican monastery in 1562
or 1563 when about fourteen years old, assuming the name Giordano at
that time. Before 1572, when he entered the priesthood, he had fully
accepted the Copernican theory which later became the basis of all his
philosophical thought. Bruno soon showed he was not made for the
monastic life. Various processes were started against him, and fleeing
to Rome he abandoned his monk's garments and entered upon the sixteen
years of wandering over Europe, a peripatetic teacher of the
philosophy of an infinite universe as deduced from the Copernican
doctrine and thus in a way its herald.[208] He reached Geneva in 1579
(where he did not accept Calvinism as was formerly thought),[209] but
decided before many months had passed that it was wise to depart
elsewhere because of the unpleasant position in which he found himself
there. He had been brought before the Council for printing invectives
against one of the professors, pointing out some twenty of his
errors. The Council sent him to the Consistory, the governing body of
the church, where a formal sentence of excommunication was passed
against him. When he apologized it was withdrawn. Probably a certain
stigma remained, and he left Geneva soon thereafter with a warm
dislike for Calvinism. After lecturing at the University of Toulouse
he appeared in Paris in 1581, where he held an extraordinary
readership. Two years later he was in England, for he lectured at
Oxford during the spring months and defended the Copernican theory
before the Polish prince Alasco during the latter's visit there in
June.[210]
[Footnote 206: McIntyre: 3-15.]
[Footnote 207: Four lives of Bruno have been written within the last
seventy-five years. The first is _Jordano Bruno_ by Christian
Bartholmess (2 vol., Paris 1846). The next, _Vita di Giordano Bruno da
Nola_ by Domenico Berti (1868, Turin), quotes in full the official
documents of his trial. Frith's _Life of Giordano Bruno_ (London,
1887), has been rendered out of date by J.L. McIntyre's _Giordano
Bruno_ (London, 1903), which includes a critical bibliography. In
addition, W.R. Thayer's _Throne Makers_ (New York, 1899), gives
translations of Bruno's confessions to the Venetian Inquisition.
Bruno's Latin works (_Opera Latina Conscripta_), have been republished
by Fiorentino (3 vol., Naples, 1879), and the _Opere Italiane_ by
Gentile (3 vol., Naples, 1907).]
[Footnote 208: Bartholmess: I, 134.]
[Footnote 209: Libri: IV, 144.]
[Footnote 210: McIntyre: 16-40.]
To Bruno belongs the glory of the first public proclamation in England
of the new doctrine,[211] though only Gilbert[212] and possibly Wright
seem to have accepted it at the time. Upon Bruno's return to London,
he entered the home of the French ambassador as a kind of secretary,
and there spent the happiest years of his life till the ambassador's
recall in October, 1585. It was during this period that he wrote some
of his most famous books. In _La Cena de la Ceneri_ he defended the
Copernican theory, incidentally criticising the Oxford dons most
severely,[213] for which he apologized in _De la Causa, Principio et
Uno_. He developed his philosophy of an infinite universe in _De
l'Infinito e Mondi_, and in the _Spaccio de la Bestia Trionphante_
"attacked all religions of mere credulity as opposed to religions of
truth and deeds."[214] This last book was at once thought to be a
biting attack upon the Roman Church and later became one of the
grounds of the Inquisition's charges against him. During this time in
London also, he came to know Sir Philip Sydney intimately, and Fulk
Greville as well as others of that brilliant period. He may have known
Bacon;[215] but it is highly improbable that he and Shakespeare
met,[216] or that Shakespeare ever was influenced by the other's
philosophy.[217]
[Footnote 211: Bartholmess: I, 134.]
[Footnote 212: Gilbert: _De Magnete_ (London, 1600).]
[Footnote 213: Berti: 369, Doc. XIII.]
[Footnote 214: McIntyre: 16-40.]
[Footnote 215: Bartholmess: I, 134.]
[Footnote 216: Beyersdorf: _Giordano Bruno und Shakespear_, 8-36.]
[Footnote 217: Such passages as _Troilus and Cressida_: Act I, sc. 3;
_King John_, Act III, sc. 1; and _Merry Wives_, Act III, sc. 2,
indicate that Shakespeare accepted fully the Ptolemaic conception of a
central, immovable earth. See also Beyersdorf: _op. cit._]
Leaving Paris soon after his return thither, Bruno wandered into
southern Germany. At Marburg he was not permitted to teach, but at
Wittenberg the Lutherans cordially welcomed him into the university.
After a stay of a year and a half, he moved on to Prague for a few
months, then to Helmstadt, Frankfort and Zurich, and back to Frankfort
again where, in 1591, he received an invitation from a young Venetian
patrician, Moecenigo, to come to Venice as his tutor. He re-entered
Italy, therefore, in August, much to the amazement of his
contemporaries. It is probable that Moecenigo was acting for the
Inquisition.[218] At any rate, he soon denounced Bruno to that body
and in May, 1592, surrendered him to it.[219]
[Footnote 218: McIntyre: 68.]
[Footnote 219: Ibid: 47-72.]
In his trial before the Venetian Inquisition,[220] Bruno told the
story of his life and stated his beliefs in answer to the charges
against him, based mainly on travesties of his opinions. In this
statement as well as in _La Cena de le Ceneri_, and in _De Immenso et
Innumerabilis_,[221] Bruno shows how completely he had not merely
accepted the Copernican doctrine, but had expanded it far beyond its
author's conception. The universe according to Copernicus, though
vastly greater than that conceived by Aristotle and Ptolemy, was still
finite because enclosed within the sphere of the fixed stars. Bruno
declared that not only was the earth only a lesser planet, but "this
world itself was merely one of an infinite number of particular worlds
similar to this, and that all the planets and other stars are infinite
worlds without number composing an infinite universe, so that there is
a double infinitude, that of the greatness of the universe, and that
of the multitude of worlds."[222] How important this would be to the
Church authorities may be realized by recalling the patristic doctrine
that the universe was created for man and that his home is its center.
Of course their cherished belief must be defended from such an attack,
and naturally enough, the Copernican doctrine as the starting point of
Bruno's theory of an infinite universe was thus brought into
question;[223] for, as M. Berti has said,[224] Bruno's doctrine was
equally an astro-theology or a theological astronomy.
[Footnote 220: See official documents in Berti: 327-395.]
[Footnote 221: Bruno: _De Immenso et Innumerabilis_: Lib. III, cap. 9
(vol. 1, pt. 1, 380-386).]
[Footnote 222: Thayer: 268.]
[Footnote 223: Berti: 285.]
[Footnote 224: Ibid: 282.]
The Roman Inquisition was not content to let the Venetian court deal
with this arch heretic, but wrote in September, 1592, demanding his
extradition. The Venetian body referred its consent to the state for
ratification which the Doge and Council refused to grant. Finally,
when the Papal Nuncio had represented that Bruno was not a Venetian
but a Neapolitan, and that cases against him were still outstanding
both in Naples and in Rome, the state consented, and in February of
the next year, Bruno entered Rome, a prisoner of the Inquisition.
Nothing further is known about him until the Congregations took up his
case on February 4th, 1599. Perhaps Pope Clement had hoped to win back
to the true faith this prince of heretics.[225] However Bruno stood
firm, and early in the following year he was degraded, sentenced and
handed over to the secular authorities, who burned him at the stake in
the Campo di Fiori, February 17, 1600.[226] All his books were put on
the Index by decree of February 8, 1600, (where they remain to this
day), and as a consequence they became extremely rare. It is well to
remember Bruno's fate, when considering Galileo's case, for
Galileo[227] was at that time professor of mathematics in the
university of Padua and fully cognizant of the event.
[Footnote 225: Fahie: 82-89.]
[Footnote 226: Thayer: 299.]
[Footnote 227: The publication of A. Favaro's _Galileo e
l'Inquisizione: Documenti del Processo Galileiano ... per la prima
volta integralmente pubblicati_, (Firenze, 1907), together with that
of the National Edition (in 20 vols.) of Galileo's works, edited by
Favaro (Firenze, completed 1909), renders somewhat obsolete all
earlier lives of Galileo. The more valuable, however, of these books
are: Martin's _Galilee_ (Paris, 1868), a scholarly Catholic study
containing valuable bibliographical notes; Anon. (Mrs. Olney):
_Private Life of Galileo_, based largely on his correspondence with
his daughter from which many extracts are given; and von Gebler's
_Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia_ (trans. by Mrs. Sturge, London,
1879), which includes in the appendix the various decrees in the
original. Fahie's _Life of Galileo_ (London, 1903), is based on
Favaro's researches and is reliable. The documents of the trial have
been published in part by de l'Epinois, von Gebler and Berti, but
Favaro's is the complete and authoritative edition.]
Galileo's father, though himself a skilled mathematician, had
intended that his son (born at Pisa, February 15, 1564), should be a
cloth-dealer, but at length permitted him to study medicine instead at
the university of Pisa, after an elementary education at the monastery
of Vallombrosa near Florence. At the Tuscan Court in Pisa, Galileo
received his first lesson in mathematics, which thereupon became his
absorbing interest. After nearly four years he withdrew from the
university to Florence and devoted himself to that science and to
physics. His services as a professor at this time were refused by five
of the Italian universities; finally, in 1589, he obtained the
appointment to the chair of physics at Pisa. He became so unpopular
there, however, through his attacks on the Aristotelian physics of the
day, that after three years he resigned and accepted a similar
position at Padua.[228] He remained here nearly eighteen years till
his longing for leisure in which to pursue his researches, and the
patronage of his good friend, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, brought him a
professorship at the university of Pisa again, this time without
obligation of residence nor of lecturing. He took up his residence in
Florence in 1610; and later (1626), purchased a villa at Arcetri
outside the city, in order to be near the convent where his favorite
daughter "Suor Maria Celeste" was a religious.[229]
[Footnote 228: Fahie: 20-40.]
[Footnote 229: Ibid: 121.]
During the greater part of his lectureship at Padua, Galileo taught
according to the Ptolemaic cosmogony out of compliance with popular
feeling, though himself a Copernican. In a letter to Kepler (August 4,
1597)[230] he speaks of his entire acceptance of the new system for
some years; but not until after the appearance of the New Star in the
heavens in 1604 and 1605, and the controversy that its appearance
aroused over the Aristotelian notion of the perfect and unchangeable
heavens, did he publicly repudiate the old scheme and teach the new.
The only information we have as to how he came to adopt the Copernican
scheme for himself is the account given by "_Sagredo_," Galileo's
spokesman in the famous _Dialogue on the Two Principal Systems_
(1632):
"Being very young and having scarcely finished my course of
Philosophy which I left off, as being set upon other
employments, there chanced to come into these parts a
certain foreigner of Rostock, whose name as I remember, was
Christianus Vurstitius, a follower of Copernicus, who in an
Academy made two or three lectures upon this point, to whom
many flock't as auditors; but I thinking they went more for
the novelty of the subject than otherwise, did not go to
hear him; for I had concluded with myself that that opinion
could be no other than a solemn madnesse. And questioning
some of those who had been there, I perceived they all made
a jest thereof, except one, who told me that the business
was not altogether to be laugh't at, and because this man
was reputed by me to be very intelligent and wary, I
repented that I was not there, and began from that time
forward as oft as I met with anyone of the Copernican
persuasion, to demand of them, if they had always been of
the same judgment; and of as many as I examined, I found not
so much as one, who told me not that he had been a long time
of the contrary opinion, but to have changed it for this, as
convinced by the reasons proving the same: and afterwards
questioning them, one by one, to see whether they were well
possest of the reasons of the other side, I found them all
to be very ready and perfect in them; so that I could not
truly say that they had took up this opinion out of
ignorance, vanity, or to show the acuteness of their wits.
On the contrary, of as many of the Peripateticks and
Ptolemeans as I have asked (and out of curiosity I have
talked with many) what pains they had taken in the Book of
Copernicus, I found very few that had so much as
superficially perused it: but of those whom, I thought, had
understood the same, not one; and moreover, I have enquired
amongst the followers of the Peripatetick Doctrine, if ever
any of them had held the contrary opinion, and likewise
found that none had. Whereupon considering that there was no
man who followed the opinion of Copernicus that had not been
first on the contrary side, and that was not very well
acquainted with the reasons of Aristotle and Ptolemy; and on
the contrary, that there is not one of the followers of
Ptolemy that had ever been of the judgment of Copernicus,
and that had left that to embrace this of Aristotle,
considering, I say, these things, I began to think that one,
who leaveth an opinion imbued with his milk, and followed by
very many, to take up another owned by very few, and denied
by all the Schools, and that really seems a very great
Parodox, must needs have been moved, not to say forced, by
more powerful reasons. For this cause I am become very
curious to dive, as they say, into the bottom of this
business ... and bring myself to a certainty in this
subject."[231]
[Footnote 230: Galileo: _Opere_, X, 68.]
[Footnote 231: 'The Second Day' in Salusbury: _Math. Coll._ I,
110-111.]
Galileo's brilliant work in mechanics and his great popularity--for
his lectures were thronged--combined with his skilled and witty
attacks upon the accepted scientific ideas of the age, embittered and
antagonized many who were both conservative and jealous.[232] The
Jesuits particularly resented his influence and power, for they
claimed the leadership in the educational world and were jealous of
intruders. Furthermore, they were bound by the decree of the fiftieth
General Congregation of their society in 1593 to defend Aristotle, a
decree strictly enforced.[233] While a few of the Jesuits were
friendly disposed to Galileo at first, the controversies in which he
and they became involved and their bitter attacks upon him made him
feel by 1633 that they were among his chief enemies.[234]
[Footnote 232: Fahie: 265.]
[Footnote 233: Conway: 46-47.]
[Footnote 234: Conway: 46-47.]
Early in 1609, Galileo heard a rumor of a spy-glass having been made
in Flanders, and proceeded to work one out for himself according to
the laws of perspective. The fifth telescope that he made magnified
thirty diameters, and it was with such instruments of his own
manufacture that he made in the next three years his famous
discoveries: Jupiter's four satellites (which he named the Medicean
Planets), Saturn's "tripartite" character (the rings were not
recognized as such for several decades thereafter), the stars of the
Milky Way, the crescent form of Venus, the mountains of the moon, many
more fixed stars, and the spots on the sun. Popular interest waxed
with each new discovery and from all sides came requests for
telescopes; yet there were those who absolutely refused even to look
through a telescope lest they be compelled to admit Aristotle was
mistaken, and others claimed that Jupiter's moons were merely defects
in the instrument. The formal announcement of the first of these
discoveries was made in the _Sidereus Nuncius_ (1610), a book that
aroused no little opposition. Kepler, however, had it reprinted at
once in Prague with a long appreciative preface of his own.[235]
[Footnote 235: Fahie: 77-126.]
The following March Galileo went to Rome to show his discoveries and
was received with the utmost distinction by princes and church
dignitaries alike. A commission of four scientific members of the
Roman College had previously examined his claims at Cardinal
Bellarmin's suggestion, and had admitted their truth. Now Pope Paul V
gave him long audiences; the Academia dei Lincei elected him a member,
and everywhere he was acclaimed. Nevertheless his name appears on the
secret books of the Holy Office as early as May of that year
(1611).[236] Already he was a suspect.
[Footnote 236: Doc. in Favaro: 13.]
His _Delle Macchie Solari_ (1611) brought on a sharp contest over the
question of priority of discovery between him and the Jesuit father,
Christopher Scheiner of Ingolstadt, from which Galileo emerged
victorious and more disliked than before by that order. Opposition was
becoming active; Father Castelli, for instance, the professor of
mathematics at Pisa and Galileo's intimate friend, was forbidden to
discuss in his lectures the double motion of the earth or even to hint
at its probability. This same father wrote to his friend early in
December, 1613, to tell him of a dinner-table conversation on this
matter at the Tuscan Court, then wintering at Pisa. Castelli told how
the Dowager Grand Duchess Cristina had had her religious scruples
aroused by a remark that the earth's motion must be wrong because it
contradicted the Scriptures, a statement that he had tried to
refute.[237] Galileo wrote in reply (December 21, 1613), the
letter[238] that was to cause him endless trouble, in which he marked
out the boundaries between science and religion and declared it a
mistake to take the literal interpretation of passages in Scripture
that were obviously written according to the understanding of the
common people. He pointed out in addition how futile the miracle of
the sun's standing still was as an argument against the Copernican
doctrine for, even according to the Ptolemaic system, not the sun but
the _primum mobile_ must be stayed for the day to be lengthened.
[Footnote 237: Fahie: 149.]
[Footnote 238: Galileo: _Opere_, V, 281-288.]
Father Castelli allowed others to read and to copy this supposedly
private letter; copies went from hand to hand in Florence and
discussion ran high. On the fourth Sunday in December, 1614, Father
Caccini of the Dominicans preached a sermon in the church of S.M.
Novella on Joshua's miracle, in which he sharply denounced the
Copernican doctrine taught by Galileo as heretical, so he
believed.[239] The Copernicans found a Neapolitan Jesuit who replied
to Caccini the following Sunday from the pulpit of the Duomo.[240]
[Footnote 239: Doc. in Favaro: 48-49.]
[Footnote 240: Doc. in Favaro: 49.]
In February (1615), came the formal denunciation of Galileo to the
Holy Office at Rome by Father Lorini, a Dominican associate of
Caccini's at the Convent San Marco. The father sent with his "friendly
warning," a copy of the letter to Castelli charging that it contained
"many propositions which were either suspect or temerarious," and, he
added, "though the _Galileisti_ were good Christians they were rather
stubborn and obstinate in their opinions."[241] The machinery of the
Inquisition began secretly to turn. The authorities failed to get the
original of the letter, for Castelli had returned that to Galileo at
the latter's request.[242] Pope Paul sent word to Father Caccini to
appear before the Holy Office in Rome to depose on this matter of
Galileo's errors "pro exoneratione suae conscientiae."[243] This he did
"freely" in March and was of course sworn to secrecy. He named a
certain nobleman, a Copernican, as the source of his information about
Galileo, for he did not know the latter even by sight. This nobleman
was by order of the Pope examined in November after some delay by the
Inquisitor at Florence. His testimony was to the effect that he
considered Galileo the best of Catholics.[244]
[Footnote 241: Ibid: 38: "amorevole avviso."]
[Footnote 242: Ibid: 46, 47, 51.]
[Footnote 243: Ibid: 47.]
[Footnote 244: Ibid: 49.]
Meanwhile the Consultors of the Holy Office had examined Lorini's copy
of the letter and reported the finding of only three objectionable
places all of which, they stated, could be amended by changing certain
doubtful phrases; otherwise it did not deviate from the true faith. It
is interesting to note that the copy they had differed in many minor
respects from the original letter, and in one place heightened a
passage with which the Examiners found fault as imputing falsehood to
the Scriptures although they are infallible.[245] Galileo's own
statement ran that there were many passages in the Scriptures which
according to the literal meaning of the words, "hanno aspetto diverso
dal vero...." The copy read, "molte propositioni falso quanto al nudo
senso delle parole."
[Footnote 245: Ibid: 43-45, see original in Galileo: _Opere_, V,
281-285.]
Rumors of trouble reached Galileo and, urged on by his friends, in
1615 he wrote a long formal elaboration of the earlier letter,
addressing this one to the Dowager Grand Duchess, but he had only
added fuel to the fire. At the end of the year he voluntarily went to
Rome, regardless of any possible danger to himself, to see if he could
not prevent a condemnation of the doctrine.[246] It came as a decided
surprise to him to receive an order to appear before Cardinal
Bellarmin on February 26, 1616,[2] and there to learn that the Holy
Office had already condemned it two days before. He was told that the
Holy Office had declared: first, "that the proposition that the sun is
the center of the universe and is immobile is foolish and absurd in
philosophy and formally heretical since it contradicts the express
words of the Scriptures in many places, according to the meaning of
the words and the common interpretation and sense of the Fathers and
the doctors of theology; and, secondly, that the proposition that the
earth is not the center of the universe nor immobile receives the same
censure in philosophy and in regard to its theological truth, it at
least is erroneous in Faith."[247]
[Footnote 246: Doc. in Favaro: 78.]
[Footnote 247: Ibid: 61.]
Exactly what was said at that meeting between the two men became the
crucial point in Galileo's trial sixteen years later, hence a somewhat
detailed study is important. At the meeting of the Congregation on
February 25th, the Pope ordered Cardinal Bellarmin to summon Galileo
and, in the presence of a notary and witnesses lest he should prove
recusant, warn him to abandon the condemned opinion and in every way
to abstain from teaching, defending or discussing it; if he did not
acquiesce, he was to be imprisoned.[248] The Secret Archives of the
Vatican contain a minute reporting this interview (dated February 26,
1616), in which the Cardinal is said to have ordered Galileo to
relinquish this condemned proposition, "nec eam de caetero, quovis
modo, teneat, doceat aut defendat, verbo aut scriptis," and that
Galileo promised to obey.[249] Rumors evidently were rife in Rome at
the time as to what had happened at this secret interview, for Galileo
wrote to the Cardinal in May asking for a statement of what actually
had occurred so that he might silence his enemies. The Cardinal
replied:
"We, Robert Cardinal Bellarmin, having heard that Signor
Galileo was calumniated and charged with having abjured in
our hand, and also of being punished by salutary penance,
and being requested to give the truth, state that the
aforesaid Signor Galileo has not abjured in our hand nor in
the hand of any other person in Rome, still less in any
other place, so far as we know, any of his opinions and
teachings, nor has he received salutary penance nor any
other kind; but only was he informed of the declaration made
by his Holiness and published by the Sacred Congregation of
the Index, in which it is stated that the doctrine
attributed to Copernicus,--that the earth moves around the
sun and that the sun stands in the center of the world
without moving from the east to the west, is contrary to the
Holy Scriptures and therefore cannot be defended nor held
(non si possa difendere ne tenere). And in witness of this
we have written and signed these presents with our own hand,
this 26th day of May, 1616.
ROBERT CARDINAL BELLARMIN."[250]
[Footnote 248: Ibid: 61.]
[Footnote 249: Doc. in Favaro: 61-62.]
[Footnote 250: Ibid: 88.]
Galileo's defense sixteen years later[251] was that he had obeyed the
order as given him by the Cardinal and that he had not "defended nor
held" the doctrine in his _Dialoghi_ but had refuted it. The
Congregation answered that he had been ordered not only not to hold
nor defend, but also not to treat in any way (quovis modo) this
condemned subject. When Galileo disclaimed all recollection of that
phrase and produced the Cardinal's statement in support of his
position, he was told that this document, far from lightening his
guilt, greatly aggravated it since he had dared to deal with a subject
that he had been informed was contrary to the Holy Scriptures.[252]
[Footnote 251: Ibid: 80-86.]
[Footnote 252: Ibid: 145.]
To return to 1616. On the third of March the Cardinal reported to the
Congregation in the presence of the Pope that he had warned Galileo
and that Galileo had acquiesced.[253] The Congregation then reported
its decree suspending "until corrected" "Nicolai Copernici De
Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, et Didaci Astunica in Job," and
prohibiting "Epistola Fratris Pauli Antonii Foscarini Carmelitae,"
together with all other books dealing with this condemned and
prohibited doctrine. The Pope ordered this decree to be published by
the Master of the Sacred Palace, which was done two days later.[254]
But this prohibition could not have been widely known for two or three
years; the next year Mulier published his edition of the _De
Revolutionibus_ at Amsterdam without a word of reference to it; in
1618 Thomas Feyens, professor at Louvain, heard vague rumors of the
condemnation and wondered if it could be true;[255] and the following
spring Fromundus, also at Louvain and later a noted antagonist of the
new doctrine, wrote to Feyens asking:
"What did I hear lately from you about the Copernicans? That
they have been condemned a year or two ago by our Holy
Father, Pope Paul V? Until now I have known nothing about
it; no more have this crowd of German and Italian scholars,
very learned and, as I think, very Catholic, who admit with
Copernicus that the earth is turned. Is it possible that
after a lapse of time as considerable as this, we have
nothing more than a rumor of such an event? I find it hard
to believe, since nothing more definite has come from Italy.
Definitions of this sort ought above all to be published in
the universities where the learned men are to whom the
danger of such an opinion is very great."[256]
[Footnote 253: Ibid: 16.]
[Footnote 254: Doc. in Favaro: 16.]
[Footnote 255: Monchamp: 46.]
[Footnote 256: Fromundus: _De Cometa Anni_ 1618: chap. VII, p. 68.
(From the private library of Dr. E.E. Slosson. A rare book which Lecky
could not find. _History of Rationalism in Europe_, I, 280, note.)]
Galileo meanwhile had retired to Florence and devoted himself to
mechanical science, (of which his work is the foundation) though
constantly harassed by much ill health and many family perplexities.
At the advice of his friends, he allowed the attacks on the Copernican
doctrine to go unanswered,[257] till with the accession to the
papacy in 1623 of Cardinal Barberini, as Urban VIII, a warm admirer
and supporter of his, he thought relief was in sight. He was further
cheered by a conversation Cardinal di Zollern reported having had with
Pope Urban, in which his Holiness had reminded the Cardinal how he
(the Pope) had defended Copernicus in the time of Paul V, and asserted
that out of just respect owed to the memory of Copernicus, if he had
been pope then, he would not have permitted his opinion to be declared
heretical.[258] Feeling that he now had friends in power, Galileo
began his great work, _Dialogo sopra i Due Sistemi Massimi del Mondo_,
a dialogue in four "days" in which three interlocutors discuss the
arguments for and against the Copernican theory, though coming to no
definite conclusion. Sagredo was an avowed Copernican and Galileo's
spokesman, Salviati was openminded, and the peripatetic was Simplicio,
appropriately named for the famous Sicilian sixth century commentator
on Aristotle.[259]
[Footnote 257: In 1620 the Congregation issued the changes it required
to have made in the _De Revolutionibus_. They are nine in all, and
consist mainly in changing assertion of the earth's movement to
hypothetical statement and in striking out a reference to the earth as
a planet. Doc. in Favaro: 140-141. See illustration, p. 61.]
[Footnote 258: Doc. in Favaro: 149.]
[Footnote 259: Galileo: _Dialogo_: To the Reader.]
[Illustration: A "CORRECTED" PAGE FROM THE _De Revolutionibus_.
A photographic facsimile (reduced) of a page from Mulier's edition
(1617) of the _De Revolutionibus_ as "corrected" according to the
_Monitum_ of the Congregations in 1620. The first writer underlined
the passages to be deleted or altered with marginal notes indicating
the changes ordered; the second writer scratched out these passages,
and wrote out in full the changes the other had given in abbreviated
form. The _Notae_ are Mulier's own, and so were not affected by the
order. The effect of the page is therefore somewhat contradictory!]
In 1630 he brought the completed manuscript to Riccardi, Master of the
Sacred Palace, for permission to print it in Rome. After much reading
and re-reading of it both by Riccardi and his associate, Father
Visconti, permission was at length granted on condition that he insert
a preface and a conclusion practically dictated by Riccardi,
emphasizing its hypothetical character.[260] The Pope's own argument
was to be used: "God is all-powerful; all things are therefore
possible to Him; ergo, the tides cannot be adduced as a necessary
proof of the double motion of the earth without limiting God's
omnipotence--which is absurd."[261] Galileo returned to Florence in
June with the permission to print his book in Rome. Meanwhile the
plague broke out. He decided to print it in Florence instead, and on
writing to Riccardi for that permission, the latter asked for the book
to review it again. The times were too troublesome to risk sending it,
so a compromise was finally effected: Galileo was to send the preface
and conclusion to Rome and Riccardi agreed to instruct the Inquisitor
at Florence as to his requirements and to authorize him to license the
book.[262] The parts were not returned from Rome till July, 1631, and
the book did not appear till February of the following year, when it
was published at Florence with all these licenses, both the Roman and
the Florentine ones.
[Footnote 260: Doc. in Favaro: 70.]
[Footnote 261: Fahie: 230.]
[Footnote 262: Ibid: 240.]
The _Dialogo_ was in Italian so that all could read it. It begins with
an outline of the Aristotelian system, then points out the
resemblances between the earth and the planets. The second "day"
demonstrates the daily rotation of the earth on its axis. The next
claims that the necessary stellar parallax is too minute to be
observed and discusses the earth's annual rotation. The last seeks to
prove this rotation by the ebb and flow of the tides. It is a
brilliant book and received a great reception.
The authorities of the Inquisition at once examined it and denounced
Galileo (April 17, 1633) because in it he not merely taught and
defended the "condemned doctrine but was gravely suspected of firm
adherence to this opinion."[263] Other charges made against him were
that he had printed the Roman licenses without the permission of the
Congregation, that he had printed the preface in different type so
alienating it from the body of the book, and had put the required
conclusion into the mouth of a fool (Simplicio), that in many places
he had abandoned the hypothetical treatment and asserted the forbidden
doctrine, and that he had dealt indecisively with the matter though
the Congregation had specifically condemned the Copernican doctrine as
contrary to the express words of the Scripture.[264]
[Footnote 263: Doc. in Favaro: 88-89. [Transcriber's Note: Missing
footnote reference in original text has been added above in a logical
place.]]
[Footnote 264: Ibid: 66.]
The Pope became convinced that Galileo had ridiculed him in the
character of Simplicio to whom Galileo had naturally enough assigned
the Pope's syllogistic argument. On the 23rd of September, he ordered
the Inquisitor of Florence to notify Galileo (in the presence of
concealed notary and witnesses in case he were "recusant") to come to
Rome and appear before the Sacred Congregation before the end of the
next month;[265] the publication and sale of the _Dialogo_ meanwhile
being stopped at great financial loss to the printer.[266] Galileo
promised to obey; but he was nearly seventy years old and so much
broken in health that a long difficult journey in the approaching
winter seemed a great and unnecessary hardship, especially as he was
loath to believe that the Church authorities were really hostile to
him. Delays were granted him till the Pope in December finally ordered
him to be in Rome within a month.[267] The Florentine Inquisitor
replied that Galileo was in bed so sick that three doctors had
certified that he could not travel except at serious risk to his life.
This certificate declared that he suffered from an intermittent pulse,
from enfeebled vital faculties, from frequent dizziness, from
melancholia, weakness of the stomach, insomnia, shooting pains and
serious hernia.[268] The answer the Pope made to this was to order the
Inquisitor to send at Galileo's expense a commissary and a doctor out
to his villa to see if he were feigning illness; if he were, he was to
be sent bound and in chains to Rome at once; if [Transcriber's Note:
'he' missing] were really too ill to travel, then he was to be sent in
chains as soon as he was convalescent and could travel safely.[269]
Galileo did not delay after that any longer than he could help, and
set out for Rome in January in a litter supplied by the Tuscan Grand
Duke.[270] The journey was prolonged by quarantine, but upon his
arrival (February 13, 1633), he was welcomed into the palace of
Niccolini, the warm-hearted ambassador of the Grand Duke.
[Footnote 265: Ibid: 17-18.]
[Footnote 266: Galileo: _Opere_, XV, 26.]
[Footnote 267: Doc. in Favaro: 74.]
[Footnote 268: Ibid: 75.]
[Footnote 269: Ibid: 76.]
[Footnote 270: Ibid: 80-81.]
Four times was the old man summoned into the presence of the Holy
Office, though never when the Pope was presiding. In his first
examination held on the 12th of April, he told how he thought he had
obeyed the decree of 1616 as his _Dialogo_ did not defend the
Copernican doctrine but rather confuted it, and that in his desire to
do the right, he had personally submitted the book while in manuscript
to the censorship of the Master of the Sacred Palace, and had accepted
all the changes he and the Florentine Inquisitor had required. He had
not mentioned the affair of 1616 because he thought that order did not
apply to this book in which he proved the lack of validity and of
conclusiveness of the Copernican arguments.[271] With remarkable, in
fact unique, consideration, the Holy Office then assigned Galileo to a
suite of rooms within the prisons of the Holy Office, allowed him to
have his servant with him and to have his meals sent in by the
ambassador. On the 30th after his examination, they even assigned as
his prison, the Ambassador's palace, out of consideration for his age
and ill-health.
[Footnote 271: Ibid: 80-81.]
In his second appearance (April 30), Galileo declared he had been
thinking matters over after re-reading his book (which he had not read
for three years), and freely confessed that there were several
passages which would mislead a reader unaware of his real intentions,
into believing the worse arguments were the better, and he blamed
these slips upon his vain ambition and delight in his own skill in
debate.[272] He thereupon offered to write another "day" or two more
for the _Dialogo_ in which he would completely refute the two "strong"
Copernican arguments based on the sun's spots and on the tides.[273]
Ten days later, at his third appearance, he presented a written
statement of his defence in which he claimed that the phrase _vel
quovis modo docere_ was wholly new to him, and that he had obeyed the
order given him by Cardinal Bellarmin over the latter's own signature.
However he would make what amends he could and begged the Cardinals to
"consider his miserable bodily health and his incessant mental trouble
for the past ten months, the discomforts of a long hard journey at the
worst season, when 70 years old, together with the loss of the greater
part of the year, and that therefore such suffering might be adequate
punishment for his faults which they might condone to failing old age.
Also he commended to them his honor and reputation against the
calumnies of his ill-wishers who seek to detract from his good
name."[274] To such a plight was the great man brought! But the end
was not yet.
[Footnote 272: Doc. in Favaro: 83.]
[Footnote 273: Ibid: 84.]
[Footnote 274: Ibid: 85-87.]
Nearly a month later (June 16), by order of the Pope, Galileo was once
again interrogated, this time under threat of torture.[275] Once again
he declared the opinion of Ptolemy true and indubitable and said he
did not hold and had not held this doctrine of Copernicus after he had
been informed of the order to abandon it. "As for the rest," he added,
"I am in your hands, do with me as you please." "I am here to
obey."[276] Then by the order of the Pope, ensued Galileo's complete
abjuration on his knees in the presence of the full Congregation,
coupled with his promise to denounce other heretics (i.e.,
Copernicans).[277] In addition, because he was guilty of the heresy of
having held and believed a doctrine declared and defined as contrary
to the Scriptures, he was sentenced to "formal imprisonment" at the
will of the Congregation, and to repeat the seven penitential Psalms
every week for three years.[278]
[Footnote 275: Ibid: 101.]
[Footnote 276: Doc. in Favaro: 101.]
[Footnote 277: Doc. in Favaro: 146.]
[Footnote 278: Ibid: 145.]
At Galileo's earnest request, his sentence was commuted almost at
once, to imprisonment first in the archiepiscopal palace in Siena
(from June 30-December 1), then in his own villa at Arcetri, outside
Florence, though under strict orders not to receive visitors but to
live in solitude.[279] In the spring his increasing illness occasioned
another request for greater liberty in order to have the necessary
visits from the doctor; but on March 23, 1634, this was denied him
with a stern command from the Pope to refrain from further petitions
lest the Sacred Congregation be compelled to recall him to their
prisons in Rome.[280]
[Footnote 279: Ibid: 103, 129.]
[Footnote 280: Ibid: 134.]
The rule forbidding visitors seems not to have been rigidly enforced
all the time, for Milton visited him, "a prisoner of the Inquisition"
in 1638;[281] yet Father Castelli had to write to Rome for permission
to visit him to learn his newly invented method of finding longitude
at sea.[282] When in Florence on a very brief stay to see his doctor,
Galileo had to have the especial consent of the Inquisitor in order to
attend mass at Easter. He won approval from the Holy Congregation,
however, by refusing to receive some gifts and letters brought him by
some German merchants from the Low Countries.[283] He was then totally
blind, but he dragged out his existence until January 8, 1642 (the
year of Newton's birth), when he died. As the Pope objected to a
public funeral for a man sentenced by the Holy Office, he was buried
without even an epitaph.[284] The first inscription was made 31 years
later, and in 1737, his remains were removed to Santa Croce after the
Congregation had first been asked if such action would be
unobjectionable.[285]
[Footnote 281: Milton: _Areopagitica_: 35.]
[Footnote 282: Doc. in Favaro: 135.]
[Footnote 283: Ibid: 137.]
[Footnote 284: Fahie: 402.]
[Footnote 285: Doc. in Favaro: 138; and Fahie: 402.]
Pope Urban had no intention of concealing Galileo's abjuration and
sentence. Instead, he ordered copies of both to be sent to all
inquisitors and papal nuncios that they might notify all their clergy
and especially all the professors of mathematics and philosophy within
their districts, particularly those at Florence, Padua and Pisa.[286]
This was done during the summer and fall of 1633. From Wilna in
Poland, Cologne, Paris, Brussels, and Madrid, as well as from all
Italy, came the replies of the papal officials stating that the order
had been obeyed.[287] He evidently intended to leave no ground for a
remark like that of Fromundus about the earlier condemnation.
[Footnote 286: Doc. in Favaro: 101, 103.]
[Footnote 287: Ibid: 104-132.]
Galileo was thus brought so low that the famous remark, "Eppur si
muove," legend reports him to have made as he rose to his feet after
his abjuration, is incredible in itself, even if it had appeared in
history earlier than its first publication in 1761.[288] But his
discoveries and his fight in defence of the system did much both to
strengthen the doctrine itself and to win adherents to it. The
appearance of the moon as seen through a telescope destroyed the
Aristotelian notion of the perfection of heavenly bodies. Jupiter's
satellites gave proof by analogy of the solar system, though on a
smaller scale. The discovery of the phases of Venus refuted a hitherto
strong objection to the Copernican system; and the discovery of the
spots on the sun led to his later discovery of the sun's axial
rotation, another proof by analogy of the axial rotation of the earth.
Yet he swore the Ptolemaic conception was the true one.
[Footnote 288: Fahie: 325, note.]
The abjuration of Galileo makes a pitiful page in the history of
thought and has been a fruitful source of controversy[289] for nearly
three centuries. He was unquestionably a sincere and loyal Catholic,
and accordingly submitted to the punishment decreed by the
authorities. But in his abjuration he plainly perjured himself,
however fully he may be pardoned for it because of the extenuating
circumstances. Had he not submitted and been straitly imprisoned, if
not burned, the world would indeed have been the poorer by the loss
of his greatest work, the _Dialoghi delle Nuove Scienze_, which he did
not publish until 1636.[290]
[Footnote 289: For full statement, see Martin: 133-207.]
[Footnote 290: Gebler: 263.]
Even more hotly debated has been the action of the Congregations in
condemning the Copernican doctrine, and sentencing Galileo as a
heretic for upholding it.[291] Though both Paul V and Urban VIII
spurred on these actions, neither signed either the decree or the
sentence, nor was the latter present at Galileo's examinations. Pope
Urban would prefer not so openly to have changed his position from
that of tolerance to his present one of active opposition caused
partly by his piqued self-respect[292] and partly by his belief that
this heresy was more dangerous even than that of Luther and
Calvin.[293] It is a much mooted question whether the infallibility of
the Church was involved or not. Though the issue at stake was not one
of faith, nor were the decrees issued by the Pope _ex cathedra_, but
by a group of Cardinals, a fallible body, yet they had the full
approbation of the Popes, and later were published in the Index
preceded by a papal bull excommunicating those who did not obey the
decrees contained therein.[294] It seems to be a matter of the letter
as opposed to the spirit of the law. De Morgan points out that
contemporary opinion as represented by Fromundus, an ardent opponent
of Galileo, did not consider the Decree of the Index or of the
Inquisition as a declaration of the Church,[295]--a position which
Galileo himself may have held, thus explaining his practical disregard
of the decree of 1616 after he was persuaded the authorities were more
favorably disposed to him. But M. Martin, himself a Catholic,
thinks[296] that theoretically the Congregations could punish Galileo
only for disobedience of the secret order,--but even so his book had
been examined and passed by the official censors.
[Footnote 291: See Gebler: 244-247; White: I, 159-167; also Martin.]
[Footnote 292: Martin: 136; and Salusbury: _Math. Coll._ "To the
reader."]
[Footnote 293: Galileo: _Opere_, XV, 25.]
[Footnote 294: Putnam: I, 310.]
[Footnote 295: De Morgan: I, 98.]
[Footnote 296: Martin: 140.]
When the Index was revised under Pope Benedict XIV in 1757, largely
through the influence of the Jesuit astronomer Boscovich, so it is
said,[297] the phrase prohibiting all books teaching the immobility
of the sun, and the mobility of the earth was omitted from the
decrees.[298] But in 1820, the Master of the Sacred Palace refused to
permit the publication in Rome of a textbook on astronomy by Canon
Settele, who thereupon appealed to the Congregations. They granted his
request in August, and two years later, issued a decree approved by
Pope Pius VII ordering the Master of the Sacred Palace in future "not
to refuse license for publication of books dealing with the mobility
of the earth and the immobility of the sun according to the common
opinion of modern astronomers" on that ground alone.[299] The next
edition of the _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_ (1835) did not contain
the works of Copernicus, Galileo, Foscarini, a Stunica and Kepler
which had appeared in every edition up to that time since their
condemnation in 1616, (Kepler's in 1619).
[Footnote 297: _Cath. Ency._: "Boscovich."]
[Footnote 298: Doc. in Favaro: 159.]
[Footnote 299: Ibid: 30, 31.]