The gradual acceptance of the Copernican theory of the universe Part 8

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 a.s.sociate 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 n.o.bleman, a Copernican, as the source of his information about Galileo, for he did not know the latter even by sight. This n.o.bleman 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sages 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 d.u.c.h.ess, 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 doc.u.ment, 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...o...b..um 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 hara.s.sed 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 a.s.serted 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 Ma.s.simi 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 a.s.sertion 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 ill.u.s.tration, p. 61.]

[Footnote 258: Doc. in Favaro: 149.]

[Footnote 259: Galileo: _Dialogo_: To the Reader.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.sages to be deleted or altered with marginal notes indicating the changes ordered; the second writer scratched out these pa.s.sages, 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 ma.n.u.script 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 a.s.sociate, 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: "G.o.d 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 G.o.d'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 a.s.serted 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 a.s.signed 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 amba.s.sador of the Grand Duke.

[Footnote 265: Ibid: 17-18.]

[Footnote 266: Galileo: _Opere_, XV, 26.]