. GALILEO. I2 9 



signal mark of favor. A letter, drawn up by Galileo, was despatched 

 by the Grand Duke to the angry Pope. On September 4, 1632, the 

 Pope said to the Tuscan ambassador, Niccolini— Galileo's faithful 

 friend: 'Your Galileo has ventured to meddle with things that he 

 ought not, and with the most important and dangerous subjects.' He 

 added that Galileo's book had been printed by a ruse. As to the ob- 

 jections to the book ' Galileo knows well enough what the objections 

 are . . . because we have talked to him about them, and he has heard 

 them all from us.' The Pope had acted, he said 'with the greatest 

 consideration for Galileo,' and added that Ms own conduct towards 

 Galileo had been far better than Galileo's to him, for Galileo had de- 

 ceived him. The Pope was firmly convinced that religion had been 

 imperiled. 



The special commission reported after about a month that Galileo 

 has transgressed orders in deviating from hypothetical treatment of 

 the Copernican opinion and by decidedly maintaining it he has 

 erroneously ascribed the phenomena of the tides to the stability of 

 the sun and the motion of the earth, which do not exist ; he has been 

 deceitfully silent about the command laid upon him by the Holy Office 

 in 1616, to relinquish the Copernican doctrine "nor henceforth to 

 hold, teach or defend it in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing, 

 etc.,' 'which injunction Galileo acquiesced in and promised to obey.' 

 Furthermore, Galileo printed the imprimatur of Some on the title 

 page of the Dialogues without authority; he put the saving clause of 

 the book in the mouth of a simpleton, etc. (A full account of this 

 report is given in Gebler's ' Galileo,' English edition, pp. 172-3. It 

 is only incidentally of importance to us here.) 



On the fifteenth of September, 1632, the Pope notified Niccolini 

 that Galileo's affair was to be transferred to the inquisition. This 

 was astounding news to the ambassador, who had all along believed 

 that no proceedings would be taken against the astronomer and that 

 the very worst to be feared was perhaps a command to alter certain 

 phrases of the book. In the interview the Pope said ' Galileo was 

 still his friend ' — but that the Copernican opinion had been condemned 

 sixteen years previously. At a meeting of the Congregation of the 

 Holy Office held on September 23, it was pronounced that Galileo had 

 disobe} r ed the command of February 26, 1616, and had concealed the 

 prohibition then received by him from the censor at the time he 

 applied for the imprimatur for his book; the inquisitor at Florence 

 was, on the same day, by command of the Pope, directed to summon 

 Galileo to appear before the commissary-general of the Holy Office 

 in Eoom, ' as soon as possible, in the course of the month of October.' 

 On October 1, Galileo, in writing, acknowledged the receipt of the 

 summons and promised to present himself during October, as directed. 



VOL. LXVII. — 9. 



