i 5 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Pope Alexander VII in 1G64, in his bull " Speculatores," solemnly 

 sanctioned the condemnation of all books affirming the earth's 

 movement.* 



When Gassendi attempted to raise the point that the decision 

 against Copernicus and Galileo was not sanctioned by the Church 

 as such, an eminent theological authority, Father Lecazre, rector 

 of the College of Dijon, publicly contradicted him, and declared 

 that it " was not certain cardinals, but the supreme authority of 

 the Church," that had condemned Galileo ; and to this statement 

 the Pope and other Church authorities gave consent either openly 

 or by silence. When Descartes and others attempted to raise the 

 same point, they were treated with contempt. Father Castelli, 

 who had devoted himself to Galileo, and knew to his cost just 

 what the condemnation meant and who made it, takes it for 

 granted in his letter to the papal authorities that it was made by 

 the Church. Cardinal Querenghi, in his letters ; the ambassador 

 Guicciardini, in his dispatches ; Polacco, in his refutation ; the 

 historian Yiviani, in his biography of Galileo all writing under 

 Church inspection and approval at the time, took the view that 

 the Pope and Church condemned Galileo, and this was never 

 denied at Rome. The Inquisition itself, backed by the greatest 

 theologian of the time, Bellarmin, took the same view. Not only 

 does he declare that he makes the condemnation " in the name of 

 his Holiness the Pope," but we have the Roman Index, contain- 

 ing the condemnation for nearly two hundred years, prefaced by 

 a solemn bull of the reigning Pope binding this condemnation on 

 the consciences of the whole Church, and declaring year after 

 year that " all books which affirm the motion of the earth " are 

 damnable. To attempt to face all this, added to the fact that 

 Galileo was required to abjure " the heresy of the movement of 

 the earth " by written order of the Pope, was soon seen to be im- 

 possible. Against the assertion that the Pope was not responsi- 

 ble we have all this mass of testimony, and the bull of Alexander 

 VII in 1664. f 



This contention, then, was at last utterly given up by honest 



* For references by Urban VIII to the condemnation as made by Pope Paul V, see pp. 

 136, 144, and elsewhere in Martin, who much against his will is forced to allow this. See 

 also Roberts, Pontifical Decrees against the Earth's Movement, and St. George Mivart's 

 article, as above quoted ; also Reusch, Der Index verbotenen Biicher, Bonn, 1885, vol. ii, 

 pp. 29 et seq. 



j- For Lecazre's answer to Gassendi, see Martin, pp. 146, 147. For the attempt to 

 make the crime of Galileo a breach of etiquette, see Dublin Review, as above. Whewell, 

 vol. i, p. 283. Citation from Marini : " Galileo was punished for trifling with the authori- 

 ties, to which he refused to submit, and was punished for obstinate contumacy, not heresy." 

 The sufficient answer to all this is that the words of the inflexible sentence designating the 

 condemned books are " Libri omnes qui affirmant telluris motum." See Bertrand, p. 59. 

 As to the idea that " Galileo was punished, not for his opinion, but for basing it on Script- 



