THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



FEBRUARY, 1877. 



THE TRIAL OF GALILEO. 1 



By A. MEZIERES, 



OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 



MANY points have been left obscure in the history of the double 

 trial of Galileo, the details of which till lately were but imper- 

 fectly known. The important work published by Domenico Berti 2 

 fills up some of these gaps, by placing before our eyes a collection of 

 authentic documents taken from the secret archives of the Vatican. 

 We have here no work of partisanship, undertaken in the interest of 

 religious controversy, but an historical work executed with all the 

 scrupulous care that is nowadays exacted in all historical researches. 

 In France the question had already been handled by Libri, Biot, 

 Joseph Bertrand, Trouessart, and Th. Henri Martin, the first two ap- 

 proaching it with preconceived opinions that aided but little in the 

 discovery of the truth, while the others brought to the discussion a 

 remarkable spirit of impartiality. But all of these writers lacked the 

 indispensable elements of information which now, thanks to the labors 

 of Domenico Berti, are at the disposal of the future biographers of 

 Galileo. If we have suffered ourselves to be anticipated by an Italian 

 in the publication of the documents relating to this famous case, we 

 must attribute the fact either to the negligence or to the prudence of 

 the French Government, for we were in possession, for nearly half a 

 century, of the valuable manuscript the full text of which is now 

 published by Berti. Having been taken out of the Vatican archives 

 during the first empire and carried to Paris, this original collection 

 was there seen by the historian Denina, but he thought it to be of no 

 importance. Nevertheless Napoleon I. ordered it to be published, 

 with a translation facing the text ; but the publication, though begun, 



1 Translated from the Revue des Deux Mondes by J. Fitzgerald, A. M. 



2 " II Processo Originate di Galileo Galilei, pubblicato per la prima volta," Roma, 

 1876. 



vol. x. 25 



