THE TRIAL OF GALILEO. 387 



was pursuing the course of his great researches with the boldness of 

 a man confident of his strength and of his fame, when certain slight 

 indications no doubt warned him that it would not be disadvantageous, 

 if he would carry on his researches in safety, to win the favor of the 

 Sacred College. Accordingly he set out in 1611 for the Eternal City, 

 without confessed misgiving, but with the ambition and expectation 

 of interesting the most influential personages of the Roman court in 

 his discoveries. He was nearing the decisive moment of his career. 

 He had not as yet been disquieted by the objections of the theolo- 

 gians, though in prosecuting his studies of the constitution of the 

 universe he was touching upon delicate questions which he could not 

 expect to be permitted to discuss freely, without having first gained 

 the sympathy, or at least the neutrality, of the Church. The court of 

 Rome at that time exercised such moral authority in Italy, and es- 

 pecially at Florence, where Galileo resided, that people in some sense 

 waited for her decision before they would accept the best-established 

 conclusions in astronomy. The Grand-duke of Tuscany could not 

 but be pleased at the discovery of Jupiter's satellites, announced in 

 the " Sidereus Nuncius ; " and he was all the more ready to believe, 

 because these new heavenly bodies had received his family name : yet 

 his own secretary had to admit that the discovery would never receive 

 the unanimous assent of the learned world until it was approved and 

 verified at Rome. There sat the Roman College, a regular tribunal, 

 scientific as well as theological, whose decrees were law in Catholic 

 countries. 



Galileo, who was a man of rare good sense, and perfectly con- 

 versant with the ways of the world, had in advance formed at Rome 

 the best and the most powerful of relations. Besides, he came there 

 in a sort of official capacity, at the grand-duke's charges, and he was 

 entertained there by the Tuscan embassador. Prelates, cardinals, 

 princes, vied with one another for the honor of offering fetes and ban- 

 quets to the most illustrious representative of Italian science. At the 

 palace of Cardinal Bandini, in the beautiful gardens of the Quirinal, 

 in the villa of the Marquis Cesi on the summit of the Janiculan, 

 Galileo delighted a society of elite by having them contemplate, 

 during the serene nights of April, the vault of heaven through the 

 telescope which he had recently invented, and which bears his name. 

 He awakened a genuine enthusiasm one day when, after dinner, he 

 pointed his telescope toward St. John of Lateran, three miles distant, 

 and enabled the guests to read the inscription upon the facade of 

 that basilica. 



His arguments did not equally convince all of those who were pres- 

 ent at his astronomical observations, and who listened to the explana- 

 tion he gave of the movement of Jupiter's four satellites, the inequali- 

 ties of the moon's surface, and the phases of Venus and Saturn, and to 

 the discussions he carried on with those who opposed his views. His 



