394 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



important be considered the publication of his work to be. The chief 

 fruit of his address was that he escaped a second revision of the text, 

 which would have been made at Rome had the work been printed 

 there. Galileo chose rather to deal with the inquisitor at Florence, 

 to whom Father Riccardi had delegated his powers, but who, doubt- 

 less at the solicitation of the grand-duke, exercised these powers 

 with less rigor than would have been used at the Sacred Palace. We 

 can imagine the wrath manifested by the court of Rome ; in fact, 

 despite all its finesse, it had been outwitted by an Italian shrewder 

 even than itself, by a fellow-countryman of Macchiavelli. 



Would Galileo have been so eager for the publication of his work, 

 if he had foreseen the dangers to which he exposed himself by pub 

 lishing it ? The sovereign pontiff, immediately upon receipt of the 

 book, in the beginning of August, 1632, was highly incensed, charged 

 Galileo with having made an unhandsome return for his kindness, and 

 would on the spot have referred the author and the book to the tri- 

 bunal of the Holy Office, had he not been restrained by the importu 

 nities of the embassador Niccolini, and his fear of offending the 

 Grand-duke of Tuscany. "Galileo," said Urban, "has not acted with 

 out deliberation, has not sinned through ignorance ; he was perfectly 

 well aware of the difficulties of the case, for I myself have made them 

 clear to him." These expressions of dissatisfaction on the part of the 

 sovereign pontiff would seem to show that, in the interviews of which 

 we have spoken, the two friends had touched on the delicate question 

 of the earth's motion, and that, by a process of self-illusion quite nat- 

 ural under the circumstances, each had supposed he had convinced the 

 other. The pope was angry at Galileo, as at one in whom he had for 

 a long time mistakenly reposed confidence as though a fraud had 

 been practised upon him ; this feeling, w r hich had broken the bond of 

 their old friendship, explains the harshness with which Urban treated 

 the friend of his youth. Nor had Galileo been less mistaken with 

 regard to the disposition of the pope's mind. He flattered himself 

 that he should find in him an indulgent judge of his astronomical 

 theories, while in point of fact he was wounding Urban in his most 

 sacred convictions. Had he known that the pope was so opposed to 

 the system of Copernicus, doubtless he never would have braved the 

 wrath of one whose power was unlimited, or affronted a tribunal from 

 which there was no appeal. 



On receipt of the "Dialogues," Urban instructed a commission to 

 examine the book and report to him. As soon as the report came into 

 his hands, he commanded the inquisitor at Florence to communicate 

 to Galileo a formal summons to appear in October before the commis- 

 sary-general of the Holy Office in Rome. Galileo, then seventy years 

 of age, and suffering from hernia, asked the authorities to take into 

 consideration his age and his malady, and to dispense him from the 

 journey. The Grand-duke of Tuscany interceded for him. But 



