( 601 ) [Ju-NE, 



GALILEO AND THE COPERNICAN SYSTEM. 



While the clamours of discontented faction are assailing the present age 

 with every term of reproach, when this country, in jjarticular, is re[)resented as 

 in more abject slavery than even the iron reign of Bonaparte produced on the 

 continent it is with no ordinary pride that we can appeal to the arts and to the 

 present state of literature for a satisfactory refutation of these mercenary 

 calumnies. That servitude is as prejudicial to the advancement of knowledge as 

 liberty is favourable to it, may be considered as an axiom : consequently when 

 ■we find all the sciences cultivated with ardour and success — when every new 

 discovery is rapidly followed by another still more brilliant — when governments 

 vie with each other in promoting the ends of science, and in liberality towards 

 its professors — it never can be said that the present age is debased or degraded, 

 that despotism would extinguish the lamp of knowledge, and that the vagrant 

 liberty of our ancestors is preferable to freedom, regulated and restrained as 

 prudence may dictate for the welfare of society. Indeed the remarkable, and 

 to us hiohly flattering, contrast between the state of Europe at the present 

 time, and in the middle ages, renders the darkness of the latter much more 

 sensibly felt ; and the foreground being partially obscured by the blackness of 

 the horizon, a shade is cast over many events that occurred at the revival of 

 letters, which the romantic interest thence arising seems rather to perpetuate 

 than to remove. As portrayed by the master hand of La Place, we now behold 

 science not in the bloom of youth, but in the vigour of maturity; not with the 

 wild, luxuriant, loveliness of early years, but with the dignified beauty of a 

 matron, when time has brought her charms to perfection, and experience has 

 added every grace which tastecan imagine and art can supply. We should regret 

 to think that she broke from her Gothic tomb without a struggle ; we contem- 

 plate with lively emotion the contests and triumph of truth, the labours of 

 those glorious men who, in some degree, laid the foundation on which Newton 

 has raised his magnificent superstructure. We are moved with indignation at 

 the pathetic descriptions, the melancholy pictures which represent the venerable 

 and aged Galileo — the object of admiration and applause throughout Europe of 

 all who could appreciate his talents — laden with chains, imprisoned, tortured, 

 from the blind, superstitious bigotry of papal ignorance. But here there is more 

 of fiction than of reality : the subject is interesting; and, as it is in some degree 

 obscure, we shall avail ourselves of the light which has been thrown upon it by 

 two memoirs of Tiraboschi, and by some other writers whose names will appear 

 in the following pages. 



Prior to the age of Galileo, by no persons and in no place were the defenders 

 of the Copernican system treated with more honour than by the Roman pontiffs 

 and in Rome ; and although its first advocates were not Italians, yet it was to 

 Italy they were indebted for their education : and if this system took its rise 

 in Germany, it was first published in Italy, and there obtained countenance, 

 favour and support, — facts not generally known, but of which the proofs will 

 be found in the present memoir. The first to renew the system, of which the 

 ancient Pythagorean school had given a sketch, namely, that the sun was the 

 centre of the universe, and that the earth revolved round it, was Nicholas of 

 Cusa, a man of low extraction in that village of the diocese of Treves, where he 

 was born in the year 1401. IMoreri. Having in his youth fled from his father's 

 house, he entered into the service of the Count de Manderscheidt, at whose 

 expence he was educated, and by whom, after he had studied at the most dis- 

 tinguished seats of learning in German}, he was sent to the university of Padua 

 — Italy being then the general place of resort for all men of every nation, who 

 through their literary attainments aspired to celebrity. About the year 1425, 

 Nicholas Cusanus obtained the degree of doctor of canon law at Padua. In 

 this place Biagio Pelacane, who in the records of the university is described as 

 " famosissimus omnium liberalium artium Doctor et Monarcha," and whom 

 Francesco Prendilacqua mentions as " quasi solo nella scienza delle Matema- 

 tiche," having previously occupied a chair at Pavia and Bologna, was Professor 



