418 APPENDIX. 



torture in order to obtain his recantation, appears to rest 

 on no foundation, except the use of the terms rigorous 

 examination (rigoroso esame), said to be the form in 

 which torture is referred to by those sentences. But 

 the story is completely negatived by Galileo s own letter 

 giving an account of the manner in which he had been 

 treated, acknowledging the respect paid to him, and the 

 lenity of his imprisonment, or rather nominal detention, 

 in his friend the Archbishop of Pisa s (Picolomini s) pa 

 lace. (Tiraboschi, Lett. Ital. torn. viiL* lib. ii. p. 147.) 

 It is probable that the story of his whispering to a friend 

 ( E pur si muove&quot; (&quot; And it moves for all that,&quot; ) when 

 he rose from his knees, on which he had made the re 

 cantation, rests upon no better foundation. Nothing can 

 be more unlikely, at least, than his choosing such a 

 moment for this pleasantry a moment of great though 

 forced humiliation, when he had in the most solemn man 

 ner called God to witness, that &quot; he abjured, cursed, and 

 detested &quot; the positions which he entirely believed ; 

 nothing more unlikely than his exposing himself to the 

 risk of his words being discovered by immediate examina 

 tion of the person whom he addressed. 



But it seems still somewhat doubtful how far the sen 

 tence upon Galileo has been reversed. His &quot; Dialogue &quot; 

 had by decree of the f&amp;lt; Congregation of the Index &quot; been put 

 into that list of forbidden books; and Leo XII. (Genga) 

 nearly thirty years ago ordered it to be expunged from 

 that list. Mr. Drinkwater (Life of Galileo, p. 64.f) 

 states that it had not been erased in 1828. Mr. Lyell 

 (Principles of Geology, p. 56, edition, 1853), considers that 

 this assertion is inconsistent with the account which he 

 received from Professor Scarpellini at Rome, in 1828, 



* Viviani, who is described as devoted to Galileo more than a son to 

 a father, and who attended his master for the last three years of his life 

 (Montucla, ii. 290.), \ gave not the least countenance to the exaggerated 

 accounts of his treatment. 



f Published by the Useful Knowledge Society in 1829. 



