io GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 



of this article has done what I suspect very few 

 writers on Galileo have even attempted to do, 

 namely, to inspect the documents preserved in the 

 Vatican bearing on the process, some of which he 

 gives at full length. Not having myself had the 

 same advantage, I yet feel that I am treading on safe 

 ground when I take my facts from M. de 1'Epinois ; 

 for there is scarcely a statement that he makes for 

 which he does not give his authority, whether from 

 the documents just mentioned, or from Galileo's own 

 letters, or from other trustworthy evidence.* 



To treat of Galileo, and to pass over the events 

 which brought him into collision with the ecclesias- 

 tical authorities, would of course be impossible, nor 

 is it easy to touch upon these matters without having 

 some standpoint of one's own some principle to 

 guide one, some basis from which to argue. I do 

 not shrink from stating that I write from a Catholic 

 standpoint ; but without entering minutely into those 

 subtle questions which are the province of the trained 

 theologian. 



As, however, a good deal of the narrative is 

 connected with the action of the Eoman Congrega- 

 tions, as they are termed, it may not be superfluous 

 to explain briefly the nature of these institutions. 

 They are formed by the selection of certain Cardinals, 

 one of them acting as Prefect of the Congregation, 



* M. de 1'Epinois has, since then, published a still more complete 

 collection of the various documents he had obtained permission 

 to inspect at Kome ; but this work is, unfortunately, out of print. 



