GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 47 



in sending to Home the corrections to which he had 

 in principle agreed, and the Master of the Sacred 

 Palace was late in sending to Florence the preface 

 and the conclusion, so the impatient'philosopher began 

 to print his book. The plague still continued, and the 

 result was that communications were still interrupted. 



The Inquisitor of Florence however received from 

 Kome the power to approve officially the copy of 

 Galileo's work that would be submitted to him, with 

 instructions specially added by Father Kiccardi that 

 he must bear in mind the wishes of the Pope to the 

 following effect : The title of the work must indicate 

 that it dealt only with the mathematical question 

 connected with Copernicanism, also that the Coper- 

 nican opinion must not be put forward as a positive 

 truth, but merely as a hypothesis, and this without 

 alluding to the interpretation of Scripture ; moreover, 

 that it should be stated that the work was only 

 written to show that if the decree (i.e. of 1616) was 

 made at Kome, nevertheless the authorities knew all 

 the reasons against it that could be urged, and were 

 not ignorant of one of them an idea conformable to 

 the words of the preface and the conclusion, which he 

 would send from Kome corrected. With this pre- 

 caution, it was intimated the book would meet with 

 no obstacle at Kome, and thus satisfaction might be 

 given to the author, and also to the Grand Duke of 

 Tuscany, who had shown himself to be so eager in the 

 matter. 



This remarkable letter points towards a conclusion 



