GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 49 



formed passion ; and there were heard complaints 

 that Consulters, wholly inexperienced in astronomical 

 observations, ought not to be allowed, with a hasty 

 prohibition, to clip the wings of speculative intellects. 

 My zeal could not keep silence on hearing the temerity 

 of the complaints so made. As one fully informed 

 of that most prudent decision, I judged it right to 

 appear publicly in the theatre of the world, as 

 a witness of pure truth. I happened then to be 

 present in Eome ; I had not only audiences, but 

 approbations from the most eminent prelates of that 

 Court, and it was not without my own previous 

 information that the publication of that decree then 

 followed." The author goes on to say that he 

 wished to show to foreign nations how much was 

 known in Italy, and particularly in Rome, on this 

 subject ; and that from this climate there proceed 

 not only dogmas for the salvation of the soul, but 

 ingenious devices for the delight of the mind. 



This last clause certainly savours of bitter irony, 

 and probably did not proceed from Father Biccardi's 

 pen. He then states that for the purpose in hand 

 he had taken the Copernican part in the Dialogue 

 as a pure mathematical hypothesis, endeavouring 

 by every artifice to represent it as superior, not to 

 that of the stability of the Earth absolutely speaking, 

 but to the doctrine as defended by the Peripatetics, 

 to whom he alludes with some contempt. 



He adds that he will treat of three principal 

 heads : under the first he would show that all our 



