nS HISTORY OF SCIENCE. 



lavished the genius of a succession of the greatest artists Bramante, 

 Raphael, Michael Angelo, Vignola, and others had been completed 

 but a few years before ; and, in the interval between Galileo's third 

 and this his last visit to Rome, the majestic pile had been dedicated 

 by Urban VIII. to the great Apostle of the Keys with solemn rites 

 and stately ceremonies. 



The circumstances attending the prosecution of Galileo are often 

 referred to in terms which are apt to convey a false impression of the 

 actual treatment he experienced. He is sometimes spoken of as having 

 been plunged in " the dungeons of the Inquisition ; " we are told of 

 Milton seeing him " in the dim twilight of his cell ; " " fierce-eyed 

 jailers " are graphically alluded to, and all manner of sensational horrors 

 have been darkly hinted at. The truth appears to be that Galileo was 

 treated with remarkable lenity, considering the character of the tribu- 

 nal before whom he was arraigned. There is very good reason for be- 

 lieving that Pope Urban himself was forced only by the official necessi- 

 ties of his position to countenance the prosecution, and that there were 

 even among the ecclesiastical party a few enlightened understandings 

 who would willingly have avoided committing the Church to such a de- 

 cided antagonism to science. But unfortunately the Church was bound 

 hard and fast to a theological system professedly based on a literal 

 interpretation of the Hebrew records. Whilst his cause was pending, 

 Galileo was lodged at the palace of the Tuscan Embassy, and he was 

 placed under no restraint ; here he was visited in a friendly spirit by 

 Cardinal Barberini, the Pope's nephew, who recommended him on 

 prudential grounds to remain as much as possible within the precincts 

 of the ambassador's residence, and to converse only with his own inti- 

 mate friends. When the proceedings before the Inquisition had arrived 

 at that stage that his personal appearance was required, the usual prac- 

 tice of committing the accused to close and solitary confinement was 

 not followed in his case ; he was honourably lodged in the house of 

 the Fiscal of the Inquisition, where his table was supplied from the 

 Tuscan Embassy, and his own servant was allowed to attend wichout 

 let or hindrance, an adjoining chamber being provided for him to sleep 

 in. After a few days Galileo, however, fretted under even this restraint, 

 and Cardinal Barberini then, on his own responsibility, released him 

 and sent him back to his former quarters in the ambassador's palace. 



On the 2oth of June Galileo was again summoned to attend the In- 

 quisition, and the next day he was conducted in a penitential garment 

 to the convent of Minerva, where the judges of the Inquisition were 

 assembled to pronounce the sentence. As everybody knows, the 

 venerable philosopher, forced by threats of the possible punishments 

 which that detestable tribunal could inflict, was made formally and 

 solemnly to renounce the truths he had spent his life to learn. As 

 the sentence pronounced upon Galileo, and his abjuration drawn up, 

 of course, by the Inquisition will ever remain imperishable witnesses 



