236 



DISCOVERY 



in llie handsome official apartments, and allowed 

 much freedom of movement. 



Subjected to many examinations, Galileo claimed 

 he had not contravened the Bellarmine admonition of 

 1616. It was all so long ago. He might have been 

 bidden not to teach the doctrine. He did not 

 remember the phrase nee doccre quovis modo (not to 

 teach it in any way) ; it might have been used. He 

 did not admit that he had taught the said opinion ; 

 he had confuted it and demonstrated the contrary. 

 This he swore to and signed. On .April 30, after close 

 and continual reflection, it had come into his mind 

 to read his book again and diligenth to observe if by 

 pure inadvertence something had escaped his pen by 

 which a reader might argue a contravention of the 

 orders of Holv Church. .And so reading it as if it 

 were a new work, and bv another author, he must 

 confess that in many passages the doctrine was 

 treated in such wise that a reader, unacquainted with 

 his intimate character, might have reason to form a 

 conception that the arguments adduced on the false 

 side (which his intention was to refute) were stated 

 in such a way that their efficacy was potent rather 

 to convince than to refute. His error was one of 

 vanity and pure inadvertence. 



.After further reflection Galileo asked for another 

 audience. For greater confirmation that he had 

 neither held, nor did hold, as true the damnable 

 opinion of the motion of the earth, he was prepared 

 if time were given, to demonstrate this more clearly. 

 The occasion was opportune since the interlocutors 

 in the Dialogue had agreed to meet again for further 

 discussion. In two or three days, with God's help, 

 he would refute the arguments adduced in favour of 

 the false and damnable opinion in the most effective 

 way. In a further written defence the aged and 

 weary scientist humbly appeals for clemency and 

 kindness, and begs his judges to regard his ill-health 

 and the exposure of his winter journey as ample 

 castigation for his ofiences. 



On June 21 another signed deposition assures his 

 judges that for a long time he had remained in- 

 different to both opinions ; both were disputable. 

 Later, however, all ambiguity was at an end, and he 

 had then held, as he did now hold, that Ptolemv's 

 doctrine was verissiiuo and indubitable; to wit, the 

 stability of the earth and the mobility of the sun. 

 The Dialogue was written, not because he held Coper- 

 nican views, but to benefit mankind. " I do not 

 hold," concludes the harassed Galileo, " nor have i 

 held this opinion after the order of the Holy Office 

 to let it. .As for the rest I am in your hands, do 

 with me as you please." At a final examination he 

 was enjoined to tell the whole truth, and reminded 

 that there was the last resource of torture if he did 

 not. " I am here to do obedience," was the an.swer. 



I have not, as I have said, held this opinion since 



the decree." Nothing further could be had from 

 him, savs the report of the trial, and the sentence 

 was drawn up. On June 22, 1633, in the presence of 

 ten Inquisitors, in the Convent of the Dominican 

 Friars at S. Maria sopra Minerva, the judgment of 

 over a thousand words was read to the kneeling 

 Galileo, who abjured and cursed the errors he was 

 vehemently and justly suspected of. His sentence 

 was, imprisonment during the Pope's pleasure and 

 the obligation to recite weekly the Penitential Psalms. 



From the time of his arrival at Rome up to the 

 present, March 7, 1634, he writes to his friend 

 Diodati, from his villa at -Arcetri, " he had, thank 

 God, enjoyed better health than for many years past." 

 The first place of incarceration assigned to him was 

 the Tuscan ambassador's beautiful palace and 

 gardens (now the Villa Medici in possession of the 

 French .Academy of Fine Arts) on the Pincian, where 

 he was treated affectionately as a son, both by the 

 ambassador and his consort. He was then interned 

 at the .Archiepiscopal palace at Siena, where he 

 experienced inespUcabili eccessi di cortesia by the 

 prelate, his friend, whose geiitilissima conversazione 

 he enjoyed with great repose and satisfaction. Grow- 

 ing weary and desirous of change after five months' 

 stav, he was permitted to return to his villa outside 

 Florence, where he breathed the salubrious air of his 

 native place, though forbidden to descend to the city. 

 This to keep him away from the Ducal Court. But 

 if he could not go to the Duke, the Duke could come 

 to him, and for two hours conversed with extreme 

 sweetness. Having suffered nothing in the two 

 things that are esteemed above all others in this w'orld 

 — health and reputation — the injustice that envy and 

 malice had plotted against him neither had troubled, 

 nor would trouble him ; absent friends must be con- 

 tent to know this much. 



Moreover, at the Convent of S. Martino in Arcetri, 

 the aged and darkening Galileo was in touch with his 

 two daughters by a Paduan mistress, who by papal 

 favour had been permitted to take the veil. The 

 elder and beloved Sister Maria Celeste, donna di 

 esquisito ingegno, whose horoscope he had cast, and 

 who idolised her father, was a bright influence in 

 Galileo's life, and her premature death a deep and 

 abiding sorrow. .Sweet Sister Maria Celeste, whose 

 tender graceful letters have found a place in the 

 annals of Italian literature, who took upon herself 

 the burden of her father's penance to recite the seven 

 penitential psalms once a week ! Throughout the 

 whole correspondence no word of torture, and the 

 facsimiles of his signatures to the depositions, from 

 first to last, show no variation.' 



Shall we say Galileo lacked courage ? That in 

 contrast to the heroism of his predecessor, Giordano 

 Bnmo, the proto-martyr of Free Thought, Galileo 



' Galileo c I'Inquisi-Jone, pp. 8.!, S3, 84, 85, 102. 



