170 A Short History of Astronomy [CH. vi. 



examining his book, reported that it did distinctly defend 

 and maintain the obnoxious doctrines, and Galilei, having 

 been meanwhile privately advised by the Commissary- 

 General of the Inquisition to adopt a more submissive 

 attitude, admitted at the next hearing that on reading his 

 book again he recognised that parts of it gave the arguments 

 for Coppernicanism more strongly than he had at first 

 thought. The pitiable state to which he had been reduced 

 was shewn by the offer which he now made to write a 

 continuation to the Dialogue which should as far as possible 

 refute his own Coppernican arguments. At the final 

 hearing on June 2ist he was examined under threat of 

 torture,* and on the next day he was brought up for 

 sentence. He was convicted " of believing and holding 

 the doctrines false and contrary to the Holy and Divine 

 Scriptures that the sun is the centre of the world, and 

 that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth 

 does move and is not the centre of the world ; also that an 

 opinion can be held and supported as probable after it has 

 been declared and decreed contrary to the Holy Scriptures." 

 In punishment, he was required to "abjure, curse, and 

 detest the aforesaid errors," the abjuration being at once 

 read by him on his knees ; and was further condemned to 

 the " formal prison of the Holy Office " during the pleasure 

 of his judges, and required to repeat the seven penitential 

 psalms once a week for three years. On the following day 

 the Pope changed the sentence of imprisonment into con- 

 finement at a country-house near Rome belonging to the 

 Grand Duke, and Galilei moved there on June 24th. t On 

 petitioning to be allowed to return to Florence, he was at 

 first allowed to go as far as Siena, and at the end of the 

 year was permitted to retire to his country-house at Arcetri 

 near Florence, on condition of not leaving it for the future 

 without permission, while his intercourse with scientific and 

 other friends was jealously watched. 



* The official minute is : Et ei dido quod dicat veritatem, alias 

 devenietur ad torturam. 



f The three days June 21-24 are the only ones which Galilei 

 could have spent in an actual prison, and there seems no reason to 

 suppose that they were spent elsewhere than in the comfortable 

 rooms in which it is known that he lived during most of April. 



