Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition

by Alberto A. Martinez

  except Mystes [Camerarius] can be an advocate of that

  wicked ness. He said many blasphemies against God, but

  this happens to the impious, as the Roman proverb says:

  Chi contro à dio gitta pietra, in capo li ritorna.

  That whoever throws a stone against God, it falls back on

  his head. Clearly one cannot defeat the Sun.101

  Meanwhile, after 27 years of imprisonment, the unfortunate

  Campanella was finally released from the Neapolitan prison in 1626,

  thanks to Pope Urban viii. Campanella was transferred to Rome,

  to be held by the Roman Inquisition, but with accommodations.

  The following year Campanella began to write long commentaries

  on poems written by the Pope. Campanella praised the discoveries of Columbus and Galileo as ranking equally with scriptures as sources of knowledge. He used the Pope’s words to ramble

  freely: ‘Pythagoras, Trismegistus and Plato have argued regarding

  the immortality of the soul, given the disagreement between souls

  and bodies, that the soul is not in its own home, but almost in a

  prison. ’102 Bruno had made similar claims.

  By 1629 the Roman Inquisition liberated Campanella. By flattering the Pope and fitting him into expansive, encyclopaedic views, Campanella gained the Pope’s favour: incredibly, he became an advisor on astrology for Urban. Campanella also tried to convince the Pope to include magic in papal policy. At the time, incidentally,

  various books on magic discussed the powers of Pythagoras. 103

  However, the strangest magic trick, if we may call it that, was how

  Campanella the heretic managed to go from bloody torture in dungeons to being directly in the service of the new Pope. Campanella’s long sufferings and bold, erudite writings had turned him into a

  European celebrity. At the time the papal court included an unusual

  mixture of men, with various nationalities and social backgrounds.

  One observer remarked, ‘as shown by our daily experience, at the

  Roman court there is nobody of so low a condition that he may not

  climb to a great position at some point. ’104

  Galileo had Urban’s friendship. Yet some of his supporters began

  to vanish. In August 1630 Prince Cesi, the leader of the Lincei and

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  his main protector, died. The Accademia dei Lincei fell into disarray

  and Galileo could not print his next book with them. Meanwhile,

  Kepler, though ill, planned to finally publish his expanded ‘dream’

  about the Moon, but he too died in late 1630. It was published later

  (in 1634), with a dedication in which Kepler’s son recalled that his

  father fell into a fatal sleep, but hopefully ‘His soul flew above the

  lunar into the ethereal region. ’105

  Old Galileo prepared to publish about the Pythagorean doctrine on which he had kept silent for years. As is well known, some Inquisitors soon became annoyed by Galileo’s book. To ascertain

  whether their concerns were connected with heresies from Bruno’s

  trial, we must inquire whether, by 1630, Inquisitors or censors of the

  Vatican were aware of the pagan connotations of Pythagorean doctrines. There is a significant work that sheds light on this question.

  The Pope’s nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, was a top

  Inquisitor. He had employed a classicist, a German Catholic convert

  named Lucas Holste, to live in his household. Barberini owned an

  important private library in Rome, where Holste worked with its collections of Greek and Latin texts. In 1630 Holste finished an extensive, scholarly compilation of the works of Porphyry, in Greek and Latin,

  with commentaries. It began with Porphyry’s Life of Pythagoras, followed by another brief biography of Pythagoras, some other works by Porphyry and, finally, Holste’s commentaries and dissertation.

  Christians had destroyed some of Porphyry’s works, yet Holste

  collected extant treatises for careful examination. In addition to

  analysing Porphyry’s life and beliefs, Holste discussed how certain

  ‘heresies originated from philosophy’.106 This had been proclaimed by Tertullian, Lactantius, St Jerome and Cardinal Bellarmine.

  As a young man Holste had been fascinated by Platonist

  philosophy, so he laboured to promote it. It drew him closer to

  Catholicism: ‘I turned completely to those Latin and Greek texts

  that deal with this contemplative and mystic theology, which excites

  the soul of God.’107 Therefore, he better understood the ancient Church Fathers. He studied works such as Proclus’ notes on Plato’s

  theology, and Iamblichus’ ‘On the Pythagorean Way of Life’, despite

  its ‘strong occult tendencies’.

  Holste showed extensive familiarity with many ancient

  works, including manuscripts in the Vatican library, which discussed Pythagoras, Porphyry, Apollonius and other Pythagoreans 184

  The Enemies of Galileo

  – including works by Philostratus, Proclus, Plutarch, the Placita,

  Alexander Polyhistor, Aristotle, Herodotus, Cicero, Pliny, Diogenes,

  Macrobius and Hierocles. He cited works by Church Fathers who

  had criticized Pythagorean beliefs, including Tertullian, Lactantius,

  Epiphanius, Eusebius, Jerome and Augustine.

  Holste summarized the Pythagorean theory of transmigration: the human soul is captive inside the body as if chained in a prison, subsequently it resides in other bodies, and afterwards is

  purged to kindred stars, returning to a celestial choir of souls. The

  soul is a particle of God, and torn from God, it transmigrates into

  five bodies, then to the Moon, the Sun and later to the beatific

  regions.108 Holste said, ‘these deliriums were abundantly refuted by Epiphanius. ’109 He also cited Augustine’s critique of Porphyry’s account of transmigration, contrasting it to the Christian doctrine

  of bodily resurrection. He also discussed the Pythagorean abstinence

  from eating flesh, partly in regard to Porphyry’s tract on it, while

  denying that human souls are reborn as animals.

  Furthermore, Holste mentioned the fake miracles of Pythagoras,

  ‘which if true, no one can easily excuse him for the crime of magic’.

  He alluded to ‘the incantations, and other magical tricks’ of the sect

  of Pythagoras, as well as their ‘symbolic and mystical method of

  teaching’. He noted that Tertullian denounced philosophers as ‘the

  patriarchs of heretics’.110

  Nonetheless, Holste defended Porphyry’s abilities as a philosopher. Likewise, St Augustine had described Porphyry as ‘the most learned of the philosophers, though the bitterest enemy of the

  Christians’. Holste explained that Eusebius and Augustine accused

  Porphyry of superstitious crimes. Echoing Augustine, Holste criticized Porphyry’s willingness to hear pagan oracles and demons, which Porphyry misconstrued as gods. Eusebius had ‘refuted the

  blasphemies of Porphyry’.111 Holste also wrote two chapters about Porphyry’s censored Against the Christians.112

  Holste dedicated his book to his patron, ‘the illustrious and

  most reverend’ Cardinal Barberini, and he noted having used the

  Cardinal’s library.113 Holste submitted his manuscript to the Master of the Sacred Palace, Father Niccolò Riccardi, for approval for publication. Riccardi gave the work his imprimatur. It was published in 1630, by the Vatican’s press. On its title page, the book features the

  emblem of the Barberini family: three bees.114

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  Bust of Car
dinal

  Francesco Barberini,

  1682, under his

  family’s emblem

  with the three bees,

  located at St Peter’s

  Basilica.

  Meanwhile, Galileo finished his Dialogue on the Two Chief

  Systems of the World: Ptolemaic and Copernican, which argued persuasively in favour of the Copernican or ‘Pythagorean’ theory. Cardinal Barberini’s opinion on Holste’s works on Porphyry and Pythagoras is

  not known, yet we know something about his opinion on the moving

  Earth. In early February 1630 Galileo’s friend Benedetto Castelli met

  with Barberini and others and they discussed Galileo’s forthcoming

  work. Castelli argued that Galileo did not require that Earth truly

  moves, but that Galileo just argued that if it moves then the tides

  would necessarily follow. Castelli recalled that the Cardinal ‘showed

  himself to be very averse’ to the matter. This was immensely important because Cardinal Barberini was the head of the Inquisition. He then spoke with Castel i privately and complained: ‘if the Earth real y

  has motion, it seems necessary that it be a star, a thing that then

  seems too contrary to the theological truth. ’115

  This striking sentence explicitly denies a controversial claim

  about the Earth that Giordano Bruno had defended to the Venetian

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  and Roman Inquisitors: ‘I regard it, like Pythagoras, as a star.’116 It was one of the claims censored repeatedly, in 1620, in Copernicus’s

  book: the Earth is a star.

  Castelli informed Galileo about the conversation and warned

  him to be careful to prove that the Earth is not a star, by arguing

  that the Moon is the Moon, Mars is Mars, and so on. Castelli also

  spoke with the censor at the Vatican, who had expressed positive

  opinions on Galileo and his previous works. The censor, the same

  Father Riccardi, now had to review Galileo’s manuscript, require

  changes or approve it for publication.

  Master Riccardi was known as ‘the Monster’. He began work

  but did not finish it. Galileo hoped to get the book approved and

  printed in Rome, but the process was interrupted by the plague.

  Impatient, Galileo asked if he could obtain permission from the censors in Florence to print it there. Riccardi had reviewed and edited parts of the manuscript. He expected Galileo to return to Rome

  to work on it, but he agreed to let the rest be reviewed in Florence

  instead. Riccardi wrote that the book would not be problematic if

  the author followed instructions faithfully. Galileo, however, somehow obtained permission to print in Florence, without any censor there actually reviewing the text.117

  Galileo sent the book to press in mid­1631, before receiving

  Father Monster’s corrections and draft Preface. Riccardi’s objections

  arrived – ‘absolute truth should never be conceded to this opinion,

  but only the hypothetical, and without Scripture’ – and he specified a requirement for publication: ‘the author must add reasons from divine omnipotence dictated to him by His Holiness, which

  must quiet the intellect, even if it were impossible to get away from

  the Pythagorean doctrine.’118 The Pope had personally instructed Galileo to say that even if evidence seems to necessitate the Earth’s

  motion to explain some phenomenon, like the tides, there was really

  no necessity because omnipotent God could well proceed otherwise.

  Therefore Galileo added the Pope’s opinion that one cannot impose

  necessity on God, because God could create the world in any way

  He pleased. Strangely, Galileo put these words into the mouth of

  the one moronic character in his dialogue, Simplicio.

  While Galileo was trying to publish, two books were published

  in late 1631 arguing the opposite. One was titled Anti­Aristarchus,

  or Earth­orb Immobile. In which the Decree Issued by the Holy

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  Congregation of Cardinals in 1616 against the Pythagorean­Copernicans

  is Defended. Its author was Libert Froidmont, a professor of theology at Leuven. He began by attributing to Pythagoras and his followers the theory of Earth’s mobility and the Sun’s immobility

  and centrality.119

  Froidmont complained that ‘the Pythagoreans . . . also known as

  the Copernicans’, were a ‘particularly alien sect that has invaded the

  Catholic faith’. He named some of them: Kepler, Michael Maestlin,

  William Gilbert, Foscarini and Galileo.

  He rejected heliocentrism and other ideas. He dismissed

  Kepler’s belief that Earth is a living animal with a soul. He quoted

  the old denunciation by Pope Zacharias against the notion that aside

  from our world there exists another Sun, another Moon and another

  Earth, also inhabited. 120 He said that Pope Zacharias rightly condemned such notions and almost condemned Bishop Virgilius for advocating them.

  Froidmont cited a century­old account by Johannes Aventinus, a

  Bavarian historian and philologist. Aventinus had briefly mentioned

  the dispute between Zacharias and Virgilius. Aventinus commented

  that ‘in our age that [topic] is investigated not with arguments, but is

  known by experience, that men surround the Earth on all sides, and

  conversely stand on their feet, what the Greeks called the Antipodes.

  This is now acceptable, what Virgilius called other worlds, other

  men beneath the Earth, finally another Sun, and another moon

  are claimed. ’121 Froidmont noted that the works of Aventinus were on the Index of censured books. Froidmont concluded that beliefs

  in another Sun, another Moon and another inhabited Earth were

  ‘heretical, or are nearly so’.122

  Yet Froidmont hesitated to condemn the heliocentric theory as

  heretical, pending the overt judgement of Pope Urban viii. Until

  then, Froidmont remarked, ‘I dare not yet condemn Copernicus

  of open heresy.’ But Froidmont wrote, ‘The Copernican opinion

  is nevertheless temerarious, at the very minimum, and at least

  one foot has entered the threshold of heresy, unless the Holy See

  sees otherwise.’123 Still, Froidmont quoted the opinion of Justus Lipsius, who in 1604 called it ‘delirium’, a ‘love of paradoxes’,

  ‘which arouses heresy’. Lipsius had commented: ‘Nowadays there

  are some who view the Copernicans severely and openly call them

  heretics. ’124

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  If Galileo’s readers in 1632 were unaware of the condemnation

  of heliocentrism in 1616, Froidmont’s book would undo that. The

  other book putting the opposite case was The Famous and Ancient

  Problem of the Earth’s Motion, published in Paris in December 1631.

  The author was Jean­Baptiste Morin, a physician and professor of

  mathematics.

  Morin somehow knew of Galileo’s manuscript and had seen

  Froidmont’s brand new book. The title page of Morin’s book

  includes a telling quotation: ‘The Earth rests forever; the Sun rises

  and sets’ (Ecclesiastes 1:4–5). Morin dedicated his book to Cardinal

  Richelieu, alerting him that it was ‘temerarius’ to assert the seemingly impossible claim that Earth moves. It was ‘repugnant’ to the scriptures and Catholicism. As usual, Morin attributed the ‘nefarious dogma’ to Pythagoras and Aristarchus, saying that Ptolemy and A
ristotle refuted it.125

  Morin commented, ‘the same thing has happened with this

  dogma as with heresy in Religion’, the truth had been divided and

  subdivided by imaginary considerations. He said that the Holy

  Spirit had foreseen the vain ingenuity with which some writers

  would argue about the Earth. Morin quoted the Bible to prove that

  Earth does not move, for example, that God ‘established the Earth

  on its foundations [ stabilitatem], it shall not be moved forever and

  ever’ (Psalm 103:5).126

  Morin complained that the opinion of Earth’s motion was

  a fiction invented ‘against the pristine faith’, scriptures, and that

  its proponents were ‘temerarious and completely obstinate’. 127

  He criticized Copernicus and Kepler for such ideas, along with ‘a

  manu script that was produced in Italy by a certain clever man’, who

  argued that the tides were caused by Earth’s motion.128 Morin did not name Galileo, but he gave physical arguments to refute him. The

  evidence seemed to support instead the system of Tycho Brahe: the

  Earth is immobile at the centre, while the Sun moves around it, and

  the planets orbit the Sun.

  Furthermore, Morin dismissed Campanella’s defence of Galileo

  as ‘frivolous’. Morin argued that ‘it is temerarious to assume, contrary to the rules of St Augustine’s book on the Christian doctrine, where he said it is wrong to pervert the literal meaning of scriptures,

  when not incompatible with the faith, because: Heretics open the

  way’ to errors and deceptions.129

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  Morin said that the claim of ‘Kepler, Galileo, Campanella and

  others’ that the Moon is like the Earth, with mountains, valleys,

  continents and seas, was fictitious.130 Furthermore, among the various reasons to deny the Earth’s motion, Morin rejected at length Kepler’s ‘absurd’ claim that the world has a soul and animal faculties.

  Morin denied that the Earth lives and has veins within it. He said

  God does not flow as a kind of soul into the Earth.131

  Morin concluded his book, saying, ‘supreme Popes, without

  waiting for evidence of natural reasons; the proposition of the

  Earth’s motion should be condemned and prohibited, urgently in

  these days of ingenious temerity.’132 The theologian censors at Paris promptly approved Morin’s book: ‘in the entire work nothing is said