Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition
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41 C. E. of the Society of Jesus [Edward Coffin], A True relation of the last sickness and death of Cardinal Bellarmine, who dyed in Rome the
seaventeenth day of September, 1621, and of such things as have happened
in, or since his buriall ([SaintOmer], 1622). The following quotations are 325
burned alive
from excerpts of Coffin’s book, copied in: [Thomas] Chalmers, ‘Death
of Bellarmine’, The Youth’s Instructer and Guardian, new ser., xvii (March 1853), pp. 112–18.
42 Chalmers, ‘Death of Bellarmine’, pp. 113–14.
43 Vincenzo Renieri to Galileo, 6 March 1641, in Favaro, ed., Opere di Galileo Galilei: Edizione Nazionale, xviii, p. 304; Paganini Gaudentii,
De Pythagorea animarum transmigratione (Pisa, 1641), p. 8: ‘Non desunt
hodie qui asserant, telescopium sive tubum opticum a Galilaeo, viro
notissimi nominis, primum manasse.’
44 Gaudenzi, ‘In Morte del Famosissimo Galileo, Tre Sonetti’ (Pisa, 1642).
45 Paganini Gaudentii, De errore sectariorum huius temporis labyrintheo (Pisa, 1644), pp. 252–3.
46 John Heilbron, Galileo (Oxford, 2010), p. 356.
47 Pope Urban viii, quoted in Francesco Niccolini to G. Gondi, 25 January 1642, in Favaro, ed., Opere di Galileo Galilei: Edizione Nazionale, xviii, p. 379.
48 Francesco Barberini to Giovanni Muzzarelli, 25 January 1642, in ibid., p. 380.
49 Cornelio Lapide, ‘Commentaria in Iosue’ (1630s), in Corn. Cornelii a Lapide, In Iosue, Iudices, et Ruth Commentarii (Paris, 1642), chap. 10, p. 56.
50 Diary entry, 5 November 1646, in Balthasar de Monconys, Iournal des Voyages de Monsieur de Monconys (Lyon, 1665), p. 130.
51 David Wootton, Galileo, Watcher of the Skies (New Haven, ct, 2010), pp. 240–50; Castelli to Galileo, 7 June 1639, in Favaro, ed., Opere di
Galileo Galilei: Edizione Nazionale, xviii, pp. 57–8.
52 Anon., review of Samuel Brown’s The Tragedy of Galileo Galilei (Edinburgh, 1850), in The Eclectic Review, xxvii (March 1850), pp. 272–3.
53 In the Gregorian calendar Galileo died on 8 January 1642 and Newton was born on 4 January 1643. In the Julian calendar Galileo died on 29
December 1641, whereas Newton was born on 25 December 1642.
54 Petrus Cazraeus to Pierre Gassendi, 3 November 1642, in Petri Gassendi, Epistolae [ Opera Omnia], vol. vi (Lyon, 1658), p. 451.
55 Petri Gassendi, Syntagmatis Philosophici, pt ii: Physica, in Opera Omnia, i (Florence, 1658), pp. 126–7.
56 Ibid., p. 142.
57 Ibid., p. 252.
58 Ibid., p. 142.
59 Ch. Jeannel, Gassendi spiritualiste (Montpellier, 1859), pp. 15–16, 20.
Jeannel denounced the ‘monstrous doctrine’ in Virgil’s Aeneid.
60 For discussion, see Gorman, ‘A Matter of Faith’, pp. 302–3.
61 This circumstance, and others, show that the Jesuits as a whole were not conspiring against Galileo. For discussion, see Michael Gorman,
‘A Matter of Faith? Christoph Scheiner, Jesuit Censorship, and the
Trial of Galileo’, Perspectives on Science, iv/3 (1996), pp. 294–301; Richard Blackwell, Behind the Scenes at Galileo’s Trial (Notre Dame, in, 2008),
p. 43; Annibale Fantoli, The Case of Galileo: A Closed Question? (Notre
Dame, in, 2012), pp. 211–14.
62 Jakob Bidermann, Giovanni Battista Rossi and Ioannes Alvarado,
‘Judicium Revisorum Collegij Rom. de Vindicijs P. Melchioris
326
References
Inchoveri’, 29 January 1636, in the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu
(arsi), Fondo Gesù 655, item 066, fol. 198 v.
63 Inchofer, ‘Responsio ad ea quae Patres Censores opponunt in meo libro’, 6 February 1636, in arsi, F. G., item 067, fol. 199 v.
64 Ibid., item 067, fol. 200 v. The Jesuit censors replied to Inchofer’s complaints; see Jakob Bidermann, Franciscus Armatus, Giovanni Rossi
and Ioannes Alvarado, ‘Responsio ad Apologiam R. P. Melchioris
Inchoveri’, 4 March 1636, in arsi, F. G., item 67, fol. 202 v–203 v.
65 Gorman, ‘A Matter of Faith?’, p. 305.
66 Blackwell, Behind the Scenes, p. 43.
67 Thomas Cerbu, ‘Melchior Inchofer, “un homme fin & rusé”’, in Largo campo di filosofare: Eurosymposium Galileo 2001, ed. José Montesinos and Carlos Solís (La Orotava, 2001), p. 592.
68 One of its authors was the former Jesuit Giulio Clemente Scotti; see Gorman, ‘A Matter of Faith?’, pp. 303–4.
69 Blackwell, Behind the Scenes, p. 44.
70 Natanael Jomtob [pseudonym of Antonio Puig y Blanch], La Inquisicion sin máscara, ó disertación, en que se prueban hasta la evidencia los vicios
de este tribunal, y la necesidad de que se suprima (Cadiz, 1811), p. 348. The author, Puig y Blanch, based his account on quotations from the official
report by a member of the Holy Office: Rodrigo Ruiz de Zepeda
Martínez, Auto General de la Fee . . . celebrado . . . en Mexico, à los 19 de Noviembre de 1659 (Mexico City, 1659).
71 Jomtob, La Inquisicion sin máscara, p. 349.
72 Jaime Contreras and Gustav Henningsen, ‘Fortyfour Thousand Cases of the Spanish Inquisition (1540–1700): Analysis of a Historical Data
Bank’, in The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe: Studies on Sources and
Methods, ed. Gustav Henningsen and John Tedeschi (DeKalb, il, 1986),
p. 114. Comparable statistical figures do not yet exist for the Roman
Inquisition, mainly because too many documents were lost, dispersed or
destroyed. See John Tedeschi, The Prosecution of Heresy: Collected Studies
on the Inquisition in Early Modern Italy (Binghamton, ny, 1991),
pp. 23–45.
73 Dan. Georgi Morhofi, Polyhistoris continuatio, tomum philosophicum
& practicum, ed. Johanne Möllero (Lübeck, 1708), p. 239. Morhof
lived from 1639 to 1691; this volume was published posthumously. His
Polyhistor volumes grew from lectures he gave at the University of Kiel
around 1666.
74 Ibid., p. 26; see also pp. 303, 343.
75 Ibid., p. 260; see also p. 303.
76 Ibid.
77 Jo. Alberti Fabricii, Bibliotheca Græca (Hamburg, 1705), i, chap. 20, pp. 132–3.
78 Ibid.
79 Algernon Herbert, Nimrod: A Discourse on Certain Passages of History and Fable, iv/1 (London, 1829), pp. 140, 160; and iv/2 (London, 1830), pp. 178, 486.
80 Ibid., iv/2, p. 509.
81 Ibid., pp. 509–15.
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82 Ibid., p. 514.
83 Ibid., pp. 479–97.
84 The gradual process by which the Catholic Church revised its views on Copernicanism and Galileo is discussed thoroughly in Maurice
Finocchiaro, Retrying Galileo, 1633–1992 (Berkeley, ca, 2005).
85 George Waddington, A History of the Church from the Earliest Ages to the Reformation, 2nd edn (London, 1835), p. 103.
86 Howell rightly makes this point, though he does not discuss Pythagorean religious beliefs. Kenneth J. Howell, God’s Two Books:
Copernican Cosmology and Biblical Interpretation in Early Modern Science
(Notre Dame, in, 2013), pp. 163, 185, 205.
87 Étienne Tempier, Condemnation of 1277, see ‘Sequuntur errores annotati in rotulo, 1277’; reissued in Faculty of the University of Paris,
and Henricus Deinfle, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, i (Paris,
1889), p. 543.
88 Ibid.
89 Gaspar Schoppe to Konrad Rittershausen, 17 February 1600, printed in Gaspari Scioppii, ‘Epistola, in qua haereticos jure infelicibus
lignis cremari concludit’ [also titled: ‘Epistola, in qua sententiam de
Lutheranis tanquam haereticis atram Romae fieri asserit & probat’],
in Macch
iavellizatio (Zaragoza, 1621), pp. 30–35, p. 34: ‘imò Monstra’, in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 352.
90 ‘Decretum Sacrae Congregationis’, 5 March 1616 (Rome, 1616).
91 Roberti Bellarmini, Disputationes de controversis Christianae fidei, adversus hujus temporis hæreticos, i (Ingolstadt, 1581), ‘Præfatio’, repr.
Venice, 1721, p. x.
92 Thomæ Campanellæ, Apologia pro Galileo, mathematico Florentino (Frankfurt, 1622); Richard J. Blackwell, ed., Defense of Galileo (Notre
Dame, in, 1994), p. 45.
93 Ibid., p. 151.
94 Galileo to Nicolò de Peiresc, 21 February 1635, in Favaro, ed., Opere di Galileo Galilei: Edizione Nazionale, xvi, p. 215.
95 John Chrysostom, Homilies of S. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the First Epistle of S. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians (Oxford, 1845), Homily v (on 1 Corinthians 1:26–7), sec. 2, p. 53.
96 Galilei, ‘Dialogo Primo’, in Dialogo, Doue ne i congressi di quattro giornate si discorre sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo Tolemaico, e Copernicano
(Florence, 1632), p. 43; as Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief
World Systems, ed. Stillman Drake (Berkeley, ca, 1962), p. 58.
328
ACK NOW LEDGEMENTS
This book began from research for a chapter in one of my previous books,
Science Secrets. It also benefited from feedback I received when writing another book, The Cult of Pythagoras. I therefore thank several colleagues, friends and anonymous reviewers who gave me suggestions in those earlier projects. In
early 2009 I presented a keynote talk on Galileo and the Roman Inquisition
at the University of Puerto Rico, for the Fourth Centenary of Galileo’s discoveries. I did not then anticipate that I would subsequently spend eight years working on a book about the topics I explored in that talk. I thank the Honors
Program of the University of Puerto Rico, and in particular, Professor Idsa
Alegría, for kindly inviting me.
In the autumn of 2012 the College of Liberal Arts kindly interrupted
my teaching duties so that I could take care of my father, who had become
disabled, and work also on the present project. For months I struggled to help
my father, Ronald Martínez Cuevas, trying to enable him to talk and walk
again, and to regain his health, but unsuccessfully. During the nights I read
about Galileo.
I thank two anonymous reviewers for the Journal for the History of Astronomy for helpful comments on a draft article that I submitted back in 2012.
At that point I could either revise it or expand it into a book. I warmly thank
Frances Rivera Avilés for insisting that it could better become a book. Had
it not been for her insistence, I would not have found the surprising material
that I later discovered.
I thank the Department of History and the College of Liberal Arts of the
University of Texas at Austin for funding my research trips to Italy. I thank
the following libraries, and their archivists, for enabling me to access their rare manuscripts and books: the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome, the Archivio
di Stato di Roma, the Archivio Storico Capitolino in Rome, the Archivum
Romanum Societatis Iesu, the Biblioteca Vallicelliana in Rome, the Archivio
Storico of the Academia Nazionale dei Lincei in Rome, the Galileo Museum
in Florence, and the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma. In particular, I
want to thank Maria Temide Bergamaschi, Laura Giallombardo, Michele Di
Sivo, Alessandra Marrone, Brian Mac Cuarta sj and Elisabetta Caldelli. Plus,
Frances Rivera Avilés kindly helped me to gather information from certain
329
burned alive
manuscripts in Rome. I also thank the librarians of the PerryCastañeda
Library of the University of Texas, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research
Center, the Library of the University of Notre Dame, the Biblioteca Cervantina of the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, México, and finally, the Archivo General de la Nación, in México City.
Next, I must thank scholars who have made enormous, valuable contributions to the study of Galileo and Bruno, and who kindly responded to my inquiries. First, I thank Richard J. Blackwell for warmly and enthusiastically discussing Galileo and Melchior Inchofer with me, and I thank his son Thomas for putting us in contact. I thank John L. Heilbron for kindly
reading an early version of my manuscript and giving me encouragement and
advice on how to shape it and improve it. I also give thanks to William R.
Shea for his attentive reading of my manuscript, and his helpful, expert and
genuinely caring comments. Bill’s humanity shines warmly even through the
impersonal medium of email. I also thank him for putting me in touch with
Hilary Gatti. Consequently, Gatti kindly agreed to read my manuscript, and I
am enormously grateful for her diligent and generous labour. I greatly learned
and benefited from her meticulous corrections and helpful suggestions, especially in her main area of scholarship, Giordano Bruno. Next, Jole Shackelford read my manuscript too, and I’m glad that he enthusiastically agreed with my
findings about Bruno, since he had written about the Bruno myths. Plus, he
shared his expertise on science in the Renaissance. Next, Maurice Finocchiaro
kindly read parts of my manuscript, and he expertly pinpointed how to better characterize some of Galileo’s claims. It was a pleasure discussing Galileo with him. I also thank scholars who, although they lacked the time to read my
manuscript, did kindly give me some useful pointers, namely Ingrid Rowland
and David Wootton.
I presented some of my research findings in four talks at ut Austin, in
2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017. I thank the audience in those talks, especially
Bruce J. Hunt for multiple comments and suggestions. Miriam Bodian oriented me on some of the literature on the Roman Inquisition. Martha Newman clarified historical questions about sins, heresies and Catholic religious orders.
Susan Boettcher explained to me the rise of the Protestant Reformation and
especially Martin Luther’s beliefs. Jorge CañizaresEsguerra gave me suggestions about competing notions of sin and souls in the history of Christianity.
H. Darrel Rutkin kindly shared his insights about Plotinus, Ficino and the
notion of the soul of the world. Alexander P. D. Mourelatos gave me advice
on the literature about the Presocratics and the Pythagoreans. Stephen Case
kindly discussed with me his work on Platonic notions of the nature of stars.
In early 2015 I discussed myths about Bruno in a talk I presented at
the March Meeting of the American Physical Society. I thank the session
organ izer, Catherine Westfall, as well as the participants for various interesting comments. In June 2015 I presented a talk about Bruno and Galileo at the 12th Biennial Conference on the History of Astronomy at the University of
Notre Dame. I thank the conference organizers, along with the participants,
for their useful feedback. I especially thank Michael J. Crowe and Steven J.
Dick for kindly discussing the history of the belief in many worlds with me. I
am indebted to their pioneering publications on the history of the extraterrestrial life debate, and am very flattered that they appreciated and agreed with 330
Acknowledgements
my findings about Bruno. I also thank Owen Gingerich for additional helpful information, praise and encouragment. Sarah Reynolds discussed Kepler’s work on the Moon with me. Eric C. Young offered insights about the early
Church Fathers’ opinions on celestial lights, to
complement my research on
their views on heresies.
I presented two talks on Bruno and Galileo at the annual conference of
the History of Science Society in 2015 and 2017. I thank the participants
for helpful discussions and questions, especially Paula Findlen, Mordechai
Feingold, Jole Shackelford, Michael Kerze and Rienk Vermij. I also discussed
Galileo and Bruno with Michael Shank and John Lisle, who gave me useful
comments. I should also express my gratitude to editors and anonymous reviewers supporting academic journals for which I had submitted articles on Giordano Bruno, namely Annals of Science, Bruniana & Campanelliana, and Early Science and Medicine. Furthermore, Miguel A. Granada kindly emailed me useful pointers in response to a couple of articles I had published about
Giordano Bruno. And I thank James H. Dee and Jole Shackelford for help
with several Latin translations.
I thank the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas at
Austin for granting me a Fellowship to enable me to polish the final manuscript during 2016–17. I also thank the participants at my ihs talk for their helpful feedback, especially A. Azfar Moin. I gratefully acknowledge a University of Texas at Austin Subvention Grant awarded by the Office of the President. I also thank the Office of the Vice President for Research.
I thank my mother Lillian Montalvo Conde for happily being around.
Brett M. Bennet kindly suggested that I submit my manuscript to his editor
Ben Hayes at Reaktion Books. Hence, I warmly thank Ben Hayes for adopting the project. I also appreciate the suggestions of the anonymous reviewers, and the work of the copy editor David Rose. Amy Salter kindly and meticulously worked as text editor. So I thank them and the staff at Reaktion Books for helping me share this brand new story about Bruno and Galileo.
331
PHOTO
ACK NOW LEDGEMENTS
The author and publishers wish to express their thanks to the below sources
of illustrative material and/or permission to reproduce it. Some locations and
titles of works are given here for the sake of brevity.
Archivio di Stato di Roma: p. 76; photos by the author: pp. 32, 76, 89, 95,
119, 144, 186, 202, 249, 250, 252, 261; Stefano della Bella, etching for Galileo Galilei, Opere di Galileo Galilei linceo nobile Fiorentino . . . (Bologna, 1656): p. 111 (photo Metropolitan Museum of Art [open access]); Metropolitan Museum of Art: p. 143 (Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1936 – open access); Musei Capitolini, Rome: p. 256; church of S. Ignazio, Rome: pp. 144, 249, 250;