Shea and Artigas - Galileo in Rome

by William R. Shea

  But Galileo knew that theology was a serious issue even before the Lorini incident, and he had written a letter to Cardinal Carlo Conti in Rome to ask him whether he believed that the Bible favored Aristotelian astronomy. The cardinal replied by distinguishing between the incorruptibility of the heavens and the immobility of the Earth. As far as the first was concerned, Scripture rather went against the Aristotelian claim that no change could occur in the heavens, but whether recent telescopic discoveries actually proved that change does occur “requires much study,” wrote the cardinal. He gave three reasons for this caution. First, celestial bodies are very far and can only be known after a long period of observation; second, we cannot simply affirm that they are subject to change, we have to explain how; and, third, in the specific case of sunspots, they could be immutable starlets and not cloudlike objects that really change in shape.

  On the more radical idea of the motion of the Earth, the Cardinal considered daily rotation as acceptable since this would not remove the Earth from the center of the world. The annual motion around the Sun he found, “less in agreement with Scripture,” because we would have to interpret passages where the Sun and the planets are said to move as popular ways of speaking. This is something “that should not be admitted without great necessity,” he warned. Such an interpretation was attempted by the Spanish theologian Diego Zuñiga in his Commentary on Job but practically no one followed him.

  Clearly what was required was proof that the Earth really moves, and it is one of the ironies of history that a few days after receiving Cardinal Conti’s letter, Galileo got another one that could have helped him do just that. It is dated 21 July 1612 and also came from Rome, where it was penned by Federico Cesi, who tells Galileo about Kepler’s discovery that the orbits of the planets are elliptical:

  I believe with Kepler that to compel the planets to follow perfect circles is to confine them to a path from which they often escape. I realize, like you, that many orbits are not concentric to the Sun or the Earth but that some are concentric to the Earth and others to the Sun, and perhaps all to the Sun if their trajectories are elliptical as Kepler says.

  The crucial sentence is the last one: Unless the orbits of the planets are elliptical they cannot have the Sun as their center or, more precisely, at one of the two focuses of the ellipse, as Kepler also said. Unfortunately, Galileo seems never to have taken this idea seriously. He may have been deterred by Kepler’s mystical asides, but the main reason was that he was deeply convinced that natural and unending motion (in the absence of retarding forces such as air) can only be perfectly circular.

  Galileo’s Letters on the Sunspots finally appeared in March 1613. The censors had made a fuss about references to the Bible, but they had allowed Galileo to openly adopt the Copernican system and link the proof with his own discoveries. From this time on, until the Holy Office clamped down on him in 1616, Galileo would defend it on all occasions. His name became so closely associated with the motion of the Earth in the popular mind that he was sometimes regarded as the one who had originated the idea, which caused him no little amusement.

  LUNCH WITH THE PATRONS

  Galileo engineered an appointment at the University of Pisa for his favorite disciple, Benedetto Castelli. No sooner had Castelli arrived in November 1613 than the overseer of the university, Arturo d’Elci, called him in to say that he must under no circumstances discuss the motion of the Earth in his lectures. Castelli assured him that he had no such intention, wisely adding that his own teacher, Galileo, had never done so in 24 years of teaching. Castelli was true to his word, but less than a month later the forbidden topic was raised under circumstances that compelled him to argue the case for Copernicanism. It was an event that turned out to be of crucial importance for Galileo.

  The Tuscan court had arrived in Pisa for their annual winter visit, and their serene highnesses invited to their table the learned and notable of the city. Their highnesses were actually three: the Grand Duke Cosimo II, his mother Christina, who had retained her title of grand duchess after the death of Ferdinando I in 1609, and Cosimo’s wife, Maria Maddalena, who had to be content with the title of archduchess that she had brought with her from her native Austria. Castelli and a colleague, Cosimo Boscaglia, who taught philosophy, were favored with an invitation. Here is the account of the luncheon that Castelli sent Galileo on Saturday 14 December 1613:

  Thursday morning I was at table with our Patrons and when asked by the Grand Duke about the university, I gave him a detailed account of everything, with which he showed himself much pleased. He asked me if I had a telescope. I said yes, and I began to tell about an observation of the Medicean planets I had made just the night before. Madama Christina wanted to know their position, whereupon the talk turned to the necessity of their being real objects and not illusions of the telescope.

  Professor Boscaglia agreed that they were indeed real, and Castelli proceeded to tell them about Galileo’s determination of the orbits of Jupiter’s satellites. The meal ended pleasantly, and Castelli took his leave, but “hardly had I come out of the palace,” the letter continues,

  when I was overtaken by the porter of Madama Christina, who called me back. But before I tell you what followed, you must first know that while we were at table Doctor Boscaglia had had Madama’s ear for a while, and while conceding as real all the things you have discovered in the sky, he said that only the motion of the Earth was somehow incredible, and could not take place especially because Holy Scripture was obviously contrary to that view.

  Madama Christina was known at court as a devout Catholic who listened to her confessor and was devoted to the pope even when His Holiness’s interests might be at variance with those of the Tuscan government. She also knew her Bible and could refer to the Book of Josuah where the Sun is ordered to stand still. If the earth moved, Josuah would have ordered it and not the Sun to stop!

  Upon re-entering the Pisan Palace Castelli found that some of the guests were still there including Professor Boscaglia, Paolo Giordano Orsini, a cousin of the Grand Duke, and Antonio de’ Medici, an adopted son of the Duke’s grandfather, Cosimo I. The grand duchess, Castelli went on,

  began to argue Holy Scripture against me. Thereupon, after having made suitable disclaimers, I commenced to play the theologian with such assurance and dignity that it would have done you good to hear me. Don Antonio assisted me, giving me such heart that instead of being dismayed by the majesty of Their Highnesses I carried things off like a paladin. I quite won over the Grand Duke and his Archduchess, while Don Paolo came to my assistance with a very apt quotation from Scripture. Only Madama Christina remained against me, but from her manner I judged that she did this only to hear my replies. Professor Boscaglia never said a word.

  Castelli mentioned that Niccolò Arrighetti, a mutual friend, would presently call on Galileo to tell him more. This he did within a few days and confirmed that the grand duchess had quizzed Castelli about the compatibility of Copernicanism with Scripture. Although she was not displeased with Castelli’s answers, her mind was not completely at rest.

  AN ASTRONOMER’S LETTER

  Galileo saw that he must intervene, and within a week he put his own reflections on paper in the form of a Letter to Castelli, which could be shown to friends. This was to be his first but not his last incursion into theology. Personally, he saw no conflict between science and religion, and he was anxious that no line of battle should be drawn between the two. “Scripture cannot err,” wrote Galileo, “but its interpreters can,”

  especially when they would always base themselves on the literal meaning of the words. For in this way not only many contradictions would be apparent, but even grave heresies and blasphemies, since then it would be necessary to give God hands and feet and eyes, and human and bodily emotions such as anger, regret, hatred and sometimes forgetfulness of things past, and ignorance of the future.

  Galileo stressed that this way of speaking had been introduced into the Bible for the sake of the
masses, and only to aid them in matters concerning salvation. “Sacred Scripture and nature,” he declared, “both derive from the Divine Word, the former as dictated by the Holy Spirit and the latter as the faithful executrix of God’s commands.” No truth discovered in nature can contradict the Bible. Indeed Copernican astronomy even makes the miracle of Josuah arresting the Sun more easy to understand, according to Galileo, because if the Sun stood still the Earth would stop spinning and the day would be automatically prolonged! This explanation of the miracle of Joshua, however ingenious, was highly speculative, and it cast Galileo in the dangerous role of telling theologians how to interpret the Bible.

  It might be naive to read every passage of the Bible literally, but was it not sheer arrogance to impose upon it a purely speculative theory? After all, where was the proof that Copernicus, or Galileo for that matter, offered for the motion of the Earth? Galileo declared that because “two truths can never contradict each other, it is the task of wise expositors to try to find the true meanings of sacred passages in accordance with natural conclusions that have been previously rendered certain and secure by sense experience or necessary demonstration.” The problem that Galileo faced was that we see the Sun rise in the morning and set in the evening. Only if he could show that this is an optical illusion, could he argue that sensory experience cannot always be relied upon.

  Galileo did not shirk the task of giving such a demonstration, but he was frequently ill during the next year and progress was slow. He had the pleasure of learning that Father Grienberger, who had succeeded Father Clavius at the Roman College, had accepted his conclusions concerning sunspots after at first supporting the views of his fellow Jesuit, Christopher Scheiner. When the Genovese patrician and amateur scientist Giovanni Battista Baliani asked Galileo about his astronomical views, Galileo replied on 12 March 1614: “As far as the opinion of Copernicus is concerned, I really hold it to be certain, not only on account of the appearance of Venus, the sunspots, and the Medicean stars, but for other reasons, as well as for many more that I have found and that seem to me decisive.” Galileo felt that the Church would make a serious error if it rejected Copernicanism, but he was too sanguine about the cogency of his demonstration. This was to prove his Achilles heel.

  THUNDER FROM THE PULPIT

  In Rome, the general of the Jesuits, Claudio Aquaviva, was bent on keeping the members of his society out of the perilous waters of controversy. On 14 December 1613, the very day Castelli had given Galileo an account of his luncheon at the Tuscan court, Aquaviva had written a letter in which he insisted that Aristotelian natural philosophy be taught in Jesuit schools. This made the astronomers of the Roman College extra cautious. In June 1614, Giovanni Bardi, a Roman friend, wrote to Galileo to say that Father Grienberger had told him that he now had to follow Aristotle in his teaching although he would gladly have spoken out in favor of Galileo. It was unfortunate that the Jesuits should be made to uphold traditional views just at the time when Galileo was claiming that the sunspots sounded the death knell of the Aristotelian position. The Dominicans also followed Aristotle and one of their members, a young firebrand named Tommaso Caccini, carried out what someone had suggested at a meeting of the Pigeon League in the home of the archbishop of Pisa. On the fourth Sunday of Advent, which fell that year on 21 December 1614, Caccini attacked Galileo from the pulpit of Santa Maria Novella, one of the main churches of Florence.

  Caccini seems to have chosen as his text the passage in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, in which two men clad in white said to the disciples after Jesus’ ascension into heaven: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking at the sky?” In the Latin version, which Caccini quoted, “Men of Galilee” is “Viri Galilei,” which can be rendered as “Men of [Galileo] Galilei.” The pun startled the congregation, but there was more to come. Caccini launched into a denunciation of Galileo, the Copernican system, and all mathematicians, whom he branded as enemies of Church and State. He was dead serious. He was also bigoted and given to slander, and he let the Dominicans in Rome know that he had ferreted out a new heresy. One of his correspondents, a preacher-general of the order named Luigi Maraffi, thought Caccini had flown off the handle and wrote to Galileo to express his regret that such stupidities should have been uttered by a member of his religious order. Galileo had himself written to Federico Cesi, asking how he could obtain redress. The advice that he received from the religious, yet worldly wise, prince could have taught him much about the Roman milieu he was so sorely to misjudge:

  Concerning the opinion of Copernicus, Bellarmine himself, who is one of the heads of the Congregation that deals with these matters, told me that he considers it heretical, and that the motion of the earth is undoubtedly against Scripture; so you can see for yourself. I have always feared that if Copernicus were discussed in the Congregation of the Index, they would proscribe him.

  THE DENUNCIATION

  Cesi urged Galileo to avoid discussing Copernicus for the time being and to bear in mind “that it is very easy to proscribe a book or suspend it, and that this is done even in case of doubt.” Cesi did not fear that Copernicanism would be officially declared heretical but that it might be condemned in a milder, but nonetheless embarrassing, way by being put on the Index, as was often done. Why, Bellarmine himself had had one of his books placed on the Index in 1590 by Sixtus V on the grounds that he was not hard enough on those who criticized the temporal power of the papacy! Fortunately for Bellarmine, Sixtus V died before the new edition of the Index could be published, and his successor, Urban VII, who was only on the throne of St. Peter for 12 days (15–27 September 1590), removed the book before the proscribed list went to press.

  Niccolò Lorini, the Dominican who had criticized what’s-his-name Ipernicus, met Castelli in Pisa at the end of 1614 and said how sad he was that Caccini had let himself get so far out of hand. Castelli thought Lorini had had a change of heart, but his optimism was premature. Lorini may have felt that Caccini had gone too far, but while he was in Pisa someone gave him a copy of Galileo’s Letter to Castelli, written a year before. Upon his return to Florence, he discussed it with his fellow priests and they reached the conclusion that it was most objectionable. Filled with holy zeal, the aged and influential Dominican decided to forward the letter to Cardinal Sfondrati, the prefect of the Congregation of the Index. Lorini carefully avoided mentioning Galileo in the covering letter, but he called for an investigation of the views expressed by the “Galileists,” all good Christians, admittedly, but a bit too clever and obstinate in their opinion. Lorini described them as spreading all sorts of impertinence, such as the view that Scripture takes the last place in disputes about natural effects and that astronomical arguments count far more than biblical statements.

  Lorini’s letter and Galileo’s Letter to Castelli were examined by the Holy Office at its meeting on Wednesday, 25 February 1615, which was held at the residence of Cardinal Bellarmine in the presence of six other cardinals, the commissioner of the Holy Office, the assessor, and the notary. Since the only solid evidence that Lorini submitted was a copy of the Letter to Castelli, the Holy Office decided to request the archbishop of Florence to obtain and submit the original. Cardinal Garcia Millini wrote personally to the archbishop of Pisa, where Castelli resided, in the hope of expediting matters. Lorini’s copy of the Letter to Castelli was inaccurate in places, but Galileo’s views were not studiously distorted. Lorini had skillfully shielded himself from personal interrogation by requesting that his cover letter be treated not as a judicial deposition but as an informal letter written out of sense of service toward his patron, Cardinal Sfondrati.

  The next move was made by Caccini, who had come to Rome in quest of preferment. He took the unusual step of asking to appear before the Inquisition. At a meeting of the Holy Office on Thursday, 19 March 1615, the pope decided that Caccini should be heard. The next day, Caccini called on Commissioner Seghizzi. He recounted how he had, in his sermon on the fourth Sunday of Advent, modest
ly reproved Copernican-ism as contrary to Scripture, the interpretation of the Fathers, and the Councils of Lateran and Trent. It was public knowledge that Galileo held two propositions that were at variance with the Faith: one, that the Earth moves, and second that the Sun stands still. Caccini went on to tarnish Galileo’s reputation by accusing him of having undesirable relations. Lorini, Caccini said, suspected Galileo’s orthodoxy because he corresponded with Paolo Sarpi in Venice, and belonged to an academy that was in touch with Germans (meaning heretics). The summary identification of Germans with heresy gives us a clue to Caccini’s lack of discrimination, but the charge of corresponding with Germans was to be included years later in the preamble to Galileo’s condemnation. The Holy Office was more interested in specific charges, however, and asked Caccini for other witnesses. He provided the names of two: Ferdinando Ximenes, a Dominican, and Gianozzo Attavanti, a young Florentine nobleman.

  On Thursday, 2 April 1615, at a meeting of the Holy Office attended by seven cardinals, the pope decided to forward Caccini’s deposition to the Florentine inquisitor with instructions to interrogate the two witnesses. No undue haste was displayed by the Florentine inquisitor, and Ximenes and Attavanti were only heard on 13 and 14 November 1615. When Attavanti was asked what he thought of Galileo’s orthodoxy he replied that he considered him a very good Catholic, for how else could he be in the employ of the grand duke! This is another side of the affair: as the court’s official philosopher and mathematician, Galileo could not be criticized without implying that his patron had somehow been remiss. The depositions of Ximenes and Attavanti were sent to Rome and, at the meeting of the Holy Office held at the home of Cardinal Sfondrati on Wednesday, 25 November, Ximenes’s deposition was read out loud. It was decided to have Galileo’s Letters on the Sunspots examined since this work was mentioned by both Caccini and Attavanti.