by Dava Sobel
In saying all that I am speaking what my own desires dictate, and also what seems a promise of leniency demonstrated toward you, Sire, by His Holiness, who has destined for your prison a place so delightful, whereby it appears we may anticipate another commutation of your sentence conforming even more closely with all your and our wishes; may it please God to see things turn out that way, if it be for the best. Meanwhile I pray you not to leave me without the consolation of your letters, giving me reports of your condition, physically and especially spiritually: though I conclude my writing here, I never cease to accompany you with my thoughts and prayers, calling on His Divine Majesty to grant you true peace and consolation.
FROM SAN MATTEO, THE 2ND DAY OF JULY 1633.
Most affectionate daughter,
Galileo’s humiliation spread outward from Rome as fast as messengers could carry the news. At the pope’s command, and with fanfare, the text of Galileo’s mortifying sentence was posted and read aloud by inquisitors from Padua to Bologna, from Milan to Mantua, from Florence to Naples to Venice and on to France, Flanders, and Switzerland, alerting the professors of philosophy and mathematics at each locale of the outcome of Galileo’s affair. In Florence in particular, instructions called for the condemnation to occasion a plenary session of the Florentine Inquisition, to which as many mathematicians as possible should be invited.
In the summer of 1633, spurred by these events, a lively black market trade sprang up around the banned Dialogue. The price of the book, which had originally sold for half a scudo, rose to four and then to six scudi as priests and professors across the country purchased copies to keep the inquisitors from cornering the market. A Paduan friend of Galileo’s wrote to tell him how the well-known university philosopher Fortunio Liceti had actually surrendered his copy to the authorities, as though this were a most singular aberrant act, and no one else who owned the Dialogue could bear to part with it. As the book grew in esteem among Galileo’s cohorts, it also gained new converts.
Sometime later that July or August, a messenger smuggled a copy of the Dialogue across the Alps, with the help of clandestine agents, to Strasbourg, where the Austrian historian Mathias Berneggar began to prepare a Latin translation that would be ready for general distribution throughout Europe by 1635. In 1661, an English version of the Dialogue appeared, translated by Thomas Salusbury. The prohibition of the book by the Index endured for a long time, but not with a long arm outside Italy.
In 1744, publishers in Padua gained permission to include the Dialogue in a posthumous collection of Galileo’s works, by inserting appropriate qualifying remarks and disclaimers in the text. But this concession did not lead to any rapid relaxation of the ruling against the Dialogue, which remained officially prohibited. On April 16, 1757, when the Congregation of the Index withdrew its general objections against books teaching the Copernican doctrine, it specifically cited the Dialogue as a still-forbidden title. The Dialogue in fact stayed banned for another sixty-five years, until 1822, when the Congregation of the Holy Office decided to allow publication of books on modern astronomy expounding the movement of the Earth. No new Index, however, was issued at the time to reflect this change in attitude. Thus the 1835 edition became the first Index in almost two centuries to drop the listing of the Dialogue of Galileo Galilei.
PART FIVE
At Siena
[XXVI]
Not knowing
how to
refuse him
the keys
In framing Galileo’s trial as a simplistic case of science versus religion, anti-Catholic critics have claimed that the Church opposed a scientific theory on biblical grounds, and that the outcome mocked the infallibility of the pope. Technically, however, the anti-Copernican Edict of 1616 was issued by the Congregation of the Index, not by the Church. Similarly, in 1633, Galileo was tried and sentenced by the Holy Office of the Inquisition, not by the Church. And even though Pope Paul V approved the Edict of 1616, just as Pope Urban VIII condoned Galileo’s conviction, neither pontiff invoked papal infallibility in either situation. The freedom from error that belongs to the pope as his special privilege applies only when he speaks as shepherd of the Church to issue formal proclamations on matters of faith and morals. What’s more, the right of infallibility was never formally defined in Galileo’s time, but issued two centuries later from Vatican Council I, held in 1869-70.
Although Urban personally believed in his own power enough to boast that the sentence of one living pope—namely Urban himself— outweighed all the decrees of one hundred dead ones, he refrained from claiming infallibility in the Galileo case.
French philosopher Rene Descartes, who followed Galileo’s trial from his home in Holland, understood these distinctions. Thus Descartes could comment hopefully to a colleague: “As I do not see that this censure has been confirmed either by a Council or by the Pope, but proceeds solely from a committee of cardinals, it may still happen to the Copernican theory as it did to that of the antipodes [the eighth-century censured notion of a sub-Earth Earth with human inhabitants] which was once condemned in the same way.” Nevertheless Descartes, a product of his Jesuit education and a devout Catholic throughout his life, withheld from publishing the book he himself had just completed, Le Monde, which espoused Copernicus’s view of the universe.
Numerous churchmen, however—including highly placed clerics such as Ascanio Piccolomini, the archbishop of Siena—had endorsed Galileo’s Dialogue from their initial reading of it and continued to consider the author their friend. “It seems exceeding strange to me,” Archbishop Piccolomini had written to Galileo when the outcry over the Dialogue first arose, “that such a recent and precise approbation should be opposed by the passions of some people who might find fault only in what they conceive of the book, for the work itself ought to appease the most timid conscience. On the other hand, I will say you deserve this and worse, for you have been disarming by steps those who have control of the sciences, and they have nothing left but to run back to holy ground.”
Archbishop Piccolomini, capping a long line of scholars from a distinguished family that produced two popes, had himself studied mathematics and been Galileo’s admirer for many years. Now, in the aftermath of the trial, Piccolomini assumed custody of Galileo, who left the Tuscan embassy in Rome on July 6 and arrived at the archiepiscopal palace, immediately adjacent to the magnificent domed cathedral of Siena, three days later on July 9.
Ascanio Piccolomini, Archbishop of Siena
If Galileo looked “more dead than alive,” as Ambassador Niccolini had described him when he returned from his April questioning by the Holy Office, how must he have appeared at Siena in July, after these many more weeks and traumas? The injustice of the sentence tormented him so that he did not sleep for several nights but could be heard crying out, babbling and rambling in distraction. The archbishop feared for his safety to the point where he considered binding Galileo’s arms to keep him from accidentally injuring himself in bed. Piccolomini determined to restore the man’s broken spirit and return his thoughts to scientific pursuits. The fact that Galileo was able to rise from the ashes of his condemnation by the Inquisition to complete another book project (and for this last work to prove his greatest original contribution) is due in large measure to Piccolomini’s solicitous kindness. A French visitor to Siena in 1633, the poet Saint-Amant, reported finding the archbishop and Galileo together among the rich tapestries and furnishings that filled the guest apartment at the palace, engaging each other in discussion of a mechanical theory, which lay partially written on pages spread all around them.
MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND BELOVED LORD FATHER
THAT THE LETTER YOU WROTE me from Siena (where you say you find yourself in good health) brought me the greatest pleasure, and the same to Suor Arcangela, is needless for me to weary myself in convincing you, Sire, since you will well know how to fathom what I could not begin to express; but I should love to describe to you the show of jubilation and merriment that these mothers
and sisters made upon learning of your happy return, for it was truly extraordinary; since the Mother Abbess, with many others, hearing the news, ran to me with open arms, and crying with tenderness and happiness; truly I am bound as a slave to all of them, for having understood from this display how much love they feel for you, Sire, and for us.
Hearing furthermore that you are staying in the home of a host as kind and courteous as Monsignor Archbishop multiplies the pleasure and satisfaction, despite the potential prejudicial effect this may have on our own interests, because it could well prove to be the case that his extremely enjoyable conversation may engage and detain you much longer than we would like. However, since here for now the suspicions of contagion continue, I commend your remaining there and awaiting (as you say you wish to do) the safety assurance from your closest friends, who, if not with greater love, at least with more certainty than we possess, will be able to apprise you of the facts.
But meanwhile I should judge that it would be wise to draw a profit from the wine in your cellar, at least one cask’s worth; because although for now it is keeping well, I fear this heat may precipitate some peculiar effect: and already the cask that you had tapped before you left, Sire, from which the housemaid and the servant drink, has begun to spoil. You will need to give orders as to what you want done, because I have so little knowledge of this business; but I am coming to the conclusion that since you produced enough to last the entire year, and as you have been away for six of those months, you will still have plenty left, even if you should return in a few days.
Leaving this aside, however, and turning to that which concerns me more, I am longing to know in what manner your affair was terminated to the satisfaction of both you and your adversaries, as you intimated in the next to last letter you wrote me from Rome: tell me the details at your convenience, and only after you have rested, because I can be patient a while longer awaiting enlightenment on this contradiction.
Signor Geri was here one morning, during the time we suspected you to be in the greatest danger, Sire, and he and Signor Aggiunti went to your house and did what had to be done, which you later told me was your idea, seeming to me at the time well conceived and essential, to avoid some worse disaster that might yet befall you, wherefore I knew not how to refuse him the keys and the freedom to do what he intended, seeing his tremendous zeal in serving your interests, Sire.
Last Saturday I wrote to Her Ladyship the Ambassadress with all the great love that I felt, and if I receive an answer, I shall share it with you. I close here because sleep assails me now at the third hour of the night, on which account you will excuse me, Sire, in the event I have said anything inappropriate. I return to you doubled all the regards you offered to those named in your letter and especially La Piera and Geppo, who are thoroughly cheered by your return; and I pray blessed God to give you His holy grace.
FROM SAN MATTEO, THE 13TH DAY OF JULY 1633.
Most affectionate daughter,
The deed that Signor Geri Bocchineri accomplished in Galileo’s absence with the help of their young mutual friend, Niccolo Aggiunti, head of mathematics at Pisa, involved the destruction of potentially incriminating evidence. Fearing that representatives of the Inquisition might requisition Galileo’s papers, his supporters took the prudent path of editing what could be found on his property.
Even though Signor Geri arrived at the convent in advance of Galileo’s letter announcing his mission, Suor Maria Celeste surrendered her keys to him without hesitation. Geri served as a trusted link to her father throughout this period, and no one but her father could have informed him that she held the needed keys in safekeeping. These must have opened a certain closet or cabinet in Galileo’s study. For surely Geri could have obtained keys to the gate and doors of the villa from Signor Rondinelli, who enjoyed free access to Il Gioiello, or from La Piera, the housekeeper, who would have opened any door to his familiar face—he being, as Sestilia’s brother, practically a member of the family. But only Suor Maria Celeste could help him unlock the trove of private papers.
Her description of the event shows she did not judge Signor Geri’s action inappropriate, nor herself an accomplice to any crime against the Holy Office. Apparently nothing she—or Geri and Aggiunti, or Galileo—had done in this connection required asking God’s forgiveness, or she would have shared her prayer for it here in writing, in her customary way.
Her confusion about the contradictory outcome of Galileo’s affairs in Rome—things appearing to her to have been settled to the satisfaction of both sides—stemmed from letters he sent just before being sentenced. At the end of May, as shown in surviving correspondence with his friends, Galileo fully expected leniency for himself and the saving of face for all concerned, though in the end nothing had turned out that way.
“I do not hope for any relief,” Galileo wrote to a former pupil in France after the trial, “and that is because I have committed no crime. I might hope for and obtain pardon, if I had erred; for it is to faults that the prince can bring indulgence, whereas against one wrongfully sentenced while he was innocent, it is expedient, in order to put up a show of strict lawfulness, to uphold rigor.”
Though the sisters of San Matteo had been overjoyed to hail Galileo’s “happy return” to Tuscany from Rome, it soon occurred to them how far away from home Siena really lay. Not just the days’ ride over forty miles of hilly terrain still barred the way of reunion, but the pope’s anger as well. Galileo had not yet been granted permission to return to Arcetri. In fact, Urban might never allow him to go home.
“When you were in Rome, Sire,” Suor Maria Celeste wrote Galileo on July 16, “I said to myself: if I have the grace of your leaving that place and coming as far as Siena I will be satisfied, for then I can almost say that you are in your own house. And now I am not content, but find myself longing to again have you here even closer. Be that as it may, blessed be the Lord for having granted us His grace so magnanimously until now. It falls to us to try to be truly grateful for this much, so that He may be the more favorably disposed and compassionately moved to bless us in other ways in the future, as I hope He will do by His mercy.”
In Rome, Ambassador Niccolini continued to press for Galileo’s return to II Gioiello and notified him of each minuscule development in this campaign as a way of keeping hope alive.
MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND BELOVED LORD FATHER
I READ THE LETTER you wrote to Signor Geri with particular pleasure and consolation, Sire, on account of the things contained in its first paragraph. I will be so bold as to venture on into the third paragraph as well, although it pertains to the purchase of some little house I do not know about, which I have inferred that Signor Geri very much wants Vincenzio to buy, albeit with your help. I certainly would not want to be presumptuous, interfering in matters that do not concern me. Nonetheless, because I care a great deal about whatsoever is of even minimal interest to you, Sire, I would implore you and exhort you (assuming you are in a position to be able to do this) to give them, if not the full amount, then some appreciable part of it, not only for love of Vincenzio, but just as much to keep Signor Geri favorably disposed toward you, as he has, on past occasions, shown great fondness for you, Sire, and, from all I have seen, tried to help you in any way he could: therefore, if, without too much trouble on your part, you could give him some sign of gratitude, I should judge that a deed well done. I know that you yourself can perceive and arrange such matters infinitely better than I, and perhaps I do not even know what I am saying, but well I know how anything I say is dictated by pure love toward you.
The servant who was in Rome with you came here yesterday morning, urged to do so by Signor Giulio Nunci. It seemed strange to me not to see letters from you, Sire. Yet I was appeased by the excuse this same man made, explaining that you had not known whether he would pass this way. Now that you are without a servant, Sire, our Geppo, who cannot move freely about here, desires nothing more, if only he were granted permission, than to come to you, and I shoul
d very much like that, too. If your thoughts concur, Sire, I could see to sending him well escorted, and I believe Signor Geri can secure him a permit to travel.
I also want to know how much straw to buy for the little mule, because La Piera fears she will die of hunger, and the fodder is not good enough for her, as she is a most original animal.
Since I sent you the list of expenses paid out for your house, we have incurred these others that I give you account of now, besides the money that every month I have made sure was paid to Vincenzio Landucci, for which I keep all the receipts, except the last two payments; for at those times he was, as he continues to be now, locked up in his house with the two little children because the plague killed his wife; whereby truly one may say she is released from her toil and gone to her rest, the poor woman. He sent early to ask me for the 6 scudi for the love of God, saying they were dying of hunger, and as the month was almost at its end I sent him the money; he promised the receipt when he is beyond suspicion of contagion, and I will endeavor to hold him to that; if nothing else I will first see to these other disbursements, in the event you are not here to take care of them yourself, Sire, which I suspect on account of the excessive heat that is upon us.