by Mario Livio
Ambassador Niccolini, who was supposed to deliver Galileo’s letter to the cardinal, hesitated at first, for fear that the letter might hurt more than it could help, but after consulting with Galileo’s former student Castelli, he eventually passed it on. At the same time, Niccolini and Castelli sat down with various church officials—Niccolini even met with Pope Urban VIII himself—in a desperate attempt to save the sixty-eight-year-old from having to travel to Rome. All interventions on Galileo’s behalf, however, were unsuccessful. The Pope insisted that both Ciampoli and Riccardi “had behaved badly” and had deceived him with regard to the Dialogo. In retaliation, on November 23 Ciampoli was effectively exiled from Rome to become governor of a small town. He never returned to Rome.
As for Galileo, the Pontiff instructed the Florentine inquisitor to absolutely oblige Galileo to come to Rome, even though Galileo was given a postponement of a month for the trip. As a last-ditch effort, on December 17 Galileo sent a medical report, prepared by three doctors, which stated that travel would worsen his already grave condition. At that point, the impatient Urban VIII was not prepared to make any further concessions. With the clear intention of intimidating Galileo, he suggested that he would send his own physicians to examine the astronomer—at Galileo’s expense!—and that if he were found to be fit for travel, he would be sent “imprisoned and in chains.” Confronted with this threat, even the grand duke and his secretary of state informed Galileo that “since it is proper in the end to obey the higher tribunals, it displeases His Highness [the duke] that he cannot bring it about that you would not go.” The most that the grand duke could offer at this stage was to help with the travel arrangements and to organize accommodations in Rome at the ambassador’s house.
Realizing that he had run out of options, and seriously concerned about what the trip to Rome might entail, Galileo wrote a will. He named his son Vincenzo as heir. He also wrote to his friend in Paris, Elia Diodati, who helped publish Galileo’s work outside Italy, saying, “I am sure it [the Dialogo] will be prohibited, despite the fact that to obtain the license I went personally to Rome and delivered it into the hands of the master of the Sacred Palace.”
Galileo departed for Rome on January 20, 1633, but because of the raging plague, he had to be quarantined before crossing from Tuscany into the territories known as the Papal States, a stop that turned out to be painfully long and unpleasant. Consequently, he arrived in Rome only on February 12, fortunately to the comfort and warm hospitality in the home of Ambassador Niccolini and his wife. After meeting with a few church officials for advice in the first few days, in the following weeks, Galileo barely left the house, since Cardinal Francesco Barberini advised him against socializing, for fear that it “could cause harm and prejudice.”
As time went by with very little, clear, detectable action, or any form of communication, Galileo’s hopes for a relative benign and peaceful resolution were somewhat resurrected. He also felt encouraged by the fact that he had been allowed to stay at the Tuscan ambassador’s house rather than at the quarters of the Holy Office. In his naïveté, Galileo did not understand that after having gone through all the trouble of bringing him to Rome, the Church could not afford to let the affair dissolve. Niccolini’s endeavors to achieve a prompt decision by meeting again with the Pope also went nowhere. The Pontiff repeated his stance that “May God forgive Signor Galilei for having meddled with these subjects,” since, as Urban VIII kept stating, “God is omnipotent and can do anything; but if He is omnipotent, why do we want to bind him?” The Pope’s uncompromising view continued to be that no theoretical understanding of the universe was ever possible.
The state of uncertainty and anxiety continued for about two months. At the beginning of April, however, Galileo was summoned to the Holy Office, and he appeared before the Commissary General on April 12. The only good news that Niccolini could report to the Florentine secretary of state was that Galileo was lodged in the chambers of the prosecutor rather than in the cells usually given to criminals. The prosecutor also allowed for Galileo’s domestic to serve him, and food was brought to him from the Tuscan embassy.
The stage was thus set for one of the most famous—or, rather, infamous—trials in history.
CHAPTER 12 The Trial
Galileo’s trial began on April 12 and ended on June 22, 1633. The actual interrogations took place during three sessions, on April 12, April 30, and May 10. The Pope’s decision was obtained on June 16, and the sentence was delivered six days later. Even though the key charges concerned disobedience to the Church’s orders, no other single event represented as clearly the clash between scientific reasoning and religious authority, and its reverberations are felt even today.
The Inquisition, or, more formally, the Congregation of the Holy Office, was composed of ten cardinals appointed by the Pope. The person in charge of the interrogations was the Commissary General, Cardinal Vincenzo Maculano (who was also an engineer), aided by the in-court prosecutor, Carlo Sinceri. As we shall see, while we have a fairly detailed description of what happened inside the courtroom during each session, unfortunately, we have no access to potentially crucial behind-the-scenes information.
SESSION 1: THE SHADOWS OF 1616
After a few preliminary questions, in the answers to which Galileo acknowledged that he assumed he had been summoned to the Holy Office because of his latest book, the Dialogo, the prosecutor moved swiftly to what he regarded as his trump card. With a series of questions, Maculano focused all attention on the injunction of 1616—the document that had been discovered in the archives a few months earlier.
Since this document played a dramatic role in the trial, it is worth recalling the sequence of events that had led to its creation. At a meeting of the Inquisition on February 25, 1616, Pope Paul V ordered Cardinal Bellarmino to summon Galileo and to warn him that he had to abandon the Copernican doctrine. Only in the event that Galileo refused, Commissary General Michelangelo Seghizzi was to issue a formal injunction forbidding Galileo from defending, discussing, or teaching Copernicanism in any way. If the astronomer objected even to the injunction, the order was to arrest and prosecute him. At the Inquisition’s meeting on March 3, Bellarmino reported that Galileo acquiesced already when issued the warning to stop supporting Copernicanism.
The new document presented at the trial, which was dated February 26, 1616, described a course of events that was different in one important aspect. It stated that immediately after Bellarmino’s warning, Seghizzi intervened and ordered Galileo to abandon Copernicanism and to not hold, defend, or teach it in any fashion whatsoever, and that Galileo promised to obey. This document seemed to describe a rather premature intervention by the commissary general, perhaps prompted by a mere brief hesitation on Galileo’s part after hearing Bellarmino’s warning. The document was also in conflict with both Bellarmino’s own report to the Inquisition and with Bellarmino’s letter to Galileo, issued on May 26, 1616. These discrepancies have spawned an entire series of conspiracy theories suggesting that the injunction document may have been forged, either in 1616 or in 1632. However, a calligraphic analysis of the document obtained in 2009 confirmed that Andrea Pettini, the notary of the Holy Office, recorded all the documents of 1616, thus refuting any suggestions of forgery on the eve of the trial.
When asked specifically about what had been communicated to him in February 1616, Galileo answered without hesitation: “In the month of February 1616, Lord Cardinal Bellarmino told me that since Copernicus’s opinion, taken absolutely, was contrary to Holy Scripture, it could neither be held nor defended, but it could be taken and used suppositionally [emphasis added]. In conformity with this, I keep a certificate by Lord Cardinal Bellarmino himself, dated 26 May 1616, in which he says that Copernicus’s opinion cannot be held or defended, being against Holy Scripture. I present a copy of this certificate, and here it is.” At that point, Galileo produced a copy of Bellarmino’s letter, which Maculano had no idea existed. This clearly had the potential of being
a critical moment from a legal perspective, since while the injunction issued by Commissary General Seghizzi (with Bellarmino present) spoke of not to “hold, teach, or defend in any way, either verbally or in writing,” Bellarmino’s letter used the much milder language “not to hold or defend Copernicanism.” Evidently caught by surprise, Maculano tried to press Galileo on whether there were any others present at that meeting, and Galileo answered that there were some Dominican fathers present whom he did not know, nor had he seen since. Still insisting, Maculano asked Galileo specifically about the wording of the injunction. Galileo’s response, which sounds sincere, was not phrased in the most advantageous way to aid his defense:
I do not recall that such injunction was given to me any other way than orally by Lord Cardinal Bellarmino. I do remember that the injunction was that I could not hold or defend, or maybe even that I could not teach. I do not recall, further, that there was a phrase “in any way whatever,” but maybe there was; in fact, I did not think about it or keep it in mind, having received a few months thereafter Lord Cardinal Bellarmino’s certificate dated 26 May, which I have presented and in which is explained the order given to me not to hold or defend the said opinion. Regarding the other two phrases in the said injunction now mentioned, namely not to teach and in any way whatever, I did not retain them in my memory, I think because they are not contained in the said certificate, which I relied upon and kept as a reminder.
Unfortunately, by allowing for the possibility that the injunction might have been more restrictive than Bellarmino’s letter, Galileo inadvertently weakened the protection that Bellarmino’s softer formulation offered him. Without this apparently sincere, albeit tentative admission, there would have been the ambiguous legal issue of the two documents—Bellarmino’s letter, on one hand, and the injunction document, on the other—being incompatible with each other. It is difficult to know why Galileo chose to acknowledge tentatively something that happened so many years earlier and that he legitimately didn’t recall precisely. It could be that he mistakenly thought it wasn’t that important, especially given the line of defense that he was about to adopt. Indeed, the next set of queries concerned the imprimatur—the permission to write and publish the Dialogo.
The first question was perhaps the most problematic. Galileo was asked whether he had requested permission to write the book. The simple answer was, of course, no. However, acknowledging that fact without any explanation, combined with the prevailing perception that the book advocated Copernicanism, would have been tantamount to an immediate admission of guilt. Galileo therefore decided to rely on the fact that the added preface in particular and the final summary of the book rendered his opinion on Copernicanism inconclusive and his support for it neither explicit nor absolute. Accordingly, he claimed that he had not felt that he needed permission, since his goal had not been to support Copernicanism but to refute it. Any lawyer today would have told Galileo that this choice of word (refute) was not particularly credible, given the actual contents of the Dialogo, and Galileo’s statement must have raised a few eyebrows in the court.
Why did Galileo make such a claim? It is difficult to judge what was in the mind of an old man fearing imprisonment. Galileo was probably attempting to give more weight to his statement in the preface, where he seemingly expressed his support for the decree against Copernicanism of 1616. It is also possible that in fact he used a weaker expression and “refute” was inserted by the church officials recording the proceedings, in their attempt to portray Galileo as deceitful and manipulative.
Rather than seeking to contradict Galileo, Maculano moved on to the next question, on whether Galileo had sought permission to print the book. On this, Galileo had an answer that on the face of it appeared convincing: he had not just one imprimatur but two. One was from the Master of the Sacred Palace, Niccolò Riccardi in Rome, and the second from the Inquisitor of Florence, Clemente Egidi. This, in principle, could have been an extremely strong point in favor of Galileo. Could the Church really condemn a book that had been approved for publication twice by the very church officials in charge of censorship?
Perfectly understanding the problem the prosecution was facing, Maculano attempted to establish that Galileo had, in fact, been disingenuous in his request for permission. He therefore asked Galileo whether he had revealed to Riccardi the existence of the injunction of 1616. Galileo replied that he had not, arguing again that he had considered such a notification unnecessary, given that his purpose was not to defend Copernicanism but to demonstrate that no world model could be made conclusive—precisely in line with the Pope’s views. Here Galileo may have made another tactical mistake. To be consistent with his previous statements, he could have claimed that he had not informed Riccardi of the 1616 injunction simply because he didn’t remember it. Galileo’s numerous missed opportunities to exploit legal loopholes to strengthen his case does leave us with the impression that his answers may have been sincere, at least from his own perspective, or that they have been misrepresented in the written document.
With this indecisive exchange, the first session came to a close. Following the proceedings, Galileo was asked, as the protocol required, to sign a deposition and then was taken to be detained on the premises of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, the location where the Holy Office held the hearings.
From the point of view of an objective audience, one could argue that the first session of the trial ended in a legal draw. Whereas Maculano surely surprised and scared Galileo with the introduction of Seghizzi’s injunction document, Galileo produced his own surprise in the form of Bellarmino’s letter. Since the Dialogo consisted of a critical examination of arguments both in favor of and against Copernicanism, it could be regarded as violating the prohibition of “teaching” contained in Seghizzi’s injunction. At the same time, Galileo could maintain that he had complied fully with Bellarmino’s letter, which had merely forbidden explicit support for Copernicanism. With both Bellarmino and Seghizzi dead at the time of the trial, the two conflicting documents created a virtual impasse from which there seemed to be no easy way out. The two permissions to print the book—one supposedly granted by Riccardi in Rome (albeit somewhat problematically, since the book was actually printed in Florence) and the other by Egidi in Florence—further complicated the issue, and must have given Maculano a strong sensation of an impending stalemate.
We may wonder why Egidi and Riccardi gave the imprimatur in the first place, given the contents of the book, which other church officials clearly found objectionable. One can only speculate that knowing the rather intimate friendship between Urban VIII and Galileo up to around 1630, they both must have assumed that the book had fully met with the Pope’s at least implicit approval, especially since the Pontiff’s views had been explicitly included (though coming from Simplicio’s mouth). Alas, by 1633, the entire personal and political scenes had changed. Egidi’s decision was almost certainly influenced also by the fact that Galileo had always been one of the Grand Duke’s favorites.
Disastrously for Galileo, the three members of the new special commission appointed to carefully examine the Dialogo in order to determine whether Galileo held, taught, or defended in any way the propositions that the Sun is at rest and the Earth is moving, issued their individual reports on April 17. They all concluded definitively that the book violated Seghizzi’s 1616 injunction, even though two of them did not explicitly pronounce that Galileo held the condemned Copernicanism.
The report by Jesuit Melchior Inchofer, who was a strong opponent of Copernicanism and a supporter of Christoph Scheiner, was particularly long, extremely detailed, and devastatingly damning. It started with a grave indictment: “I am of the opinion that Galileo not only teaches and defends the immobility or rest of the sun or center of the universe, around which both the planets and the earth revolve with their own motions, but also that he is vehemently suspected of firmly adhering to this opinion, and indeed that he holds it” [emphasis added]. Inchofer also s
urmised that one of Galileo’s aims was to specifically attack Scheiner, who had written against Copernicanism. As expected, the Congregation of the Index promptly approved the special commission’s reports on April 21.
A letter discovered only in 1998 (and published in 2001) in the archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave rise to speculation about what happened next in the trial. The letter, written by Maculano and addressed to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, was dated April 22, just one day after the Congregation approved the judgment against the Dialogo. Maculano rather compassionately described the situation:
Last night, Galileo was afflicted with pains which assaulted him, and he cried out again this morning. I have visited him twice, and he has received more medicine. This makes me think that his case should be expedited very quickly, and I truly think that this should happen in light of the grave condition of this man. Already yesterday the Congregation decided on his book, and it was determined that in it he defends and teaches the opinion which is rejected and condemned by the Church, and that the author also makes himself suspected of holding it. That being so, the case could immediately be brought to a prompt settlement, which I expect is your feeling in obedience to the Pope.