Galileo's Dream (50 page)

O
FTEN AS HE WROTE HE SIGHED.
So many had died. His parents and Marina, Sarpi and Sagredo and Salviati, Cesarini and Cosimo … The world of his youth, and of the years in Padua, seemed to have disappeared into the darkness of a previous epoch. He had lived on into a more troubled time. When he was sick it often seemed to the household that it was sorrow that kept him in bed more than any pains of the flesh.

To comfort himself for two of these losses, Galileo structured his new treatise as a series of dialogues between Filippo Salviati, Giovan-francesco Sagredo, and a third character named Simplicio. Salviati would express the views that Galileo himself was trying to teach, although Salviati also referred from time to time to an “Academician,” which the context made clear was Galileo himself. Sagredo, the man Galileo had eulogized as “my idol,” was then the voice of an intelligent courtier of the time, curious and open-minded, willing to be educated by Salviati's explanations. This was so much the way they had been in real life—not just patrons to Galileo, but friends, teachers, brothers—like
the elder brothers he had never had, and had so much enjoyed having. There had to be someone you could boast to who would enjoy hearing it, who would be proud to hear it of you; and wiser heads who would look after you too. He wrote with his heart full and his throat tight:

The character Simplicio, on the other hand, was indeed a simpleton, as the name suggested—although there had been a Roman philosopher with such a name centuries before. But his meaning was obvious. He stood for all the enemies Galileo had ever sparred with, the whole crowd mashed together, not only the many who had denounced him openly but also the many more who had spoken in private, or in lectures or sermons all over Italy. Simplicio's lame arguments would illustrate every one of the logical errors and deliberate misunderstandings, the exaggerations and false syllogisms and irrelevancies, the sheer stubborn stupidity, which Galileo had faced over the years. Often he laughed aloud as he wrote—not his low “huh huh huh huh” of true amusement, but the single bark of his sarcastic laugh.

The book was structured as four days of dialogue between the three men, gathered to talk at Sagredo's palazzo in Venice, that pink ark where Galileo had spent so many magnificent hilarious nights. The first day's discussion concerned his astronomical discoveries, including many new observations about the moon that he had made since publishing the
Sidereus Nuncius
. Along the way he interspersed jokes, wordplay, odd little observations that were mysterious even to him:

Well, yes; but this event had happened a million years before, and the “oldest records” he spoke of did not exist. How did Galileo know about it? He himself was not completely sure. His old dreams haunted him; he remembered them in fluctuating detail, sometimes even dreaming he was out in space again. He knew for sure he had unfinished business there, but he was less and less sure what it was. He knew that his mind had been tampered with, and more than once overwhelmed.

Thus he had his Sagredo ask, when they were discussing the telescope,

Will the new observations and discoveries made with this admirable instrument never cease?

And his Salviati answered,
If its progress follows the course of other great inventions, one may hope that in time things will be seen which we cannot even imagine at present
.

Indeed.

Later in that First Day, he wrote,
But we are not keeping track of the flight of time…. a person's memory becomes so confused with such a multitude of things
.

So
true.

Later still he wrote
, But surpassing all stupendous inventions, what sublimity of mind was his who dreamed of finding means to communicate his deepest thoughts to any other person, though distant by mighty intervals of place and time! Of talking with those who are in India; of speaking to those who are not yet born, and will not be born for a thousand or even ten thousand years …

What sublimity of mind, indeed! People really had no idea. He revised the passage so that it seemed to refer to language and to writing, but for him it also referred to something both more immediate and more mysterious. To speak with people who would not be born for a thousand years….

The Second Day of his dialogues concerned the movement of the Earth—the evidence for it, and the explanations for why it was not immediately evident to those standing on the Earth's moving surface. This required a detailed description of some parts of his motion studies, and Galileo could not help having Salviati say about this:
How many propositions I have noted in Aristotle (meaning always his science) that are not only wrong, but wrong in such a way that their diametrical opposites are true
.

Ha! But Simplicio was a stubborn character, in the book as in the world. Sagredo tried to explain to him the concepts of relative motion. He tried everything. He used for an example the effect of backspin on tennis balls; he even proposed a clever thought experiment concerning shooting crossbow bolts from a moving carriage, forward and back, to see if the bolts flew longer or shorter distances if shot in the direction of the carriage's movement or against it. He pointed out, almost kindly, after the failure of one such Socratic lesson, that Simplicio could not seem to free his mind from his preconceptions enough to perform a thought experiment. None of this made any difference to Simplicio, and the Second Day came to an end without him being illuminated by any new understanding.

The Third Day was then a technical discussion of the astronomical issues, which Galileo augmented with many small geometrical line drawings, to make clearer his meaning concerning the Earth's movement. Some of Tycho's data were included, and a dense discussion of all Galileo's telescopic work: the attempt to find parallax, the phases of Venus, the odd motions of Mars, the difficulty of seeing Mercury. It turned out to be the longest dialogue of the four, and inevitably, it seemed, the least entertaining.

The Fourth Day was a revision of Galileo's earlier treatise on tides and how they provided clear evidence of the Earth's rotation. This meant that the final fifty pages of his masterpiece were devoted to a false argument. Galileo was obscurely aware of this, but he wrote the chapter out anyway, following the plan he had set down years before—because, among other reasons, it seemed to him that his Jovian understanding of the cause of tides was too weird to be true, as well as impossible to describe. “I don't like this,” he grumbled to Cartophilus one night. “It's giving me that feeling again. I'm just doing what I always have done.”

“So change it then, maestro.”

“The changes too have already happened,” Galileo growled. “Fate changes, not us.” And dipped his pen and forged on. It was the book of his life; he had to finish it in style. But would it be enough to convince Urban VIII of its views?

By now Galileo over the course of his life had accrued three kinds of enemies. First came the Dominicans, the Dogs of God
(cani Domini)
, who since Trent had been using the Inquisition to smash all challenges to orthodoxy. Then there were the secular Aristotelians, all the professors and philosophers and laymen who stood by the Peripatetic philosophy. Lastly and most recently, for they had supported Galileo during his first trips to Rome, the Jesuits too had turned on him, perhaps because of his attack on Sarsi; no one was quite sure about that, but enemies they now were. It was getting to be quite a crowd. His character Simplicio would be certain to offend scores, even hundreds of men. Galileo was perhaps being ironical when he had Simplicio say, late in the Second Day,
The further this goes on, the more confused I become
, and Sagredo then replies,
This is a sign that the arguments are beginning to change your mind
.

Or perhaps it was a sign that Galileo still had not learned that arguments never change anyone's mind.

One day, returning from the convent of San Matteo alone, his mule Cremonini shied away from a startled rabbit and threw the inattentive Galileo to the ground. Galileo was too sore to remount, and had to limp all the way home.

“We're too far away,” he declared when he got there. “We need to move closer to San Matteo.” He had said this often before, but now he meant it.

No one at Bellosguardo was pleased. Arcetri, where San Matteo was located, was a village in the hills west of the city. It was not as easy to get to Florence from there as it was from Bellosguardo. And Bellosguardo was such a big place that any villa in Arcetri would be smaller, and so would not require as large a staff.

Still, this became a new project for Galileo. The
Dialogo
was nearing
completion, so he could give the matter some attention, when he was not working on the problem of publication. Then also Maria Celeste was happy to help organize a house hunt in Arcetri. Indeed she was so good at it, so industrious and resourceful, that Galileo began to wish aloud that she could arrange for his book's publication as well. And then Vincenzio and his sweet wife Sestilia returned to Bellos-guardo, and the hunt for a new house became something they all did together, a kind of family outing, a pleasure for all.

Things might have gone equally well in regard to publishing the
Dialogo
, except Federico Cesi died. Another great young Roman Galilean dead in his meridian, long before his time; it was a pattern of bad luck that almost looked providential, or diabolical, and some of us worried about that.

This time it was a disaster for Galileo beyond what he realized. Cesi was the only patron who might have been powerful enough to publish the
Dialogo
without trouble. And with him gone, his Lyncean Academy immediately collapsed too. Only now did it become obvious that it had been his private club all along.

His loss meant Galileo had to seek a publisher in Florence, which meant obtaining formal approval from the censor there as well as from Father Monster in Rome. And in Florence, the likely prospect that publication would cause political trouble was upsetting the Medicis. Young Ferdinando had by now come into full possession of his crown, and he was concerned to consolidate his power. The last thing he wanted was for his father's old court astronomer to be causing trouble with the Inquisition. So there were Florentine factions to add to the Roman ones opposed to publication. Indeed, with the single faction that had been in favor of it now defunct, only an irregular band of Galileans scattered all over Italy were left to hope for its success.

B
Y 1629, THE BOOK'S SITUATION
had become so complicated that Galileo decided another trip to Rome was in order, to make sure his permission to publish was secure. He went in 1630, at great trouble and expense, and against the will of the Medicis.

As with all his previous trips to Rome, everything there seemed to have changed. It was as if each time he visited it was the Rome of a slightly different universe.

This time Urban agreed to meet with him only once, and that only after a great diplomatic effort by Ambassador Niccolini, who made this effort on his own, apparently because of his liking for Galileo.

And so once again Galileo woke in the Medici's Roman embassy, and carefully dressed in his threadbare finest, remembering all the times this had happened before. He was conveyed down to the Vatican in an embassy litter, mentally rehearsing his points, and so intensely curious as to what he would find that he saw nothing of the narrow alleys and broad strada of the endless hilly city.

This time Urban was calmly formal. Lacking an invitation to rise, Galileo remained on his knees and spoke from there.

Urban's carapace of power was now reinforced by a solid layer of flesh. He was more voluble than before. He spoke of his garden, his Florentine relatives, the poor state of the roads. He made it clear that he did not want the subject of astronomy to arise—not yet, anyway. He left it unclear if he were ever going to want it to arise. Galileo felt his knees begin to splinter under him as he made his part of the conversation; from this perspective he saw a different man. It was not just that Barberini's face had thickened, his jaw gone more massive, his small eyes smaller, his skin more coarse and pale; it was not even that his goatee had been colored a brown that did not quite match the hair on his head. He looked down at Galileo as if from an enormous distance, of course, but also as if he knew things about Galileo that he thought Galileo should know but didn't. As was indeed the case, because of the secret denunciation of
Il Saggiatore
. Spies had recently passed along word that Urban had had the charge investigated, but no one had heard the result. Occasionally there were times when the Vatican was like a black box with no lid, and this was one of them.

The silence on that topic made it seem possible that Urban had set the matter aside, at least for now. And there were developing aspects of the larger situation in Europe that oddly protected Galileo from Urban. Prosecuting his previously favored scientist for heresy would not help Urban in his struggles with the Spanish, but merely be taken by them as a sign of weakness, a baring of the throat. Urban did not want that at all.

His look now suggested that he had not forgotten the denunciation, that he knew he could use it if he wanted to. But Galileo did not know enough to read the look. He had his eye on one thing only, and seizing the thorny opportunity, he felt a quiet moment come on them and asked, “Your Holiness, I wonder if you will bless me with your opinion of my book on the world systems, which I have continued to write, and am ready to submit to Fra Riccardi for approval?”

Urban's brow furrowed and his look darkened. “If our commissioner is to approve it, why do you ask us? Do you think we would countermand our own appointment to the Holy Office of the Congregation?”

“Not at all, Your Holiness. It's just that your word is all in all to me.”

“You have made it clear in your book that God can do anything He pleases, correct?”

“Very much so, Holiness. That is the book's point.”

At the back of the Vatican garden, Cartophilus trembled to hear this. It was impossible to tell from the look on Galileo's face whether he knew he was lying or not.

For a long time Urban too regarded him closely. The kneeling old astronomer looked like a dressed barrel topped by an upraised head, his bearded red face open and sincere. Finally the pope nodded, a single slow, deep nod—a blessing in itself. “You may proceed with our blessing, Signor Galileo Galilei.”

These words surprised several of the people who heard it. The sound of the sentence hung in the air. Hope itself seemed to hoist Galileo back to his feet, as if he were a much younger man than the one who had knelt.

Francesco Niccolini provided him a room in Ferdinando's Roman embassy, so that for the next two months Galileo could be comfortable as he went out every day to do his best to align the rest of the forces in Rome in the way Cesi would have. Urban's private approval had been given, but clearly there was more diplomatic work to be done to secure the project. And yet Galileo had never been a great diplomat. All his life he had flattered his superiors excessively while also presuming to know much more than they did. This was not a good combination, and worse yet, he was still quick with the cutting sarcastic rejoinder if anyone disagreed with him. Thus it was no coincidence that after five visits he had more enemies in Rome than friends. And with rumors of his purpose in the capital widespread, there were many now out to subvert him if they could.

They were effective. At the end of the two months he had managed only to secure a partial permission to publish from Riccardi, conditional on Riccardi's approval of the full text, which would come only after revision of any areas deemed problematic.

In truth, given the overall situation, he could have expected little
more. The words of Urban were the ones he had wanted to hear most, anyway.

So he returned to Florence. He was beginning to hate these trips to Rome, and yet of course they had all been spring picnics compared to the one left to come.

While he was gone, Maria Celeste had found a suitable villa for rent in Arcetri, called Il Gioièllo, the Jewel. The rent was only thirty-five scudi a year—much less than Bellosguardo's hundred, because it was so much smaller, and in a less convenient location. But Galileo declared that despite the diminution in size he would keep the entire staff, so everyone was happy. They left Bellosguardo, where they had lived together for fourteen years, without a backward glance.

Galileo was particularly happy with the new house. From his bedroom window on the second floor he could look down the lane and see the corner of the convent of San Matteo. He could visit every day, and he did. The house rules there had relaxed to the point where he was free to enter the central hall, and to help the women with their domestic repairs. He did carpentry, he fixed their clock. He wrote them little plays to perform, and even music to sing. Once he intertwined all his favorites of his father's melodies into one polyphonic chorus, which brought tears to his eyes to hear. He played the lute for them.

Maria Celeste was in her own personal paradise. Arcangela, on the other hand, still would not speak to him. In fact she had stopped speaking entirely; also bathing and combing her hair. She had the look of a madwoman, which was only appropriate; she was a madwoman. They had to keep her away from the wine cellar, even the kitchen. Maria Celeste fed her by hand. If she hadn't, her sister would have starved. But on they went.

His household still included his sister's family, his brother's family, Vincenzio and Sestilia and child, the servants, and a number of artisans, including Mazzoleni and his family, now jammed into a shed off the larger shed they had converted into the new workshop. Despite La Piera's best efforts in the kitchen, it was chaos every day. Galileo ignored
all that and persisted in getting the
Dialogo
published, now by a new publisher in Florence, which meant he could work directly with the printers in their shop. It proceeded very slowly, but eventually it was time to submit it to Riccardi and get his approval, if he could.

At this point Galileo had obtained permission to publish from the Medicis' bishop's vicar, from the Florentine Inquisitor, and from the grand duke's censor. Riccardi had read some chapters and discussed their contents with Urban, he said, but now he told Galileo that he would need to read the whole manuscript in its final form. That was bad enough, but also the plague had again forced a quarantine on everything moving up and down the peninsula, and a bulky manuscript was unlikely to make it through the whole way. Galileo offered to send the preface and conclusion, which was where the potential problems were dealt with, he said, while the main text of the book could be reviewed and reported on by someone in Florence chosen by Riccardi. Riccardi agreed to this, and his designated reviewer, Fra Giacinto Stefani, read the main text with minute attention to detail, and was won over to the book's views in the process.

Meanwhile, Riccardi was slow at getting to the preface and conclusion. When he finally did, he changed nothing to speak of, but merely ordered that Galileo add a last paragraph, like a chord at the end of a coda, or an amen, which would make it clear that the book's speculations were not physical arguments about the real world but mathematical concepts used to help predictions and the like. The
angelica dottrina
would be thereby affirmed.

Galileo wrote it out thusly, as the final argument of the book, which he put into the mouth of Simplicio:

Which was very nicely expressed, Galileo thought—both to affirm Urban's
angelica dottrina
and at the same time assert the freedom Galileo had been given to discuss things
ex suppositione
.

Riccardi approved the book without having read the whole of the finished version. With an endless number of small problems and delays, the publisher in Florence began the work of printing a thousand copies.