Galileo's Dream (61 page)
Authors: Kim Stanley Robinson
There was already a Roman expression for this kind of turning of a method onto its usual perpetrators; it was called
to poison the Borgias
.
G
ALILEO WAS CALLED TO THE CONVENT
of Minerva by a little phalanx of Dominicans who showed up at his dormitory. The black-and-white Dogs of God looked as grim as executioners. Before leaving his chamber, they gave him the white robe of the penitent to put on over his own clothing. Nothing of his own could appear outside the robe, they said; and he had to be bareheaded.
So it was time for the sentence.
They surrounded him wordlessly then, and led him on the short walk to the room of judgment. Inside that room it was much more crowded than during any of the depositions; most of the Holy Congregation was there to witness the ruling. Pope Urban VIII was not present, of course.
Maculano read the judgment:
We:
Gasparo Borgia, with the title of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem;
Fra Felice Centini, with the title of Santa Anastasia, called d'Ascoli;
Guido Bentivoglio, with the title of Santa Maria del Popolo;
Fra Desiderio Scaglia, with the title of San Carlo, called di Cremona;
Fra Antonio Barberini, called di Sant'Onofrio;
Laudivio Zacchia, with the title of San Petro in Vincoli, called di San Sisto;
Berlinghiero Gessi, with the title of Sant'Agostino;
Fabrizio Verospi, with the title of San Lorenzo in Panisperna, of the order of priests; Francesco Barberini, with the title of San Lorenzo in Damaso; and
Marzio Ginetti, with the title of Santa Maria Nuova, of the order of deacons;
By the Grace of God, the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, and especially commissioned by the Holy Apostolic See as Inquisitors-General against heretical depravity in all of Christendom:
Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei, were denounced to this Holy Office in 1615 for holding as true the false doctrine that the sun is the center of the world and motionless and the earth moves with diurnal motion;
And whereas this Holy Tribunal wanted to remedy the disorder and the harm which derived from this doctrine, the Assessor Theologians assessed the two propositions of the sun's stability and the earth's motion as follows:
That the sun is center of the world and motionless is a proposition which is philosophically absurd and false, and formally heretical, for being explicitly contrary to Holy Scripture;
That the earth is neither the center of the world nor motionless but moves with diurnal motion is philosophically equally absurd and false, and theologically at least erroneous in the faith.
Whereas, however, we wanted to treat you with benignity at that time â¦
Maculano, reading the judgment aloud, went on to describe how Paul V had used Bellarmino's injunction to warn him, also to issue a decree against the publishing of any books about the matter. Then:
And whereas a book has appeared here lately, the title being
Dialogue by Galileo Galilei on the two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic and Copernican
,
the said book was diligently examined and found to violate explicitly the above-mentioned injunction given to you; for in this book you have defended the said opinion already condemned, although you try by means of various subterfuges to give the impression of leaving it undecided and labeled as probable; this is still a very serious error, since there is no way an opinion declared and defined contrary to divine Scripture may be probable.
Therefore, by our order you were summoned to this Holy Office.
The judgment went on to describe the process of the trial in some detail, ending with a sharp dismissal of all Galileo's arguments, including the worth of the signed certificate from Bellarmino that Galileo had brought with him.
The said certificate you produced in your defense aggravates your case further since, while it says that the said opinion is contrary to Holy Scripture, yet you dared to treat of it, defend it, and show it as probable; nor are you helped by the license you artfully and cunningly extorted, since you did not mention the injunction you were under.
Because we did not think you had said the whole truth about your intention, we deemed it necessary to proceed against you by a rigorous examination. Here you answered in a Catholic manner, though without adequate defense to the above-mentioned matters confessed by you and deduced against you about your intention. Therefore, having solemnly considered the merits of your case, together with the above-mentioned confessions and excuses and with any other reasonable matter worth considering, we have come to the final sentence against you:
We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the above-mentioned Galileo, because of the things deduced in the trial and confessed by you, have rendered yourself according to this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy.
This was a technical term, a specific category. The categories ranged from slight suspicion of heresy, to vehement suspicion of heresy, to violent suspicion of heresy, to heresy, to heresiarchy, which meant not only being a heretic but inciting others to heresy as well.
Maculano, having paused briefly for Galileo and everyone else to take in the relevant phrase, continued:
Therefore you have incurred all the censures and penalties imposed by the sacred canons against such delinquents. We are willing to absolve you from them provided that first, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, in front of us you abjure, curse, and detest the above-mentioned errors and heresies, in the manner and form we will prescribe to you.
Furthermore, so that this serious and pernicious error and transgression of yours does not remain completely unpunished, and so that you will be more cautious in the future and an example for others to abstain from similar crimes, we order that the book
Dialogo
by Galileo Galilei, Lincei, be prohibited by public edict.
We condemn you to formal imprisonment in this Holy Office at our pleasure. As a salutary penance we impose on you to recite the seven penitential Psalms once a week for the next three years. And we reserve the authority to moderate or change, wholly or in part, the above-mentioned penalties and penances.
This we say, pronounce, sentence, declare, order, and reserve by this or any other better manner or form that we reasonably can or shall think of.
So we the undersigned Cardinals pronounce:
Felice Cardinal d'Ascoli
Guido Cardinal Bentivoglio
Fra Desiderio Cardinal di Cremona
Fra Antonio Cardinal di Sant'Onofrio
Berlinghiero Cardinal Gessi
Fabrizio Cardinal Verospi
Marzio Cardinal Ginetti
The missing signatures, therefore, were from Francesco Barberini, Laudivio Zacchia, and Gasparo Borgia.
A compromise had prevailed.
The white-robed old man was then handed his abjuration, to be read aloud in the formal ceremony ending the trial. It was as formulaic as
any mass or other sacrament, but Galileo first read over it silently, very intent on it, turning the pages as he went. His face was pale, so that in his white robe, and with his previously reddish hair all mixed now with white and gray, and gaunter than he had ever been, he looked like a ghost of himself. It was a cloudy day, and the massed candles and light from the clerestory windows still left the room slightly in gloom, so that he stood out.
While he read, Cartophilus was standing outside the open door with the other servants, shaking Buonamici by the hand and breathing deeply for the first time in months, maybe years. Confinement, book banned, et cetera: success.
But then Galileo suddenly gestured to Maculano. Cartophilus sucked down a breath sharply and held it, as Galileo began to tap hard at one of the pages of his abjuration. “What is he doing?” Cartophilus whispered in agony to Buonamici.
“I don't know!” Buonamici whispered back.
Galileo spoke loudly enough that all the cardinals in attendance could hear him, indeed everyone in the room and in the hall outside. His voice had a hoarse ragged edge, and his lips were white under his mustache.
“I will abjure my error willingly, but there are two things in this document that
I will not say
, no matter what you do to me.”
Dead silence. Out in the hall Cartophilus was now clutching Buon-amici's arm in both hands, whispering, “No, no, why, why? Say whatever they want, for Christ's sake!”
“It's all right,” Buonamici whispered, trying to calm him. “The pope only wants him humiliated, not burned.”
“The pope may not be able to stop it!”
They held each other as inside the room Galileo showed the relevant page to Maculano, poking at the objectionable phrases. “I will
not
say I am not a good Catholic, for I am one and I intend to stay one, despite all that my enemies can say and do. Secondly, I will not say that I have ever deceived anybody in this affair, especially in the publishing of my book, which I submitted in full candor to ecclesiastical censure, and had it printed after legally obtaining a license for it. I'll build the pyre and put the candle to it myself if anyone can show otherwise.”
Maculano, taken aback at the penitent's sudden ferocity, looked to the cardinals. He took the abjuration over to them, pointed out the
passages Galileo had objected to. Out in the hallway Cartophilus was hissing with dismay, almost hopping up and down, and Buonamici had stopped trying to reassure him and was peering anxiously through the doorway at the cardinals.
Bentivoglio was whispering to the others. Finally he nodded to Maculano, who took the document to the scribe and had her mark two passages for deletion. While she did so, Maculano faced Galileo with a stern eye that seemed also to contain a gleam of approbation. “Agreed,” he said.
“Good,” Galileo said, but not thank you. Tears suddenly poured from his eyes down his cheeks into his beard, and he wiped them away before taking the revised document from the commissary general. “Give me a moment to compose myself.” He looked over the document again while he wiped his face and whispered a prayer. He pulled a small necklace crucifix out from under his white robe to kiss and then replace it. After that he nodded to Maculano and walked to the center of the room, before the table where the pad for kneeling had been placed. He crossed himself, handed the abjuration to Maculano, kneeled on the pad, adjusted his penitential robe, and took the document from Maculano. He held it in his left hand, put his right hand on the Bible that stood on a waist-high stand before him. When he spoke his voice was clear and penetrating, but flat and void of all expression.
“I, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei of Florence, seventy years of age, arraigned personally for judgment, kneeling before you Most Eminent and Most Reverend Cardinal Inquisitors-General against heretical depravity in all of Christendom, having before my eyes and touching with my hands the Holy Gospels, swear that I have always believed, I believe now, and with God's help I will believe in the future all that the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church holds, preaches, and teaches.
“However, whereas, after having been judicially instructed by the Holy Office to abandon completely the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world and does not move and the earth is not the center of the world and moves, and not to hold, defend, or teach this false doctrine in any way whatever, orally or in writing; and after having been notified that this doctrine is contrary to Holy Scripture; I wrote and published a book in which I treat of this already condemned doctrine and adduce very effective reasons in its favor, without refuting
them in any way; therefore, I have been judged vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having held and believed that the sun is the center of the world and motionless, and the earth is not the center and moves.
“Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of Your Eminences and every faithful Christian this vehement suspicion, rightly conceived against me, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the above-mentioned errors and heresies, and in general each and every other error, heresy, and sect contrary to the Holy Church; and I swear that in the future I will never again say or assert, orally or in writing, anything which might cause a similar suspicion about me; on the contrary, if I should come to know any heretic or anyone suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office.
“I, the above-mentioned Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and obliged myself as above; and in witness of the truth I have signed with my own hand the present document of abjuration and have recited it word for word in Rome, at the convent of Minerva, this twenty-second day of June 1633.
“I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above, by my own hand.”
And he took the pen from Maculano and carefully signed the bottom of the document.
In the hall outside, Cartophilus collapsed into Buonamici's arms. Buonamici stood stalwart and held the old man to his chest, whispering to him, “The wound was small, if we consider the force behind the dart.”
Cartophilus could only clutch his mouth and nod. It had been a close-run thing. He could feel the younger man's heart pounding hard; he too had been shaken. We had seen what could happen. We had seen too much.
At the Villa Medici that night, Ambassador Niccolini wrote to Cioli in Florence to give him the news of the trial's conclusion.
It is a fearful thing to have to do with the Inquisition
, he concluded.
The poor man has come back more dead than alive
.
Eppur Si Muove