The Essential Galileo (31 page)
Q: About his hostility toward the said Galileo, toward the Attavanti character, and also toward other disciples of the said Galileo.
A: Not only do I not have any hostility toward the said Galileo, but I do not even know him. Similarly, I do not have any hostility or hatred toward Attavanti, or toward other disciples of Galileo. Rather I pray to God for them.
[311] Q: Whether the said Galileo teaches publicly in Florence, and what discipline; and whether his disciples are numerous.
A: I do not know whether Galileo lectures publicly, nor whether he has many disciples. I do know that in Florence he has many followers who are called Galileists. They are the ones who extol and praise his doctrine and opinions.
Q: What home town the said Galileo is from, what his profession is, and where he studied.
A: He regards himself as a Florentine, but I have heard that he is a Pisan. His profession is that of mathematician. As far as I have heard, he studied in Pisa and has lectured at Padua. He is past sixty years old.
With this he was dismissed, having been bound to silence by oath and his signature having been obtained.
I, Fra Tommaso Caccini, bear witness to the things said above.
§6.3 Special Injunction (26 February 1616)
17
[321] Friday, the 26th of the same month.
At the palace of the usual residence of the said Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal Bellarmine and in the chambers of His Most Illustrious Lordship, [322] and fully in the presence of the Reverend Father Michelangelo Segizzi of Lodi, O.P., and Commissary General of the Holy Office, having summoned the above-mentioned Galileo before himself, the same Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal warned Galileo that the above-mentioned opinion was erroneous and that he should abandon it; and thereafter, indeed immediately, before me and witnesses, the Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal himself being also present still, the aforesaid Father Commissary, in the name of His Holiness the Pope and of the whole Congregation of the Holy Office, ordered and enjoined the said Galileo, who was himself still present, to abandon completely the above-mentioned opinion that the sun stands still at the center of the world and the earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing; otherwise the Holy Office would start proceedings against him. The same Galileo acquiesced in this injunction and promised to obey.
Done in Rome at the place mentioned above, in the presence, as witnesses, of the Reverend Badino Nores of Nicosia in the kingdom of Cyprus, and of Agostino Mongardo from the Abbey of Rose in the diocese of Montepulciano, both belonging to the household of the said Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal.
§6.4 Decree of the Index (5 March 1616)
18
[322] Decree of the Holy Congregation of the Most Illustrious Lord Cardinals especially charged by His Holiness Pope Paul V and by the Holy Apostolic See with the Index of books and their licensing, prohibition, correction, and printing in all of Christendom. To be published everywhere.
In regard to several books containing various heresies and errors, to prevent the emergence of more serious harm throughout Christendom, the Holy Congregation of the Most Illustrious Lord Cardinals in charge of the Index has decided that they should be altogether condemned and prohibited, as indeed with the present decree it condemns and prohibits them, wherever and in whatever language they are printed or about to be printed. It orders that henceforth no one, of whatever station or condition, should dare print them, or have them printed, or read them, or have them in one's possession in any way, under penalty specified in the Holy Council of Trent and in the Index of prohibited books; and under the same penalty, whoever is now or will be in the future in possession of them is required to surrender them to ordinaries
19
or to inquisitors, immediately after learning of the present decree. The books are listed below:
20
Calvinist Theology
(in three parts) by Conradus Schlusserburgius.
Scotanus Redivivus, or Erotic Commentary in Three Parts, etc.
[323]
Historical Explanation of the Most Serious Question in the Christian Churches Especially in the West, from the Time of the Apostles All the Way to Our Age
by Jacobus Usserius, professor of sacred theology at the Dublin Academy in Ireland.
Inquiry Concerning the Preeminence among European Provinces, Conducted at the Illustrious College of Tübingen, in 1613 A.D.
, by Fridericus Achilles, Duke of Wittenberg.
Donellus' Principles, or Commentaries on Civil Law,Abridged so as â¦, etc.
This Holy Congregation has also learned about the spreading and acceptance by many of the false Pythagorean doctrine, altogether contrary to the Holy Scripture, that the earth moves and the sun is motionless, which is also taught by Nicolaus Copernicus'
On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres
and by Diego de Zúñiga's
On Job
. This may be seen from a certain letter published by a certain Carmelite Father, whose title is
Letter of the Reverend Father Paolo Antonio Foscarini
,
on the Pythagorean and Copernican Opinion of the Earth's Motion and Sun's Rest and on the New Pythagorean World System
(Naples: Lazzaro Scoriggio, 1615), in which the said Father tries to show that the abovementioned doctrine of the sun's rest at the center of the world and of the earth's motion is consonant with the truth and does not contradict Holy Scripture. Therefore, in order that this opinion may not advance any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth, the Congregation has decided that the books by Nicolaus Copernicus (
On the Revolutions of Spheres
) and by Diego de Zúñiga (
On Job
) be suspended until corrected; but that the book of the Carmelite Father Paolo Antonio Foscarini be completely prohibited and condemned; and that all other books which teach the same be likewise prohibited, according to whether with the present decree it prohibits, condemns, and suspends them respectively. In witness thereof, this decree has been signed by the hand and stamped with the seal of the Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord Cardinal of St. Cecilia, Bishop of Albano, on 5 March 1616.
P.,
21
Bishop of Albano, Cardinal of St. Cecilia.
Fra Franciscus Magdalenus Capiferreus, O.P., Secretary.
Rome, Press of the Apostolic Palace, 1616.
§6.5 Cardinal Bellarmine's Certificate (26 May 1616)
22
[348] We, Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, have heard that Mr. Galileo Galilei is being slandered or alleged to have abjured in our hands and also to have been given salutary penances for this. Having been sought about the truth of the matter, we say that the above-mentioned Galileo has not abjured in our hands, or in the hands of others here in Rome, or anywhere else that we know, any opinion or doctrine of his; nor has he received any penances, salutary or otherwise. On the contrary, he has only been notified of the declaration made by the Holy Father and published by the Sacred Congregation of the Index, whose content is that the doctrine attributed to Copernicus (that the earth moves around the sun and the sun stands at the center of the world without moving from east to west) is contrary to Holy Scripture and therefore cannot be defended or held.
23
In witness whereof we have written and signed this with our own hands, on this 26th day of May 1616.
The same mentioned above,
Robert Cardinal Bellarmine.
1.
Reprinted from: Maurice A. Finocchiaro, trans. and ed., The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History, © 1989 by the Regents of the University of California. Published by the University of California Press.
2.
For the historical background, see the Introduction, especially §0.7.
3.
Galilei 1890-1909, 19: 297-98; translated by Finocchiaro (1989, 134â35).
4.
Cardinal Paolo Sfondrati (1561-1618), who was a member of the Congregation of the Inquisition in Rome, as well as head of the Congregation of the Index.
5.
Galileo's letter to Castelli of 21 December 1613 (see §4.1).
6.
The copy of Galileo's letter to Castelli enclosed by Lorini differs somewhat from the one regarded as the most genuine copy by Antonio Favaro, the editor of the critical edition of Galileo's complete works (Galilei 1890â1909).
The Favaro copy is the one translated in §4.1. Lorini's copy contains several variations in wording (cf. Finocchiaro 1989, 331 n. 16), all to Galileo's disadvantage, but it is regarded as a faithful copy by some scholars (Pesce 1992). In any case, there is clear evidence that in February 1615 Galileo became suspicious that his original letter had been inaccurately copied and started to circulate the accurate version (cf. Finocchiaro 1989, 55).
7.
Galilei 1890â1909, 19: 307â11; translated by Finocchiaro (1989, 136â41).
8.
Joshua 10:12.
9.
Nicolaus Serarius (1555-1609), Jesuit, author of several influential commentaries on the Bible.
10.
Ferdinando Ximenes (c.1580-1630), a Dominican who, as a result of being mentioned here, will be called for a deposition to the Inquisition on
13 November 1615.
11.
This was the title of Cardinal Paolo Sfondrati, to whom Lorini's complaint was addressed.
12.
Giannozzo Attavanti (c. 1582â1657), a minor cleric who had not yet been ordained priest and would be examined by the Inquisition on 14 November 1615.
13.
Note that, here and in subsequent depositions, the letter Q is meant as an abbreviation for the sentence “He was asked,” which yields, together with the expression that follows, an indirect rather than a direct question.
14.
Emanuele Ximenes (b. 1542), at the time a consultant to the Inquisition in Florence, died soon after this incident in 1614. This Jesuit is not to be confused with either the earlier-named Dominican Ferdinando Ximenes, or with a third individual (Sebastiano Ximenes) by the same surname mentioned below.
15.
Paolo Sarpi (1552-1623), Venetian lawyer, theologian, and historian, who also wrote on scientific subjects. Galileo and Sarpi were indeed friends, especially during the eighteen years that Galileo taught at the University of Padua, which is near Venice and was a public institution financially supported by the Republic of Venice.
16.
Sebastiano Ximenes, founder in 1593 of the order of the Knights of Santo Stefano.
17.
Galilei 1890â1909, 19: 321â22; translated by Finocchiaro (1989, 147â48).
18.
Galilei 1890â1909, 19: 322â23; translated by Finocchiaro (1989, 148â50).
19.
An “ordinary” would usually be a bishop.
20.
For an attempt to precisely identify these works and authors, see Mayaud 1997, 40 n. 8, 301â7. Here I have limited myself to making a few minor emendations to Finocchiaro 1989, 149.
21.
Paolo Sfondrati, head of the Congregation of the Index.
22.
Galilei 1890â1909, 19: 348; translated by Finocchiaro (1989, 153).
23.
The content of this sentence should be compared and contrasted with that of the Decree of the Index (5 March 1616) [see §6.4] and with that of the Special Injunction (26 February 1616) [see §6.3]; many of the issues in the affair hinge on this.
[§7.1 Comets,Tycho, and the Book of Nature in Mathematical Language]
2
[228] Read this, Your Most Illustrious Lordship:
3
“In order not to waste time with complaints, first I do not see by what right he accuses my teacher and blames him for appearing to have sworn by Tycho's words and to follow him in all his futile machinations. All this is plainly false because, except for the methods of investigating and proving the location of the comet, nothing else can be found in our
Disputation
that closely follows Tycho, as the express words testify. Certainly the Lincean astronomer even with his telescope could not look at the inner feelings inside the mind. At any rate, let it be granted that my teacher follows Tycho. What crime is there in that? Whom should he follow instead? Ptolemy, whose followers are at risk of having their throat cut by the sword of Mars, which has already come closer? Copernicus, when anyone who is pious will rather keep everybody away from him and will likewise condemn and reject his recently condemned hypothesis? Thus Tycho was the only one left whom we could take as a guide in the unknown paths of the stars. Why then should Galileo be angry with my teacher for not rejecting him? In vain does Galileo here appeal to Seneca; in vain does he here lament the calamity of our time for our not knowing the true and certain arrangement of the parts of the world; in vain does he deplore the misfortune of this age if he has nothing to offer to improve it but rather regards it as miserable.”
From what Sarsi writes in this passage, it seems to me that he has not read with due attention not only Mr. Mario's
Discourse
, but not even that of Fr. Grassi; for he attributes to the former as well as to the latter propositions that are not found in them. The truth is that in order to pave the way for being able to involve me in something or other [229] pertaining to Copernicus, he needed those propositions to have been written there; so, not having found them there, he decided to provide them on his own.
First, in Mr. Mario's essay one does not find tossed around and attributed to Fr. Grassi the fault of having sworn allegiance to Tycho and having followed to the letter his futile machinations. Here are the passages cited by Sarsi:
4
“later I shall come to the professor of mathematics at the Roman College, who in a recently published essay seems to subscribe to everything Tycho said, adding also some new reasons in confirmation of his opinions” (p. 18); “the mathematician of the Roman College has likewise accepted the same hypothesis about the last comet; and I am led to affirm this by the fact that the little he writes about it accords with Tycho's position and the rest of his essay agrees considerably with the other Tychonic ideas” (p. 38). Here Your Most Illustrious Lordship can see whether any fault or shortcoming is being charged. Moreover, it is very clear that since the whole work deals only with phenomena pertaining to the comets, to say that the mathematician of the College agrees with Tycho's other ideas refers only to views related to the comets; thus I do not see that this is the proper place to compare Tycho with Ptolemy and Copernicus, who never dealt with hypotheses about the comets.
Then when Sarsi says that in his teacher's essay there is nothing that follows Tycho except the demonstration to find the location of the comet, this is not true, if I may be allowed to say so; on the contrary, such a demonstration is impossible to find there. God forbid that Fr. Grassi should have followed Tycho in this and should not have noticed how lacking he is in elementary mathematical knowledge when he investigates the distance of the comet based on observations made at two different places on the earth.
5
So that Your Most Illustrious Lordship can see that I am not talking gratuitously, look at the demonstration that begins on p. 123 of his treatise on the comet of 1577, which is in the last part of his
Progymnasmata
. Here he wants to prove that the comet was not lower than the moon, by a comparison of the observations made by himself in [230] Uraniborg and by Thad-daeus Hagecius
6
in Prague. First, draw the chord
AB
for the arc of the terrestrial globe that spans the two said places. From point
A
look at the fixed star located at
D
, and assume that
DAB
is a right angle. This is very far from what is possible because line
AB
is the chord of an arc of less than six degrees (as Tycho himself asserts), and so in order for the said angle to be a right angle, star
D
must be less than three degrees from
A
's zenith; this is false insofar as its minimum distance is more than forty-eight degrees, for (as Tycho himself says) star
D
is Aquila (or, more precisely, Altair) and its declination is 7:52 degrees toward the north, and the latitude of Uraniborg is 55:54 degrees. Furthermore, he writes that from the two locations
A
and
B
the fixed star
D
is seen at the same place of the eighth sphere because the whole earth (not just the small part
AB
) is nothing in proportion to the immensity of the eighth sphere. But with apologies to Tycho, the large or small size of the earth is irrelevant in this case, because the fact that the star is seen in the same place from all parts of the earth derives from its being really on the eighth sphere and from nothing else. In the same manner, the characters on this page will never change apparent location in relation to the same page regardless of how much your eye moves when looking at them; but an object placed between the eye and the paper will indeed change its apparent location relative to the characters as your head moves; and so the same character will be seen now to the right, now to the left, now higher, and now lower than the object. Similarly, when the planets are seen from different parts of the earth, they change apparent position on the stellar sphere because they are very far from it. In this case the effect of the smallness of the earth is that, while those that are nearer to us show greater changes of position and those that are farther show smaller changes, for a body that is extremely far away the size of the earth is insufficient to make such a change perceptible. Next, regarding what he claims to happen in accordance with the laws of arcs and chords, Your Most Illustrious Lordship can see how far he is from such laws and indeed from the basic elements of geometry. He says that the two straight lines
AD
and
BD
are perpendicular to
AB;
this is impossible because only the straight line coming from the vertex is perpendicular to the [231] tangent and its parallels, and those lines do not come from the vertex, nor is
AB
the tangent or parallel to it. Furthermore, he requires them to be parallel, but then says that they meet at the center; here, besides the contradiction of being parallel and convergent, there is the fact that when extended, they bypass the center at a great distance. Finally, he concludes that since they come from the center of the circumference onto the ends of
AB
, they are perpendicular; this is impossible insofar as, of the lines drawn from the center to all points of the chord
AB
, only the one that falls onto the midpoint is perpendicular to it, and those that fall onto the end points are more inclined and oblique than all the others. Thus Your Most Illustrious Lordship can see the kind and the number of errors which according to Sarsi, his teacher would be committing if what Sarsi wrote in this regard were true, namely, that in investigating the location of the comet his teacher followed Tycho's reasons and methods of demonstration.
Additionally, Sarsi himself can see how much better than he, I have penetrated the meaning of what he wrote, which is not to say the meaning inside his mind (since to detect this I have neither eyes nor ears); the meaning of what he wrote is so clear and manifest that one does not need to employ astronomy or the telescope; nor does one need lynx eyes, nicely interjected by Sarsi, I believe, to make fun of our Academy. Now since Your Most Illustrious Lordship, as well as other princes and great lords, are with me the target of this joke, I shall exploit what I learned from Sarsi and take refuge under their shadow, or better, I shall brighten up my shadow with their brilliance.
But let us return to the topic. See how he repeats that I faulted Fr. Grassi for accepting Tycho's doctrine. He asks angrily: Whom should he follow? Ptolemy, whose doctrine is falsified by the new observations of Mars? Copernicus, from whom everyone must turn away on account of the recently condemned hypothesis? Here I note several things. First, I reply that it is most false that I have ever blamed anyone for following Tycho, although I could have done so, as even his followers can see on account of Chiaramonti's
Anti-Tycho;
7
thus what Sarsi writes here is very far from being pertinent. The introduction of Ptolemy and Copernicus is even more irrelevant, for there is no evidence [232] that they ever wrote a word about the distances, sizes, and motions of comets and the corresponding theories, whereas the topic of discussion was comets and nothing else. One might as well have interjected Sophocles, Bartolo,
8
or Livy.
Furthermore, I seem to detect in Sarsi the firm belief that in philosophizing one must rely upon the opinions of some famous author, so that if our mind does not marry the thinking of someone else, it remains altogether sterile and fruitless. Perhaps he thinks that philosophy is the creation of a man, a book like the
Iliad
or
Orlando Furioso
,
9
in which the least important thing is whether what is written in them is true. Mr. Sarsi, that is not the way it is. Philosophy is written in this all-encompassing book that is constantly open before our eyes, that is the universe; but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to understand the language and knows the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures; without these it is humanly impossible to understand a word of it, and one wanders around pointlessly in a dark labyrinth.
But let us assume that, as Sarsi seems to think, our intellect should become a slave to the intellect of another man (and here I overlook the fact that by thus requiring everyone, including himself, to become an imitator, he praises in himself what he blames in Mr. Mario); and let us assume that in the investigation of heavenly motions we should follow somebody. Then I do not see for what reason he chooses Tycho, preferring him over Ptolemy and Nicolaus Copernicus. From the last two we have systems of the world that are unified, constructed with the greatest sophistication, and brought to completion. But I do not see that Tycho did anything of the kind, unless Sarsi is satisfied with having rejected the other two, having promised another one, and then not having carried it out.
Nor would I want anyone to credit Tycho with having shown the falsity of the other two, for the following reasons. Regarding the Ptolemaic system, neither Tycho nor other astronomers, not even Copernicus himself, could directly falsify it, given that the principal argument (from the motions of Mars and Venus) always had sense experience against it. That is, the disk of Venus at its two conjunctions with the sun showed very little difference in apparent size, and the disk of Mars at perigee was hardly three or four times greater than at apogee; and so one could never hold that the former actually appeared forty times greater, and the latter sixty times greater, in their two respective positions; yet this had to happen [233] if their revolutions were around the sun, in accordance with the Copernican system. However, that this is true and observable by the senses has been demonstrated by me, and with a good telescope I have enabled anyone who wanted to see it to grasp it as if by hand. Regarding the Copernican hypothesis, if we Catholics had not had the benefit of being removed from error and having our blindness illuminated by a higher wisdom, I do not believe such favor and benefit could have been obtained from Tycho's reasons and observations.
Thus, the two systems being surely false, and that of Tycho null, Sarsi should not blame me if like Seneca I desire to know the true constitution of the universe. And although this is to ask a lot and I very much crave the answer, I do not thereby deplore with sorrow and tears the poverty and misfortune of our age, as Sarsi writes; nor is there the least trace of such laments in Mr. Mario's whole essay. However, Sarsi needed to elaborate and support some idea of his which he wanted to advance, and so he prepared the groundwork himself by launching at himself attacks which others did not initiate. And even if I were to deplore our misfortune, I do not see how appropriate it would be for Sarsi to say that my complaints are pointless because I have no means or power to do away with such poverty; for it seems to me that precisely for this reason I would be entitled to complain, whereas complaints would be pointless if I could take away the misfortune.