In framing Galileo’s trial as a simplistic case of science verses 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 speaking 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 1, 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 (understandable, since infallibility was not yet doctrine).

THAT BEING THE CASE, HOWEVER:

The new hypothesis of the heavenly order, according to Copernicus, had to some individuals the flavor of heresy.

"That opinion of Ipernicus, or whatever his name is," an elderly Dominican father stated in 1612, "appears to be against Holy Scripture," contrary to the desires of either Copernicus or Galileo. Galileo, in writing his discourse on sunspot activity, had sought the expert opinion of Carlo Cardinal Conti the subject of "change" in the previously immutable heavens. Cardinal Conti had assured Galileo that the bible did not support Aristotle’s doctrine of immutability; in fact, he said Scripture seemed to argue against it.

Madama Cristina: Knew her Bible well including a quote from Joshua 10:12-14 wherein the Sun is ordered to stand still, presumably because it had been moving – as well as the Psalms:

"As to the first general question of Madama Cristina, it seems to me that it was most prudently propounded to you by here, and conceded and established by you, that Holy Scripture cannot err and the decrees therein contained are absolutely true and inviolable. I should only have added that, though Scripture cannot err, its expounders and interpreters are liable to err in many ways… when the would base themselves always on the literal meaning of the words. For in this wise not only many contradictions would be apparent, but even grave heresies and blasphemies, since then it would be necessary to give God hands and feet and eyes, and human and bodily emotions such as anger, regret, hatred, and sometime forgetfulness of things past, and ignorance of the future.

These literary devices had been inserted into the Bible for the sake of the masses, Galileo insisted, to aid their understanding of matters pertaining to their salvation. In the same way, biblical language had also simplified certain physical effects in nature, to conform to common experience. "Holy Scripture and Nature are both emanations from the divine word: the former dictated by the Holy Spirit, the latter the observant executrix of God’s commands."

Roberto Cardinal Bellarmino, theological advisor to Pope Paul V who had served as inquisitor in the heresy trial of Giordano Bruno took pains to point out that The Council of Trent prohibited interpretation of Scripture contrary to the common agreement of the Holy Fathers – all of whom, along with many modern commentators, understood the Bible to state clearly that the Sun traveled around the Earth and not vice versa. "The words ‘the Sun also riseth and the Sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose, etc,’ were those of Solomon," Cardinal Bellarmino wrote.

Who not only spoke by divine inspiration but was a man wise above all others and most learned inhuman sciences and in the knowledge of all created things, and his wisdom was from God. Thus it is not likely that he would affirm something which was contrary to a truth either already demonstrated, or likely to be demonstrated. And if you tell me that Solomon spoke only according to the appearances, and that it seems to us that the Sun goes around when actually it is the Earth which moves, as it seems to one on a ship that the shore moves away from the ship, I shall answer that though it may appear to a voyager as if the shore were receding from the vessel on which he stands rather than the vessel from the shore, yet he knows this to be an illusion and is able to correct it because he sees clearly that is the ship and not the shore that is in movement. But as to the Sun and the Earth, a wise man has no need to correct his judgment, for his experience tells him plainly that the Earth is standing still and that his eyes are not deceived when they report that the Sun, Moon, and stars are in motion.

Council of Trent: Convened a council of bishops, cardinals, and leaders of religious orders at Trent, where Italy bordered the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. On and off over a period of eighteen years, from 1545 to 1563, the Council of Trent debated and voted and ultimately drafted a series of decrees. These dictated how the clergy were to be educated, for example, and who was empowered to interpret Holy Scripture. Rejecting Martin Luther’s insistence on the right to personal reading of the Bible, the council declared in 1546 that "no one, relying on his own judgment and distorting the Sacred Scriptures according to his own conceptions, shall dare to interpret them."

After the council finally concluded the twenty-five sessions of the long-drawn-out deliberations, its decrees became Church doctrine through a series of papal bulls (named after the round lead seal, affixed to pronoun cements from the pope himself – bulla). In 1564, the year Galileo was born, certain important points from the debates were formulated into a profession of faith, worded by the Council of Trent and solemnly sworn over the ensuing decades by untold numbers of Church officials and other Catholics:

I most firmly accept and embrace the Apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and the other observances and constitutions of the Church. I also accept Sacred Scripture in the sense in which it has been held, and is held, by Holy Mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge the true sense and interpretation of the Sacred Scripture, not will I accept or interpret it in any way other than in accordance with the unanimous agreement of the Fathers.

Galileo, in a letter to Grand Duchess Cristina indirectly charged his opponents with violating this oath by bending the Bible to their purposes. His opponents, on the other hand, judged Galileo guilty of the same offense. His hope of winning the argument la in producing proof positive for the Copernican system. Then, since no truth found in Nature could contradict the truth of Scripture, everyone would realize that the fathers’ judgement about the placement of the heavenly bodies had been hasty, and required reinterpretation in the light of scientific discovery.

In February of 1616, the cardinals of the Holy Office framed the Copernican argument as two propositions to be voted on by a panel of eleven theologians:

1. The Sun is the center of the world, and consequently is immobile of local motion.
2. The Earth is not the center of the world, nor is it immobile, but it moves as a whole and also with a diurnal motion.

The unanimous verdict of the panel pronounced the first idea not only "formally heretical," in that it directly contradicted Holy Scripture, but also "foolish and absurd" in philosophy. The theologians found the second concept equally shoddy philosophically and "erroneous in faith," meaning that, although it did not gainsay the Bible in so many words, it nevertheless undermined a matter of faith.

The following week, on March 5, the Congregation of the Index published a proclamation that expounded the official position on Copernican astronomy – namely, that it was "false and contrary to Holy Scripture." The decree also named names and called for action. It suspended Copernicus’s book until corrections were made I it, "So that this opinion may not spread any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth." It also cited another book by the Carmelite father Paolo Antonio Foscarini, who had enthusiastically supported Copernicus by quoting chapter and verse from both De revolutionibus and the bible, to show how the two texts could be reconciled. Foscarini fared far worse than Copernicus in the decree because his book was condemned outright – prohibited and destroyed because of his attempt to support Copernicus with the Bible. Nor did it end there. The printer in Naples who had published Foscarini’s book was arrested soon after the March edict, and Father Foscarini died suddenly in early June at the age of thirty-five.

In the wake of this edict against Copernican theory, gossip of heresy and blasphemy continued to smear Galileo’s name, though he had not been tried or convicted of any crime. At the end of May, he appealed to the cardinal for redress and received the following "vindication:"

We, Roberto cardinal Bellarmino, having heard that it is calumniously reported that Signor Galileo Galilei has in our hand abjured and has also been punished with salutary penance, and being requested to state the truth as to this, declare that the said Signor Galilei has not abjured, either in our hand, or the hand of any other person here in Rome, or anywhere else, so far as we know, any opinion or doctrine held by him; neither has any salutary penance been imposed on him; but that only the declaration made by the Holy Fathers and published by the Sacred Congregation of the Index has been notified to him, wherein it is set forth that the doctrine attributed to Copernicus, that the Earth moves around the sun and that the Sun is stationary in the center of the world and does not move from east to west, is contrary to the Holy Scriptures and therefore cannot be defended or held. In witness whereof we have written and subscribed these presents with our own hand this 26^th day of May 1616.

Silenced, but exonerated, Galileo confined himself for the next several years to the safe application of his great discoveries, such as using the moons of Jupiter to solve the problem of finding longitude at sea. By 1626, Galileo had neglected his Dialogue for so long that his friends feared he might never return to it. And if not Galileo, then who would step forward to correct humanity’s self-centered view of the cosmos? Who better than Galileo to propound the most stunning reversal in perception ever to have jarred intelligent thought: We are not the center of the universe. The immobility of our world is an illusion. We spin. We speed through space. We circle the sun. We live on a wandering star.

The apparent steadiness of the Earth lulls the mind into a false stability. The body’s footing feels so secure that the mind naturally interprets the daily bobbing up and down of the Sun, the Moon, the planets, and the stars as motions entirely external to the Earth. Even at night; under the open sky, assaulted by the intimations of infinity scintillating through the cope of heaven, the mind would rather cede revolution to the universe than relinquish the solace of solid ground.

This incontrovertible perception of Earthly rest gains support on every hand. The halting drop of each autumn leaf adds weight to the case for stillness. Indeed, if the Earth really turned toward the east at high velocity, falling leaves would all scatter to the west of the trees, wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t a cannon fired to the west carry father than a salvo to the east? Wouldn’t birds lose their bearings in midair? These questions doubting the Earth’s diurnal motion consumed the participants in the Dialogue throughout Day Two of their deliberations as Galileo demonstrated that the moving Earth – if it did indeed move – would impart its global motion to all Earthly objects.

In 1641 Benedetto Castelli, through persistent petitioning of the Holy Office, obtained permission to come to Arcetri and study the motions of the Jovian moons with his old teacher, as well as to advise him spiritually – with the caveat that any discussion of the Earth’s motion would be grounds for excommunication.

"The falsity of the Copernican system must not on any account be doubted," Galileo necessarily affirmed in his correspondence at this time, "especially by us Catholics, who have the irrefragable authority of Holy Scripture interpreted by the greatest masters in theology, whose agreement renders us certain of the stability of the Earth and the mobility of the Sun around it. The conjectures of Copernicus and his followers offered to the contrary are all removed by that most sound argument, taken from the omnipotence of God. He being able to do in many or rather in infinite ways, that which to our view and observation seems to be done in one particular way, we must not pretend to hamper God’s hand and tenaciously maintain that in which we may be mistaken. And just as I deem inadequate the Copernican observations and conjectures, so I judge equally, and more fallacious and erroneous those of Ptolemy, Aristotle, and their followers, when without going beyond the bounds of human reasoning their inconclusiveness can be very easily discovered.

In a message dated 9/27/01 2:14:22 PM Pacific Daylight Time, forcrist@aol.com writes:

<< There seems to me a clear moral issue involved

when we create blacklists of people whose philosophies we don't agree with.

>>

Gang,

I'm in the process of doing an article on the heresy trial of Galileo, and I've been overwhelmed at how this sort of thing was applied to him and all others who dared promote the Copernican theory. Ultimately, the Holy Office of the Censor banned everything written by Galileo, regardless of the subject. This action was undertaken to ensure that Galileo's works would gradually die out in Italy, where the Holy Office exerted its greatest influence.

"You have read my writings," Galileo complained of the prohibition against him to another correspondent in France,

"and from them you have certainly understood which was the true and real motive that caused, under the lying mask of religion, this war against me that continually restrains and undercuts me in all directions; so that neither can help come to me from outside nor can I go forth to defend myself, there having been issued an express order to all Inquisitors that they should not allow any of my works to be reprinted which had been printed many years ago, or grant permission to any new work that I would print...a most rigorous and general order, I say, against all my works, omia edita et edenda [ everything published and everything I might have published in the future ]; so that it is left to me only to succumb in silence under the flood of attacks, exposures, derision, and insult coming from all sides."

Indeed, Fra Fulgenzio Micanzio, theologian to the Venetian republic, stated, "even the Credo or the Lord's Prayer might well be refused a printing license if Galileo were the one to seek it."

The only reason we have his works today is because of the brave "heresies" of those devoted to resisting religious oppression and printing the truth despite the risk involved. It seems the Taliban has had nothing on we "Christians" for being control freaks.

The Roman Inquisition, after its reorganization in 1542, assumed supervision of printing projects in Italy, and in 1559 promulgated the first worldwide Index of Prohibited Books. In 1564, following the Council of Trent, harsher new restrictions stipulated that authors as well as printers could be excommunicated for publishing works judged heretical. Even the readers of such texts could be so punished. Booksellers, likewise, had to beware, keeping an exact listing of their stock, and standing ever ready for impromptu inspections called by bishops or inquisitors. (Galileo's Daughter Pg. 178)

From the minutes of the initial Inquisition into the Galileo affair:

The interrogators were referring to the minutes of the Holy Office for the year 1616m which contained numerous entries that mentioned Galileo by name, though he had not given any deposition in the chambers himself at that time. On February 25, 1616m fir example, a brief entry noted: "His Holiness [Pope Paul V] ordered the Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal Bellarmino to summon before him the said Galileo and admonish him to abandon the said opinion; and in case of his refusal to obey, the Father Commissary, in the presence of a notary and witnesses, is to issue him an injunction to abstain altogether from teaching or defending this doctrine and opinion and even from discussing it; and further, if he should not acquiesce, he is to be imprisoned."

Following on the same age in the Inquisition records, the next entry is dated February 26:

In the Palace and residence of Cardinal Bellarmino, Galileo being called and being in the presence of the Cardinal and of the Reverend Father Michelangelo Seghizzi of Lodi, of the Order of Preachers, Commissary General of the Holy Office, the Cardinal admonished the said Galileo of the error of the above-mentioned opinion and warned him to abandon it; and immediately and without delay, the said Cardinal being still present, the said Commissary gave Galileo a precept and ordered him in the name of His Holiness the Pope and the whole body of the Holy office to the effect that the said opinion that the Sun is the center of the universe and the Earth moves must be entirely abandoned, nor might he from then on in any way hold, teach, or defend it by word or in writing; otherwise the Holy Office would proceed against him.

The hastily added warning from the former commissary general, which may have struck Galileo as merely a rehash of Bellarmino’s words in the bustle of that February morning, had thus been preserved in the Inquisition files, in the most unyielding terms: "Nor might he from then on in any way hold, teach, or defend it by word or in writing.

A: I do not recall that this precept was intimated to me any other way than by the voice of Lord Cardinal Bellarmino, and I remember that the injunction was that I might not hold nor defend; and there may have been also "nor teach." I do not remember that there was this phrase "in any way," but there may have been; in fact I did not give any thought to it or keep it in mind because of my having, a few months later, that affidavit of the said Cardinal Bellarmino of the 26^th of May which I have presented, in which is told the order to me not to hold or defend the said opinion. And the other two phrases now notified to me of the said precept, that is "nor teach" and "in any way," I have not kept in my memory, I think because they are not set forth in the said affidavit on which I relied, and which I have kept as a reminder.

Q: Whether, after the aforesaid injunction was issued to him, he obtained any permission to write the book he identified, which he later sent to the printer.

A: I did not seek permission to write the book, because I did not consider that in writing it I was acting contrary to, far less disobeying, the command not to hold, defend, or teach that opinion, but rather that I was refuting the opinion.

Q: Whether he obtained permission for printing the same book, by whom, and whether for himself or for someone else.

A: To obtain permission to print the above-mentioned book, although I was receiving profitable offers from France, Germany, and Venice, I refused them and spontaneously came to Rome three years ago to place it into the hands of the chief censor, namely the Master of the Sacred Palace, giving him absolute authority to add, delete, and change as he saw fit. After having it examined very diligently by his associate Father Visconti, the said Master of the Sacred Palace reviewed it again himself and licensed it that is, having approved the book, he gave me permission but ordered to have the book printed in Rome. Since, in view of the approaching summer, I wanted to go home to avoid the danger of getting sick, having been away all of May and June, we agreed that I was to return here the autumn immediately following. While I was in Florence, the plague broke out and commerce was stopped so, seeing that I could not come to Rome, by correspondence I requested of the same Master of the Sacred Palace permission for the book to be printed in Florence. He communicated to me that he would want to review my original manuscript, and that therefore I should send it to him. Despite having used every possible care and having contacted even the highest secretaries of the Grand Duke and the directors of the postal service, to try to send the said original safely, I received no assurance that this could be done, and it certainly would have been damaged, washed out, or burned, such was the strictness at the borders. I related tot he same Father Master this difficulty concerning the dipping of the book, and he ordered me to have the book again very scrupulously reviewed by a person acceptable to him; the person he was pleased to designate was Father Master Giacinto Stefani, a Dominican professor of Sacred Scripture at the University of Florence, preacher for the Most Serene Highnesses, and consultant to the Holy Office. The book was handed over by me to the Father Inquisitor of Florence and by the Father Inquisitor to the said Father Giacinto Stefani; the latter returned it to the Father Inquisitor, who sent it to Signor Niccolo dell’Antella, reviewer of books to be printed for the Most Serene Highness of Florence; the printer, named Landini, received it from this Signor Niccolo and, having negotiated with the Father Inquisitor, printed it, observing strictly every order given by the Father Master of the Sacred Palace.

Q: Whether, when he sought permission from the Master of the Sacred Palace to print the said book, he revealed to the same most Reverend Father master the injunction previously given to him concerning the above mentioned directive of the Holy Congregation.

A: I did not happen to discuss that command with the Master of the Sacred Palace when I asked for the imprimatur, for I did not think it necessary to say anything, because I had no doubts about it for I have neither maintained nor defended in that book the opinion that the Earth moves and that the Sun is stationary but have rather demonstrated the opposite of the Copernican opinion and shown the arguments of Copernicus are weak and inconclusive.

This last phrase of Galileo’s testimony encapsulates the agony of his position. It would be easy to accuse him of equivocation. Surely by the end of that day’s questioning he appreciated the danger he faced, and may have seen good reason to hedge in self-defense. Ambassador Niccolini had even warned him to be submissive and assume whatever attitude the inquisitors seemed to wan t of him. But, Galileo did not lie under oath. He was a Catholic who had come to believe something Catholics were forbidden to believe. Rather than break with the Church, he had tried to hold – and at the same time not to hold – this problematic hypothesis, this image of the mobile Earth. His comment in the deposition recalls the duality he expressed in his "Reply to Ingoli," when he described how Italian scientists had come to appreciate all the nuances of Copernicanism before rejecting the theory on religious grounds. That Galileo believed in his own innocence and sincerity is clear from letters he wrote before, during, and long after the trial.

The prosecutors, hearing Galileo’s response, however may well have gasped at it. Why had this case been referred to the Holy Office in the first place, if not because Urban’s hired panel deemed the Dialogue and over enthusiastic defense of Copernicus? The prosecutors could have questioned Galileo closely here on suspicion of deceit. But instead they said nothing. Perhaps they, too, understood the complexity of the situation. Or they took him at his word, or both.

Galileo was ordered to sign on the dotted line, sworn to silence, assigned his quarters in the Palace of the Holy Office, and forbidden to leave without permission.

While Galileo awaited the outcome of this first hearing, confined to assigned rooms in the palace of the Inquisition, a second team of three theologians cross-examined the Dialogue, itself. In less than a week, these consultors to the Holy Office, two of whom had served on the commission charged with reviewing the book the previous September, turned in statements of varying length and vehemence, all concurring that the book unabashedly backed Copernicus.

Not only did Inchofer submit the longest of the three condemnations of the Dialogue, but he also felt personally affronted by it. "If Galileo had attacked some individual thinker for his inadequate arguments in favor of the stability of the Earth, we might still put a favorable construction on his text, but as he declares war on everybody and regards as mental dwarfs all who are not Pythagorean or Copernican, it is clear enough what he has in mind."

"For, Signor Ignoli, if your philosophical sincerity and my old regard for you will allow me to say so, you should in all honest have known that Nicolaus Copernicus had spent more years on these very difficult studies than you had spent days on them; so you should have been more careful and not let yourself be lightly persuaded that you could knock down such a man, especially with the sort of weapons you use, which are among the most common and trite objections advance in this subject; and, though you add something new, this is no more effective than the rest. Thus, did you really think that Nicolaus Copernicus did not grasp the mysteries of the extremely shallow Sacrobosco (Latinized name given to the work of 13^th century English astronomer John of Holywood who authored the influential textbook Sphere of Sacrobosco) ? That he did not understand parallax? That he had not read and understood Ptolemy and Aristotle? I am not surprised that you believed you could convince him, given that you thought so little of him. However, if you had read him with the care required to understand him properly, at least the difficulty of the subject (if nothing else) would have confused your spirit of opposition, so that you would have refrained or completely abstained from taking such a step.

Since what is done is done, let us try, as far as possible, to prevent you or others from multiplying errors. So I come to the arguments you give to prove that the Earth, and not the sun, is located at the center of the universe. [From Galileo’s fifty page, October 1624, "Reply to Ingoli]

RESULTS OF INQUISTIION INTO GALILEO:

We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, Galileo, by reason of the matters which have been detailed in the trial and which you have confessed already, have rendered yourself in the judgement of this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having held and believed the doctrine which is false and contrary to the Sacred and Divine Scriptures, that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world; and that one my hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined contrary to holy Scripture. Consequently, you have incurred all the censures and penalties enjoined and promulgated by the sacred Canons and all particular and general laws against such delinquents. We are willing to absolve you from them provided that first, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, in our presence you abjure, curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Church in the manner and form we will prescribe to you.

Furthermore, so that this grievous and pernicious error and transgression of yours may not go altogether unpunished, and so that you will be more cautious in future, and an example for others to abstain from delinquencies of this sort, we order that the book Dialogue of Galileo Galilei 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 to ourselves the power of moderating, commuting, or taking off, the whole or part of the said 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.

Even though the opinion of Copernicus had been rescued from the shame of heresy in 1616, Galileo, for his exposition of Copernicus, now stood "vehemently suspected of heresy" himself. Dressed in the white robe of the penitent, Galileo knelt and abjured as ordered.

I, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei, Florentine, aged 70 years, arraigned personally before this tribunal, and kneeling before You, Most eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinals Inquisitors-General against heretical depravity throughout the Christian commonwealth, 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 in the future believe all that is held, preached, and taught by the Holy Catholic and apostolic Church. But whereas – after having been admonished by this Holy Office entirely to abandon the false opinion that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the Earth is not the center of the same and that it moves, and that I must not hold, defend, nor teach in any manner whatever, either orally or in writing, the said false doctrine, and after it had been notified to me that the said doctrine was contrary to Holy Write – I wrote and cased to be printed a book in which I treat of the already condemned doctrine, and adduce arguments of much efficacy in its favor, without arriving at any solution: I have been judged vehemently suspected of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the Earth is not the center and moves.

Therefore, wishing to remove from the minds of our Eminences and of all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion justly conceived against me, I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith (in order to avoid the certain torture threatened if I don’t), I curse and detest the said errors and heresies and generally all and every error and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church. And I swear that for the future I will never again say nor assert in speaking or writing such things as may bring upon me similar suspicion; and if I know any heretic, or person susp4cted of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place where I may be. I also swear and promise to adopt and observe entirely all the penances which have been or may be imposed on me by this Holy office. And if I contravene any of these said promises, protests, or oaths (which god forbid!), I submit myself to all the pains and penalties imposed and promulgated by the Sacred Canons and other Decrees, general and particular, against such offenders. So help me God and these His Holy Gospels, which I touch with my own hands.

I, the said Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above; and in witness of the truth, with my own hand have subscribed the present document of my abjuration, and have recited it word by word in Rome, at the Convent of the Minerva, this 22^nd day of June 1633.

It has often been said that as he rose from his knees, Galileo mutter under his breath "Eppur si muove" (but still it moves). Or he shouted out these words, looking toward the sky and stamping his foot. Either way, for Galileo to voice such undaunted conviction in this hostile encounter would have been beyond foolhardy, not to mention that the comment suggests a defiant feistiness beyond his means to muster then and there. He may have said it weeks or months later, in front of other witnesses, but not on that day. He sustained his condemnation in the convent of the Minerva as a breach of the promises made him in exchange for his cooperation, for he believed in his own innocence; he had admitted committing a "crime" only because his confession had been part of a deal.

The Dialogue duly appeared on the next published Index of Prohibited Books, in 1664, where it would remain for nearly two hundred years.

In his prose polemic defending freedom of the press, Areopagetica, in 1564, John Milton wrote "I have sat among their learned men and been counted happy to be born in such a place of philosophic freedom as they supposed England was, while they themselves did nothing but bemoan the servile condition into which learning amongst them was brought; that this was it which had damped the glory of Italian wits, that nothing had been there written now these many years but flattery and fustian. there it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner of the Inquisition."

I do not believe Zondervan's "publishing black list" has anything to do with marketability since it does not have to do with who they publish but who might be mentioned within the books they publish. They are, actually, continuing in the fine tradition of the Inquisition. But, then, why listen to me? I'm an heretic at heart.

A really good book on the subject is Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel, Penguin Books.

[ Up ] [ Galileo ] [ Sebastian Frank ] [ Martin Luther ] [ Pelagius ] [ Giordano Bruno ] [ Blaise Pascal ] [ Meister Ekhardt ] [ Peter Abelard ] [ Origen ] [ Gnostics ]

houghfw@aol.com