as

country proceed not only dogmas for the salvation of the soul, but also ingenious discoveries for the gratification of the understanding. With this object, I have taken up in the Dialogue the Copernican side of the question, treating it a pure mathematical hypothesis; and endeavouring in every artificial manner to represent it as having the advantage, not over the opinion of the stability of the earth absolutely, but according to the manner in which that opinion is defended by some, who in deed profess to be Peripatetics, but retain only the name, and are contented without improvement to worship shadows, not philosophizing with their own reason, but only from the recollection of four principles imperfectly understood." -This very flimsy veil could scarcely blind any one as to Galileo's real views in composing this work, nor does it seem probable that he framed it with any expectation of appearing neutral in the discussion. It is more likely that he flattered himself that, under the new government at Rome, he was not likely to be molested on account of the personal prohibition which he had received in 1616, "not to believe or teach the motion of the earth in any manner," provided he kept himself within the letter of the limits of the more public and general order, that the Copernican system was not to be brought forward otherwise than as a mere mathematically convenient, but in fact unreal supposition. So long as this decree remained in force, a due regard to consistency would compel the Roman Inquisitors to notice an unequivocal violation of it; and this is probably what Urban had implied in the remark quoted by Hohenzoller to Galileo. There were not wanting circumstances which might compensate for the loss of Cosmo and of Federigo Cesi; Cosmo had been succeeded by his son, who, though he had not yet attained his father's energy, showed himself as friendly as possible to Galileo. Cardinal Bellarmine, who had been mainly instrumental in procuring the decree of 1616, was dead; Urban on the contrary, who had been among the few Cardinals who then opposed it as uncalled for and ill-advised, was now possessed of supreme power, and his recent affability seemed to prove that the increased difference in their stations had not caused him to forget their early and long-continued intimacy. It is probable that Galileo would not have found him

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self mistaken in this estimate of his position, but for an unlucky circumstance, of which his enemies immediately saw the importance, and which they were not slow in making available against him. The dialogue of Galileo's work is conducted between three personages;-Salviati and Sagredo, who were two noblemen, friends of Galileo, and Simplicio, a name borrowed from a noted commentator upon Aristotle, who wrote in the sixth century. Salviati is the principal philosopher of the work; it is to him that the others apply for solutions of their doubts and difficulties, and on him the principal task falls of explaining the tenets of the Copernican theory. Sagredo is only a half convert, but an acute and ingenious one; to him are allotted the objections which seem to have some real difficulty in them, as well as lively illustrations and digressions, which might have been thought inconsistent with the gravity of Salviati's character. Simplicio, though candid and modest, is of course a confirmed Ptolemaist and Aristotelian, and is made to produce successively all the popular arguments of that school in support of his master's system. Placed between the wit and the philosopher, it may be guessed that his success is very indifferent, and in fact he is alternately ridiculed and confuted at every turn. As Galileo racked his memory and invention to leave unanswered no argument which was or could be advanced against Copernicus, it unfortunately happened, that he introduced some which Urban himself had urged upon him in their former controversies on this subject; and Galileo's opponents found means to make His Holiness believe that the character of Simplicio had been sketched in personal derision of him. We do not think it necessary to exonerate Galileo from this charge; the obvious folly of such an useless piece of ingratitude speaks sufficiently for itself. But self-love is easily irritated; and Urban, who aspired to a reputation for literature and science, was peculiarly sensitive on this point. His own expressions almost prove his belief that such had been Galileo's design, and it seems to explain the otherwise inexplicable change which took place in his conduct towards his old friend, on account of a book which he had himself undertaken to examine, and of which he had authorised the publication.

One of the earliest notices of what was approaching, is found in the dispatches,

dated August 24,1632, from Ferdinand's minister, Andrea Cioli, to Francesco Nicolini, the Tuscan ambassador at the court of Rome.

"I have orders to signify to Your Excellency that His Highness remains greatly astonished that a book, placed by the author himself in the hands of the supreme authority in Rome, read and read again there most attentively, and in which every thing, not only with the consent, but at the request of the author, was amended, altered, added, or removed at the will of his superiors, which was again subjected here to the same examination, agreeably to orders from Rome, and which finally was licensed both there and here, and here printed and published, should now become an object of suspicion at the end of two years, and the author and printer be prohibited from publishing any more." -In the sequel is intimated Ferdinand's desire that the charges, of whatever nature they might be, either against Galileo or his book, might be reduced to writing and forwarded to Florence, that he might prepare for his justification; but this reasonable demand was utterly disregarded. It appears to have been owing to the mean subserviency of Cioli to the court of Rome, that Ferdinand refrained from interfering more strenuously to protect Galileo. Cioli's words are: "The Grand Duke is so enraged with this business of Galileo, that I do not know what will be done. I know, at least, that His Holiness shall have no reason to complain of his ministers, or of their bad advice."*

A letter from Galileo's Venetian friend Micanzio, dated about a month later, is in rather a bolder and less formal style : — "The efforts of your enemies to get your book prohibited will occasion no loss either to your reputation, or to the intelligent part of the world. As to posterity, this is just one of the surest ways to hand the book down to them. But what a wretched set this must be to whom every good thing, and all that is founded in nature, necessarily appears hostile and odious! The world is not restricted to a single corner; you will see the book printed in more places and languages than one; and just for this reason, I wish they would prohibit all good books. My disgust arises from seeing myself deprived of what I most desire of this sort, I mean your other dialogues; and if, from this cause, I fail in having the

• Galuzzi, Storia di Toscana, Firenze, 1822.

pleasure of seeing them, I shall devote to a hundred thousand devils these unnatural and godless hypocrites."

At the same time, Thomas Campanella, a monk, who had already distinguished himself by an apology for Galileo (published in 1622), wrote to him from Rome :-" I learn with the greatest disgust, that a congregation of angry theologians is forming to condemn your Dialogues, and that no single member of it has any knowledge of mathematics, or familiarity with abstruse speculations. I should advise you to procure a request from the Grand Duke that, among the Dominicans and Jesuits and Theatins, and secular priests whom they are putting on this congregation against your book, they should admit also Castelli and myself." It appears, from subsequent letters both from Campanella and Castelli, that the required letter was procured and sent to Rome, but it was not thought prudent to irritate the opposite party by a request which it was then clearly seen would have been made in vain. Not only were these friends of Galileo not admitted to the congregation, but, upon some pretext, Castelli was even sent away from Rome, as if Galileo's enemies desired to have as few enlightened witnesses as possible of their proceedings; and on the contrary, Scipio Chiaramonte, who had been long known for one of the staunchest and most bigoted defenders of the old system, and who, as Montucla says, seems to have spent a long life in nothing but retarding, as far as he was able, the progress of discovery, was summoned from Pisa to complete their number. From this period we have a tolerably continuous account of the proceedings against Galileo in the dispatches which Nicolini sent regularly to his court. It appears from them that Nicolini had several interviews with the Pope, whom he found highly incensed against Galileo, and in one of the earliest he received an intimation to advise the Duke "not to engage himself in this matter as he had done in the other business of Alidosi, because he would not get through it with honour." Finding Urban in this humour, Nicolini thought it best to temporize, and to avoid the appearance of any thing like direct opposition. On the 15th of September, probably as soon as the first report on

Alidosi was a Florentine nobleman, whose estate Urban wished to confiscate on a charge of heresy.Galuzzi.

Galileo's book had been made, Nicolini received a private notice from the Pope, "in especial token of the esteem in which he held the Grand Duke," that he was unable to do less than consign the work to the consideration of the Inquisition. Nicolini was permitted to communicate this to the Grand Duke only, and both were declared liable to "the usual censures" of the Inquisition in case of divulging the secret.

The next step was to summon Galileo to Rome, and the only answer returned to all Nicolini's representations of his advanced age of seventy years, the very infirm state of his health, and the discomforts which he must necessarily suffer in such a journey, and in keeping quarantine, was that he might come at leisure, and that the quarantine should be relaxed as much as possible in his favour, but that it was indispensably necessary that he should be personally examined before the Inquisition at Rome. Accordingly, on the 14th of February, 1633, Nicolini announces Galileo's arrival, and that he had officially notified his presence to the Assessor and Commissary of the Holy Office. Cardinal Barberino, Urban's nephew, who seems on the whole to have acted a friendly part towards Galileo, intimated to him that his most prudent course would be to keep himself as much at home and as quiet as possible, and to refuse to see any but his most intimate friends. With this advice, which was repeated to him from several quarters, Galileo thought it best to comply, and kept himself entirely secluded in Nicolini's palace, where he was as asual maintained at the expense of the Grand Duke. Nelli quotes two let ters, which passed between Ferdinand's minister Cioli and Nicolini, in which the former intimated that Galileo's expenses were to be defrayed only during the first month of his residence at Rome. Nicolini returned a spirited answer, that in that case, after the time specified, he should continue to treat him as before at his own private cost.

The permission to reside at the ambassador's palace whilst his cause was pending, was granted and received as an extraordinary indulgence on the part of the Inquisition, and indeed if we estimate the proceedings throughout against Galileo by the usual practice of that detestable tribunal, it will appear that he was treated with unusual consideration. Even when it became necessary in the course of the inquiry to examine him in person, which was in the beginning of April, although his re

moval to the Holy Office was then insisted upon, yet he was not committed to close or strictly solitary confinement. On the contrary, he was honourably lodged in the apartments of the Fiscal of the Inquisition, where he was allowed the attendance of his own servant, who was also permitted to sleep in an adjoiningroom, and to come and go at pleasure. His table was still furnished by Nicolini. But, notwithstanding the distinction with which he was thus treated, Galileo was annoyed and uneasy at being (though little more than nominally) within the walls of the Inquisition. He became exceedingly anxious that the matter should be brought to a conclusion, and a severe attack of his constitutional complaints rendered him still more fretful and impatient. On the last day of April, about ten days after his first examination, he was unexpectedly permitted to return to Nicolini's house, although the proceedings were yet far from being brought to a conclusion. Nicolini attributes this favour to Cardinal Barberino, who, he says, liberated Galileo on his own responsibility, in consideration of the enfeebled state of his health.

In the society of Nicolini and his family, Galileo recovered something of his courage and ordinary cheerfulness, although his return appears to have been permitted on express condition of a strict seclusion; for at the latter end of May, Nicolini was obliged to apply for permission that Galileo should take that exercise in the open air which was necessary for his health; on which occasion he was permitted to go into the public gardens in a halfclosed carriage.

On the evening of the 20th of June, rather more than four months after Galileo's arrival in Rome, he was again summoned to the Holy Office, whither he went the following morning; he was detained there during the whole of that day, and on the next day was conducted in a penitential dress * to the Convent of Minerva, where the Cardinals and Prelates, his judges, were assembled for the purpose of passing judgment upon him, by which this venerable old man was solemnly called upon to renounce and abjure, as impious and heretical, the opinions which his whole existence had been consecrated to form and strengthen.

S'irrito il Papa, e lo fece abjurare, comparendo il pover uomo con uno straccio di camicia indosso che faceva compassione, MS. nella Bibl. Magliab. Venturi.