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 had found in Caccini "great ignorance and a mind full of venom."

But Galileo had only performed half his task by the happy adjustment of the difficulties affecting himself; the more important and grander part of it, the preservation of the Copernican system from the interdict of the Church, had yet to be accomplished. His letter of 6th February to Picchena tells him of the favourable turn in his own affairs, as well as of the noble purposes by which he was animated. He writes:—

This was magnanimous, and Galileo was entitled, as few others were, to appear as the advocate of science. But unfortunately his warm and perhaps too solicitous efforts for the Copernican cause had a result precisely opposite to the one he intended. He was still under the great delusion that the Roman curia must above all things be convinced of the correctness of the Copernican doctrines. He therefore sought out scepticism on the subject everywhere in the eternal city, combated it eagerly and apparently with signal success. In many of the first houses in Rome, such as the Cesarini's, Ghislieri's, and others, he unfolded before numerous audiences