Page:Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia (IA cu31924012301754).pdf/242

 the Father Commissary of the Inquisition in the name of the Pope and the Holy Congregation, under threat of a trial before the Inquisition. But it is incredible that this most important proceeding should have entirely escaped Galileo's memory. There are but two alternatives: either it did not take place, and, of course, Galileo cannot remember it; or his ignorance is feigned.

Galileo's attitude before the Inquisition is such that the latter supposition does not seem altogether unjustifiable; but we must assume with Wohlwill, who has analysed the trial with great judicial acumen, and whom we have followed on many points discussed above, that Galileo would only have availed himself of such a lie and misrepresentation, if it would have helped him before the tribunal of the Inquisition. But the advantage of denying any actual proceeding of 26th February is by no means evident. On the contrary, Galileo must have seen—supposing him to make false depositions—from the Inquisitor's questions that he had the protocol of 26th February before him. Of what avail then could a fiction be in face of this document? Of none whatever. It would rather injure his cause by stamping him as a liar. Wohlwill has pointed out that it would have been a masterpiece of cunning to play out the comedy of assumed ignorance from beginning to end of the trial in so consistent a manner, never contradicting himself, as appears from Galileo's depositions. His simplest replies would then have formed parts of a complex tissue of falsehood, and it would be astonishing that throughout the whole course of the trial he should never for a moment deviate from his difficult part.

While the complexity of such a mode of defence renders the assumption of Galileo's denial, to say the least, improbable, there are other more weighty arguments to show that he states before his judges all that he knows about the proceedings in 1616. These arguments consist of all Galileo's statements and actions with which we are acquainted, during the seventeen years from 1616–1632, and they form the