Page:Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia (IA cu31924012301754).pdf/244

 them with the accused. And as no attempt is made to account for his ignorance of the prohibition, and it is simply taken for granted, it must be allowed that Galileo's judges, to say the least, were guilty of a great breach of judicial order, in using, without any close examination, a paper as a valid document on the trial, which was destitute of nearly all the characteristics of one, namely, the signatures of the accused, of the notary and witnesses, and in spite of three contradictory depositions of the accused. No special arguments are needed to prove that this breach of order did not proceed from mere carelessness. And so, immediately after the accused has declared that he does not remember any command but that intimated to him by Cardinal Bellarmine, we find the Inquisitor asking him: Whether, after the aforesaid command was issued to him, he had received any permission to write the book which he had acknowledged to be his, and which he afterwards had printed?

The Inquisitor now asks to be informed whether, from whom, and in what way, Galileo had received permission to print the "Dialogues." Galileo briefly relates the whole course of the negotiations which preceded the printing. As his narrative agrees entirely with what we know, it is not reproduced here. The Inquisitor then asks: Whether, when asking permission to print his book, he had told the Master of the Palace about the command aforesaid, which had been issued to him by order of the Holy Congregation?