Page:Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia (IA cu31924012301754).pdf/310

 There were even some who would have been glad to know that he was for ever safe in the dungeons of the Inquisition. As, however, he gave them no pretext on which they could, with any shadow of justice, have seized him, they had recourse to the most disgraceful means—to lying, anonymous denunciation, in which his enlightened and therefore disliked friend, the Archbishop Ascanio Piccolomini, was ingeniously involved. On 1st February, 1634, the following communication, without signature, was received at the Holy Office at Rome from Siena:—

Although this cowardly denunciation did not bear any immediate consequences either to Piccolomini or Galileo, events which took place soon after show most clearly the unfavourable impression it produced at the Vatican. Galileo, who was very unwell, asked permission of the Pope, through the mediation of his faithful friend Niccolini, to move into Florence for the sake of the regular medical treatment which he required, and which he could not well have at the villa outside the city. As if to dye his tragic fate still darker, just while he was awaiting the result of Niccolini's efforts, his favourite daughter Polissena, or by her conventual name Marie Celeste, was taken so ill that her life was soon despaired of.

It was on one of the last days of March that Galileo was returning to his villa with a physician from a visit to his