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 before the Grand Duke. He could only be pacified by being informed that the founder of that system was not any man then living in Tuscany, but a German who had died seventy years before, and that his work had been dedicated to Pope Paul III., and had been graciously accepted by him.

Meanwhile, the league formed in Florence against Galileo had found in Father Caccini, a Dominican monk, the right tool for setting on foot the long-desired scandal. He had had some experience in misuse of the pulpit, for he had before this got up a scene in church at Bologna. And as the favourable moment for action had now arrived, Caccini appeared as Galileo's first public accuser by thundering out a fierce sermon against the astronomer and his system on the fourth Sunday after Advent, 1614, in the church of Santa Maria Novella, at Florence. He showed his wit by selecting as the two texts for his philippic the tenth chapter of Joshua and the first chapter of Acts. He began with the words: Viri Galilœi quid statis aspicientes in cœlum: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" Astronomy was thus happily introduced into the pulpit. The furious preacher asserted that the doctrine taught by Galileo in Florence, of the earth's revolution round the sun, was quite irreconcilable with the Catholic religion, since it glaringly contradicted several statements in Holy Scripture, the literal meaning of which, as adopted by the fathers, was opposed to it. And, as he further asserted that no one was permitted to interpret the Bible in any other sense than that adopted by the fathers, he as good as denounced the doctrine as heretical. The sermon ended with a coarse attack on mathematicians in general, whose science he called an invention of the devil; and with a wish that they should be banished from all Christian states, since all heresies proceeded from them.

As was to be expected, the affair caused a great sensation. Father Luigi Maraffi, a Dominican monk distinguished for his learning, who was all his life an admirer of Galileo, told