Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/142

136 manly attitude of Cremonini—an attitude, be it remarked, which he successfully maintained in the face of the Inquisitors. No one can read it without pity. It can be interpreted in many differing ways. My own interpretation is that Galileo was persuaded to make the confession by representations that the case was very serious indeed and that a general admission of the sort would satisfy the Pope and cardinals; and that after the confession was obtained it was not very difficult for his judges to proceed to the abjuration; while if the abjuration had been first proposed Galileo might have desperately refused to make it, thus precipitating a crisis most unwelcome to the Holy Office. This is mere conjecture and is perhaps not worth recording. Certain it is that, the confession once extorted, all the dignity of Galileo's attitude was lost. By a slight increase of pressure one who had already yielded so much could be made to yield more, and finally to yield all. It seems to be clear that the pressure was gradually applied.

The confession was received by the congregation. Galileo withdrew; but almost immediately returned to offer to write a continuation of his Dialogues which should most effectually confute the arguments of the earlier portions. This offer is interpreted by Gebler as ‘weakness and insincere obsequiousness.’ It appears to me to be simply an attempt on his part to prevent the condemnation and prohibition of his book; and to show that he was, even yet, far from realizing the grimness of the situation. Immediately ofterafter [sic] the hearing, Galileo, still a prisoner of the Inquisition, was permitted to return to the palace of the Tuscan ambassador. He wrote letters (which are not extant) to friends. Their answers show that he ‘entertained the most confident hopes of a successful and speedy termination of his trial.’ One of them writes (May 12) from Florence: “I have for a long time had no such consolatory news as that which your letter of the seventh brought me. It gives me well-founded hopes that the calumnies and snares of your enemies will be in vain. . . since you have gained far more than you have lost by the calamity that has fallen upon you. My pleasure is still more enhanced by the news that you expect to be able to report the end of the affair in your next letter.”

On May 10, Galileo was again summoned and was informed that eight days would be allowed him to prepare a defense. He, however, had already prepared it and at once submitted the following:

When asked if I had signified to the R. P. the Master of the Palace the injunction privately laid upon me, about sixteen years ago, by orders of the Holy Office, not to hold, defend or ‘in any way’ teach the doctrine of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun, I answered that I had not done so. And not being questioned as to the reason why I had not intimated it, I had no opportunity to add anything further. It now appears to me to be necessary to state the reason in order to demonstrate the purity of my