THE INQUISITION AND THE COPERNICAN SYSTEM, AND THE ASSUMED PROHIBITION TO GALILEO.  
Adverse Opinion of the Inquisition on Galileo’s Propositions.—Admonition by Bellarmine, and assumed Absolute Prohibition to treat of the Copernican Doctrines.—Discrepancy between Notes of 25th and 26th February.—Marini’s documents.—Epinois’s Work on Galileo.—Wohlwill first doubts the Absolute Prohibition.—Doubts confirmed by Gherardi’s Documents.—Decree of 5th March, 1616, on the Copernican system.—Attitude of the Church.—Was the Absolute Prohibition ever issued to Galileo?—Testimony of Bellarmine in his favour.—Conclusions.
The Inquisition, perhaps still incensed by Galileo’s active propagandism, even among the learned world of Rome, and by his brilliant defence of the new system, now hastened to bring to a conclusion the transactions which had been going on for a considerable time against it. A decree of 19th February, 1616, summoned the Qualifiers of the Holy Office (they were not judges exactly, but had to give their opinion as experts) and required them to give their opinion on the two following propositions in Galileo’s work on the solar spots:—
I. The sun is the centre of the world, and immovable from its place.
II. The earth is not the centre of the world, and is not immovable, but moves, and also with a diurnal motion.[136]
In accordance with the papal decree, these theologians met four days afterwards, at 9 a.m. on 23rd February, and published the result of their deliberations the next day, as follows:—
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The first proposition was unanimously declared to be false and absurd philosophically, and formally heretical, inasmuch as it expressly contradicts the doctrines of Holy Scripture in many passages, both if taken in their literal meaning and according to the general interpretation and conceptions of the holy Fathers and learned theologians.
The second proposition was declared unanimously “to deserve the like censure in philosophy, and as regards theological truth, to be at least erroneous in the faith.”[137]
The Vatican MS. reports the further steps taken against Galileo as the chief advocate of the Copernican system, as follows:—
“Thursday, 25th February, 1616. The Lord Cardinal Mellini notified to the Reverend Fathers the Assessors and the Commissary of the Holy Office, that the censure passed by the theologians upon the propositions of Galileo—to the effect particularly that the sun is the centre of the world, and immovable from its place, and that the earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion—had been reported; and His Holiness has directed the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine to summon before him the said Galileo, and admonish him to abandon the said opinion; and in case of his refusal to obey, that the Commissary is to intimate to him, before a notary and witnesses, a command to abstain altogether from teaching or defending this opinion and doctrine, and even from discussing it; and if he do not acquiesce therein, that he is to be imprisoned.”[138]
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This is followed in the Vatican MS. by a record intended to look like an official report on the course of the proceedings ordained above. Every unbiassed reader will expect to find in it either that Galileo refused to obey the admonitions of the cardinal, and that the Commissary-General of the Inquisition then issued the other strict injunction, or that Galileo immediately submitted, in which case the official of the Inquisition would not have had to interfere. Instead of this we find the following document, couched half in a narrative tone, half like the report of a notary:—
“Friday, the 26th.—At the Palace, the usual residence of the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine, the said Galileo having been summoned and brought before the said Lord Cardinal, was, in presence of the Most Revd. Michael Angelo Segnezzio, of the order of preachers, Commissary-General of the Holy Office, by the said Cardinal warned of the error of the aforesaid opinion, and admonished to abandon it; and immediately thereafter, before me and before witnesses, the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine being still present, the said Galileo was by the said Commissary commanded and enjoined, in the name of His Holiness the Pope, and the whole Congregation of the Holy Office, to relinquish altogether the said opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the earth moves; nor henceforth to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing; otherwise proceedings would be taken against him in the Holy Office; which injunction the said Galileo acquiesced in and promised to obey. Done at Rome, in the place aforesaid, in presence of Badino Nores, of Nicosia, in the kingdom of Cyprus, and Augustino Mongardo, from a place in the Abbacy of Rottz, in the diocese of Politianeti, inmates of the said Cardinal’s house, witnesses.”[139]
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The discrepancy between this record and that of 25th February is obvious: that says that the Pope had ordered that Cardinal Bellarmine should admonish Galileo to renounce the opinions of Copernicus, and only in case he should refuse, was the Commissary to issue the order to him to abstain from teaching, defending, or discussing those opinions. Here in the report of the 26th we read, that “immediately after” the admonition of the cardinal, the Commissary issued this stringent order, and with the significant modification, “nor to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatsoever.” In this report of the proceedings it is not expressly stated whether Galileo at first refused or not, but, according to the wording of the report, it is almost impossible that he could have done so, since it represents that the Cardinal’s admonition was followed immediately by the absolute prohibition from the Commissary. But such a mode of procedure was by no means in accordance with the papal ordinance, and would rather have been an arbitrary deviation from it.
Until within the last ten years, in all the works, great or small, which treat of Galileo’s trial, we find this absolute prohibition which he was said to have received related as an established historical fact. It was the sole legal ground on which the indictment was based against Galileo sixteen years later, and he was condemned and sentenced by his judges by an ostentatious appeal to it. Up to 1850 not a single document had been seen by any of the authors who wrote so confidently of the stringent prohibition of 1616, which confirmed its historical truth. And yet it could but exist among[80] the inaccessible archives relating to the trial of Galileo, since the Inquisitors relied upon it in 1633, and it was the pole and axis of the famous trial. And what the world had accepted in good faith on the somewhat doubtful veracity of the Inquisition was at length, apparently confirmed by the testimony of Mgr. Marino Marini, prefect of the Vatican Archives. In that year he published at Rome a book entitled, “Galileo e l’Inquisizione, Memorie storico-critiche,” which, as the author stated, was founded upon the original documents of the trial. It actually contained many “extracts” from the original protocols; and founded upon documentary materials accessible only to the author, it was encircled with the convenient halo of inviolability. And for nearly twenty years no serious objection was raised to it. Many historians did shake their heads and say that the work of the right reverend gentleman was as much like a glorification of the Inquisition as one egg to another, and some were not much impressed by the author’s high-flown assertion that “the entire publication of the documents would only redound to the glory of the Inquisition,”[140] but drily remarked that it was really a great pity that Mgr. Marini had allowed so splendid an opportunity to slip of performing a great service alike to history and the Church, while the fragments produced were of little value to either one or the other. None of this served to refute a single sentence of the apology in question. It became, on the contrary, notwithstanding its obvious partizanship, the chief source for subsequent narratives of the trial. And it could not fail to be so; for even taking this partizanship into account, how could the dates given be doubted? Could any one suspect a misrepresentation of the whole subject? Did suspicions of an arbitrary use and distortion of the documents at the author’s command seem justified? Assuredly not. Besides, the papal archivist appealed with apparent scrupulous exactness to the Roman MS. Although, therefore, the light thrown by Marini on the trial of Galileo seemed[81] to be one-sided, the correctness of his facts in general admitted of no doubt. Among these the special prohibition of 1616 played a conspicuous part. It is laid before the reader as beyond all question, and fully confirmed by documents. The author, however, prudently refrained from publishing these “documents” verbatim,—the reports of the Vatican MS. of 25th and 26th February. The discrepancy between them would then have come to light. That was to be avoided, and so Marini, by the approved method of rejecting all that did not suit his purpose, concocted from the two reports a story of the assumed prohibition to Galileo so precise as to leave nothing to be desired.[141]
In 1867 Henri de L’Epinois surprised the learned world with his work, “Galilée, son Procès, sa Condemnation d’après des Documents inédits.” He reproduced for the first time in full the most important documents which had been at Marini’s command. It now came to light how unjustifiably he had used them. Epinois printed the important reports of 25th and 26th February verbatim. But the story of the prohibition of 1616 had so firmly rooted itself in history, that neither Epinois himself nor the next French historian, Henri Martin, who published a comprehensive work on Galileo based on the published documents, thought of disturbing it.
It was not until 1870 that doubts began to be entertained, in Germany and Galileo’s own country, simultaneously and independently, of the authenticity of the prohibition of 1616. In Germany it was Emil Wohlwill who first shook this belief after careful and unbiassed investigation of the Roman MS. published by Epinois, by his excellent treatise: “Der Inquisitions Process des Galileo Galilei. Eine Prüfung seiner rechtlichen Grundlage nach den Acten der R?mischen Inquisition.” (The Trial of Galileo Galilei. An Examination into its Legal Foundation by the Acts of the Roman Inquisition.) And just when German learning was seeking to prove by[82] keen critical discussion the untenableness of the usual narrative, the document was published in Italy which raised Wohlwill’s conjectures to certainty.
Up to 1870 the conclusion that Galileo did not for a moment resist the cardinal’s admonition, but submitted at once, could only be drawn, as it was drawn by Wohlwill, partly from the wording of the report of the proceedings of 26th February, 1616, partly from Galileo’s sincere Catholic sentiments, for he was to the end, from conviction, a true son of the Church. However much there might be to justify the conclusion, therefore, it was founded only on probability, was confirmed by no documents, and was therefore open to assault. It was attacked by Friedlein in a review of Wohlwill’s brochure.[142] But when Friedlein was trying to prove that Galileo must have resisted the cardinal’s admonitions, and only submitted to the peremptory threats of the official of the Inquisition, the document had been already published in Italy which placed the question beyond doubt. This is an extract of the protocol of the sitting of the Congregation of the Holy Office of 3rd March, 1616, and forms part of the collection of documents published by Professor Silvestro Gherardi in the Rivista Europea, 1870. It is as follows:—
“3rd March, 1616.
“The Lord Cardinal Bellarmine having reported that Galileo Galilei, mathematician, had in terms of the order of the Holy Congregation been admonished to abandon (deserendam) [disserendam (discuss) was the word originally written] the opinion he has hitherto held, that the sun is the centre of the spheres and immovable, and that the earth moves, and had acquiesced therein; and the decree of the Congregation of the Index having been presented, prohibiting and suspending respectively the writings of Nicholas Copernicus (De Revolutionibus orbium c?lestium....) of Diego di Zu?iga on Job, and of Paolo Antonio Foscarini, Carmelite[83] Friar—His Holiness ordered this edict of prohibition and suspension respectively, to be published by the Master of the Palace.”[143]
This document, as Gherardi justly perceived, is of far greater importance than merely for the evidence it affords that Galileo at once submitted to the Cardinal’s admonition; it permits the conclusion, almost to a certainty, that a proceeding like that described in the note of 26th February never took place. It is clear from the above that Cardinal Bellarmine was giving a report of the proceedings of 26th February at a private sitting of the Congregation of the Holy Office under the personal presidency of the Pope. His report agrees precisely with the papal ordinance of 25th February: he had admonished Galileo to give up the Copernican doctrines, and he had consented. This was to all appearance the end of the business. The cardinal does not say a word about the stringent proceedings said to have taken place in his presence before notary and witnesses. And yet this part of it would have been of far greater importance than the first. It may perhaps be said that it was not the cardinal’s business to report the doings of the Commissary of the Inquisition. But the objection is not valid; for in the first place the conditions did not exist which would have justified the interference of the Commissary, and in the second, his report would certainly also have been given at the sitt............