His Character.—Taste for Letters.—Friendship for Galileo when Cardinal.—Letters to him.—Verses in his honour.—Publication of “Il Saggiatore,” with Dedication to the Pope.—Character of the Work.—The Pope’s approval of it.—Inconsistency with the assumed Prohibition. Scarcely any Pope has left to posterity so accurate a delineation of his character and aims in his own trenchant utterances as Urban VIII. When shown the marble monuments of his predecessors, he proudly observed that he “would erect iron ones to himself.” And the fortress of Castelfranco on the Bolognese frontier (called, in honour of his Holiness, Fort Urbino), the new breastworks of the Castle of St. Angelo, the Vatican Library turned into an arsenal, the new manufactory of arms at Tivoli, and finally the costly harbour of Civita Vecchia, are so many silent testimonies to the cherished desire of this pontiff to transform the eternal city into an inviolable symbol in stone of the temporal power of the Pope, and to accredit himself as a true medi?val vicegerent of Christ with the two-edged sword of the world. His athletic physique and iron energy were ever the vigorous executors of his ideas. In his self-sufficiency he disdained to take counsel with the Sacred College, saying that he “knew better than all the cardinals put together,” and boldly set himself above all ancient constitutions, alleging the unheard of reason that “the sentence of a living Pope was worth more than all the decrees of a hundred dead ones.” And finally, to leave his flock, the Christian peoples, in no manner of doubt about his pastoral humility, he revoked the resolve of the Romans never again[109] to erect a monument to a Pope in his lifetime, saying, “such a resolution could not apply to a Pope like himself.”
The desire for unlimited temporal power rises like a column out of the life of Urban VIII. Still it is not destitute of the embellishments of art, poetry, and love of learning. It is no fiction that this imperious pontiff found pleasure in turning passages of the Old and New Testaments into Horatian metre, and the song of Simeon into two sapphic strophes! His numerous and often cordial letters to Galileo bear witness also of his interest in science and its advocates; but if these scientific or poetic tastes clashed for a moment with the papal supremacy, the patron of art and science had to give place at once to the ecclesiastical ruler, who shunned no means, secret or avowed, of making every other interest subservient to his assumption of temporal and spiritual dominion.
It is simply a psychological consequence of these traits of character, that arbitrary caprice, the twin brother of despotic power, often played an intolerable part in his treatment of those who came in contact with him.[178]
This then was the character of the new head of the Catholic Church, on whom Galileo placed great hopes for the progress of science in general, and the toleration of the Copernican system in particular, though they were to result in bitter disappointment. Yet to all appearance he was justified in hailing this election, for not only was Urban VIII. a refreshing contrast to his immediate predecessors, who cared little for art or science, but as Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, he had for years shown the warmest friendship for and interest in Galileo.
Many letters from this dignitary to Galileo which have come down to us bear witness to this.[179] Thus he wrote to him from Bologna on 5th June, 1612: “I have received your treatise on various scientific questions, which have been raised during my stay here, and shall read them with great[110] pleasure, both to confirm myself in my opinion, which agrees with yours, and, with the rest of the world, to enjoy the fruits of your rare intellect.”[180] The words, “in order to confirm,” etc., have led some not very careful writers to conclude that, at all events when cardinal, Urban VIII. was a follower of Copernicus. But this is quite beside the mark. For the work in question was the one on floating bodies, with which, though the Peripatetics got the worst of it, neither Ptolemy or Copernicus had anything to do. A little more attention would have saved Philarete Chasles and others from such erroneous statements.
Another letter to Galileo from the cardinal, 20th April, 1613, after the publication of his work on the solar spots, shows the interest he took in the astronomer and his achievements. He writes:—
“Your printed letters to Welser have reached me, and are very welcome. I shall not fail to read them with pleasure, again and again, which they deserve. This is not a book which will be allowed to stand idly among the rest; it is the only one which can induce me to withdraw for a few hours from my official duties to devote myself to its perusal, and to the observation of the planets of which it treats, if the telescopes we have here are fit for it. Meanwhile I thank you very much for your remembrance of me, and beg you not to forget the high opinion which I entertain for a mind so extraordinarily gifted as yours.”[181]
But the cardinal had not confined himself to these assurances of esteem and friendship in his letters, but had proved them by his actions in 1615 and 1616, by honestly assisting to adjust Galileo’s personal affairs when brought before the Inquisition. And Maffeo Barberini attributed the success then achieved in no small degree to his own influence, and used even to relate with satisfaction when Pope, that he had at that time assisted Galileo out of his difficulties. But here we must remind those authors who represent Barberini, when cardinal, as a Copernican, in order to paint hi............