Popular Story of Galileo’s Fate.—His Eyes put out.—“E pur si Muove.”—The Hair Shirt.—Imprisonment.—Galileo only detained twenty-two Days at the Holy Office.—Torture.—Refuted in 18th Century.—Torture based on the words, “examen rigorosum.”—This shown to be untenable.—Assertion that the Acts have been falsified refuted.—False Imputation on Niccolini.—Conclusive Evidence against Torture.—Galileo not truly a “Martyr of Science.” Before following Galileo’s fate to the end, so far as his relations with the curia are concerned, it seems desirable to glance at the fables and exaggerations, mostly originating in malice and fierce partisanship, which, in defiance of the results of the latest historical research, are not only circulated among the public at large, but introduced, to some extent, even in works which profess to contain history.
According to these legends, Galileo languishes during the trial in the prisons of the Inquisition; when brought before his judges, he proudly defends the doctrine of the double motion; he is then seized by the executioners of the Holy Office, and subjected to the horrors of torture; but even then—as heroic fable demands—he for a long time remains steadfast; under pain beyond endurance he promises obedience, that is, the recantation of the Copernican system. As soon as his torn and dislocated limbs permit, he is dragged before the large assembly of the Congregation, and there, kneeling in the penitential shirt, with fierce rage in his heart, he utters the desired recantation. As he rises he is no longer able to master his indignation,[250] and fiercely stamping with his foot, he utters the famous words: “E pur si muove!” He is, therefore, thrown into the dank dungeons of the dreaded tribunal, where his eyes are put out!
The blinding of Galileo is a creation of the lively popular mind, which, with its love of horrors, embellishes tragical historical events by fictitious additions of this kind, just suited to the palates of people accustomed to coarse diet. Galileo’s subsequent loss of sight may have given rise to the fable, which first appeared in the “History of Astronomy” by Estevius.[421] It is not known who was the inventor of the assumed exclamation, “E pur si muove,” which sounds well, and has become a “winged word;” but besides not being historic, it very incorrectly indicates the old man’s state of mind; for he was morally completely crushed. Professor Heis, who has devoted a treatise to the origin of this famous saying, thinks that he has discovered its first appearance in the “Dictionnaire Historique,” Caen, 1789;[422] Professor Grisar tells us, however, in his studies on the trial of Galileo, that in the “Lehrbuch der philosophischen Geschichte,” published at Würzburg, 1774, fifteen years earlier, by Fr. N. Steinacher, the following edifying passage occurs:—
“Galileo was neither sufficiently in earnest nor steadfast with his recantation; for the moment he rose up, when his conscience told him that he had sworn falsely, he cast his eyes on the ground, stamped with his foot, and exclaimed, ‘E pur si muove.’”[423]
Besides the fact that these words are not attributed to Galileo by any of his contemporaries, not even the best[251] informed, the fallacy of the whole story is obvious; for the witnesses of this outbreak, his judges, in fact, would assuredly not have allowed so audacious a revocation of his recantation to escape unpunished; it is, indeed, impossible to conjecture what the consequences would have been; the recusant would certainly not have been released two days afterwards from the buildings of the Holy Office.
Although this dramatic scene is not mentioned as worthy of credit by any modern historian,[424] it is different with the hair shirt in which Galileo is said to have performed the humiliating act. Libri, Cousin, Parchappe, and very recently Louis Combes,[425] all gravely relate that the philosopher had to recant “en chemise.”
The official document, although it goes very much into detail as to the way in which the oath was performed, says nothing of the shirt, and these authors should have said nothing either. The doubtful source in which this fable originated is an anonymous and very confused note on a MS. in, the Magliabechiana Library at Florence, where among other nonsense we find: “the poor man (Galileo), appeared clad in a ragged shirt, so that it was really pitiable.”[426] We agree with Epinois,[427] that history requires more authentic testimony than that of an anonymous note.
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But upon what testimony, then, do a large number of authors speak with much pathos of the imprisonment which Galileo had to undergo? No sort of documents are referred to as evidence of the story; this is quite intelligible, for none exist. Or is the rhetorical phrase, “Galileus nunc in vinculis detinetur,”[428] contained in a letter of May, 1633, from Rome, from Holstein to Peiresc, to be taken as evidence that Galileo was really languishing in the prisons of the Inquisition? One glance at the truest historical source for the famous trial,—the official despatches of Niccolini to Cioli, from 15th August, 1632, to 3rd December, 1633, from which we have so freely quoted,—would have convinced any one that Galileo spent altogether only twenty-two days (12-30th April, and afterwards 21-24th June, 1633) in the buildings of the Holy Office; and even then, not in a prison cell with grated windows, but in the handsome and commodious apartment of an official of the Inquisition. But such writers do not seem to have been in the habit of studying authorities; thus, for example, in the “Histoire des Hérésies,” by P. Domenico Bernini, and in the “Grande Dictionnaire Bibliographique” of Moreri, we find it stated that Galileo was imprisoned five or six years at Rome! Monteula, in his “Histoire des Mathematiques,” and Sir David Brewster, in his “Martyrs of Science,” reduce the period, perhaps from pity for the poor “martyr,” to one year; Delambre, however, felt no such compassion, and says in his “Histoire de l’Astronomie Ancienne,” that Galileo was condemned to an imprisonment which lasted “several years”! Such an error is the more surprising from the last celebrated author, as we know that trustworthy extracts from the original acts of the Vatican MS. were in his hands.[429] Even in a very recent work, Drager’s “Geschichte der Conflicte zwischen Religion und Wissenschaft,” Leipzig, 1875 (“History of the Conflicts between[253] Religion and Science”), it is seriously stated that Galileo was detained three years in the prisons of the Inquisition!
Thus we see that the fable of Galileo’s imprisonment has been adopted by several authors without any historical foundation, and this is to a far greater extent the case with the famous story of the torture to which he is said to have been subjected. As it has held its ground, although only sporadically, even up to the most recent times,[430] it seems incumbent on us to go more deeply into this disputed question.
Curiously enough, it is towards the end of the eighteenth century that we find the first traces of this falsehood, and from the fact that three savans, Frisi,[431] Brenna,[432] and Targioni,[433] who wrote lives of Galileo at that time, raised a protest against it. Although they were not then able, as we are now, to base their arguments upon the Acts of the trial, they had even then authentic materials in their hands—the despatches between Niccolini and Cioli,[434] then recently published by Fabroni—which rendered it utterly improbable that the old man had been placed upon the rack. These materials were thoroughly turned to account eighty years later by T. B. Biot, in his essay, “La verité sur le procès de Galilei.”[435] He clearly showed from the reports of the ambassador that Galileo had neither suffered torture during his first stay in the buildings of the Holy Office, from 12-30th April, when he daily wrote to Niccolini,[436] and was in better health when he returned to the embassy than when he left it;[437] nor during the three days of his second[254] detention, from 21-24th June, at the end of which he was conducted by Niccolini, on the evening of the 24th, to the Villa Medici.[438] On 6th July he set out thence, “in very good health,” for Siena, and in spite of his advanced age performed four miles on foot for his own pleasure,[439] which an infirm old man of seventy, if he had suffered torture a fortnight before, would surely not have been able to do.
But all these plain indications go for nothing with some historians, whose judgment is warped by partisanship, and who are not willing to give up the notion that Galileo did suffer the pangs of torture. And so we find this myth, at first mentioned by a few authors as a mere unauthentic report, assuming a more and more distinct form, until it is brought forward, with acute and learned arguments, as, to say the least, very probable, by Libri, Brewster, Parchappe, Eckert, and others.
These writers base their assertion on the following passage in the sentence:—
“And whereas it appeared to us that you had not stated the full truth with regard to your intention, we thought it necessary to subject you to a rigorous examination (examen rigorosum), at which (without prejudice however, to the matters confessed by you, and set forth as above with regard to your said intention) you answered like a good Catholic.”
These writers assert, on the one hand, that the expression “examen rigorosum,” in the vocabulary of the Inquisition could mean nothing but torture; and on the other, they take the expression that Galileo had “answered as a good Catholic” under examen rigorosum, to mean that they had extorted from him a confession as to his intention, and conclude that torture had been resorted to. But on closer scrutiny of the wording of the passage, the meaning appears to be exactly the contrary; for the sentence in parenthesis says plainly that Galileo had “answered as a good Catholic”[255] “without prejudice” to his previous depositions or the conclusions which his judges had previously arrived at as to his intention, and which Galileo persistently denied. His Catholic answer consisted in his repeated assurance that he did not hold the opinion of Copernicus, and had not held it after the command to renounce it had been intimated to him. The Inquisition could but call this a Catholic answer, as Galileo thereby entirely renounced the condemned doctrine.[440]
We turn now to the other assertion of these writers, that “examen rigorosum” means torture. This is in a general sense correct, if by torture the actual application of it is not intended. But they take the passage in the sentence for decisive evidence that torture was actually carried out, in which they are mistaken, as the following passage from the “Sacro Arsenale” undoubtedly proves: “If the culprit who was merely taken to the torture chamber, and there undressed, or also bound, without however being lifted up, confessed, it was said that he had confessed under torture and under examen rigorosum.”[441] The last expression then by no means always implies the actual application of torture. Dr. Wohlwill knows this passage, and the sentence therefore only proves to him that Galileo was taken into the torture chamber; what took place there, whether the old man was actually tortured, or whether they contented themselves with urging him to speak the truth, and threatening him with the instruments they were showing him (a degree of torture called territio realis), appears shrouded in mystery to Dr. Wohlwill. In spite of his acquaintance with the literature of the Inquisition, he has fallen into a mistake. He thinks that[256] the territio realis was the first degree of torture.[442] But this was not the case. Limborch’s work, “Historia Inquisitionis,” with which Wohwill does not seem to be acquainted, contains definite information on the point. He says that there were five grades of torture, which followed in regular order, and quotes the following passage verbatim from Julius Clarus: “Know then that there are five degrees of torture: First, the threat of the rack; second, being taken into the torture chamber; third, being undressed and bound; fourth, being laid upon the rack; fifth, turning the rack.”[443] The territio realis was therefore by no means the first degree of............