On the other hand, Galileo undertook to fashion the beginning and end of the work in accordance with a plan of the supreme authorities of the censorship. There were also still a few passages to be personally discussed with the author; and as he was unable to stay longer at Rome without danger to his health, which was already beginning to suffer, it was agreed that he should return in the autumn, and meanwhile[1] he would prepare the index and the dedication to the Grand Duke, and revise the preface and conclusion. The main condition, however, under which Riccardi gave the book his imprimatur, was that after its final completion it should be submitted to him; and in order to avoid loss of time, he engaged to look it through sheet by sheet, and to send each at once to press after inspection. As was usual in the case of members of the Accadémia dei Lincei, the work was to be published in the name of this society, and the president, Prince Cesi, was to see it through the press.
So at the end of June[2] Galileo returned to Florence with his MS. and the ecclesiastical imprimatur, which was granted bona fide for Rome without reserve. There were indeed sundry conditions attached to it, to be arranged privately; but they seemed to present so little difficulty, that a few days after he left on 29th June, Niccolini reported to Cioli that Signor Galileo left last Wednesday, perfectly satisfied, and with his affairs quite settled.[3]
- ↑ Op. ix. pp. 193 and 205.
- ↑ p. vi. p. 346, note 2.
- ↑ Wolynski, "La Diplomazia Toscana e Gal. Galilei," p. 35.
Galileo’s correspondence. (Op. vi. pp. 274–277; Suppl. pp. 233–235.) It is inconceivable how Albèri (Op. Suppl. p. 238, note 2) can have fallen into the mistake of supposing that Galileo had not received the imprimatur at all, though he himself publishes documents which prove the contrary; as, for instance, the letter of Visconti to Galileo of 16th June, 1630 (Suppl. p. 235); Galileo's to Cioli of 7th March, 1631 (Op. vi. pp. 374–376); a letter of Riccardi's to the Tuscan ambassador at Rome, Niccolini, of 28th April, 1631 (Op. ix. pp. 243, 244); and finally, a letter from Niccolini to Cioli of Sep., 1632 (Op ix. pp. 420–423). Martin also expresses his surprise at this error of Albéri's (p. 102, note 2).
