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."[1] 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."[2]
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 his subsequent attitude as Pope in darker hues than history warrants, that
