offices of the cardinal. He begs him to represent his pitiable condition to the wise fathers in Rome, not to release him from giving account of himself, which he is most anxious to do, as he is sure that it will only tend to his advantage, but only that it may be made easier for him to obey. There are two ways of doing this. One is for him to write a minute and conscientious vindication of all that he has said, written, or done since the day when the conflict began on Copernicus’s book and his new system. He is certain that his sincerity and his pure, zealous, and devout attachment to the holy Church and its supreme head, would be so obvious from this statement, that every one, if he were free from passion and party malice, must confess that he had behaved so piously and like a good Catholic, that not even any of the fathers of the Church to whom the epithet holy is applied, could have shown more piety. He asserts and will indisputably prove, by all the works he has written on this subject, that he has only entered into the controversy out of zeal for the holy Church, with the intention of imparting to her servants that knowledge which one or other of them might wish to possess, and which he had acquired by long study, as it treated of subjects difficult to understand and different from the learning generally cultivated. He will also show how many opinions contained in the writings of the fathers of the Church had been an encouragement to him, and how he was "finally confirmed in his intention by hearing a short but holy and admirable address, which came unexpectedly, like an echo of the Holy Spirit, from the lips of a personage eminent in learning and revered for his sanctity of life." But for the present he will not give this admirable saying, nor the speaker's name, as it does not seem prudent or suitable to involve any one in the present affair which concerns him personally alone.[1] Having in a touching manner begged that what he should write may be read, and declared that should
- ↑ There is no clue whatever as to who this personage was. From what Galileo says, it must have been some high ecclesiastical dignitary.
