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GALILEO AT SIENA AND ARCETRI.
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it.[1] Such an act was very improper for a pious Catholic, and Galileo really was one. In the following year, however, he told his old friend, Fra Fulgenzio Micanzio, at Venice, with great delight, that Bernegger had brought out by the same publishers the Apology to the Grand Duchess Christine of 1615, in Italian with a Latin translation. The secret translator, concealed under the pseudonym of Ruberto Robertini Borasso, was also Diodati.[2] In a letter to Micanzio, as well as in another of 12th July, Galileo expressed an ardent wish that a large number of copies of it might be introduced into Italy, "to shame his enemies and calumniators.[3] As we know, this letter to the Grand Duchess contained nothing but a theological apology for the Copernican system, so that what gratified Galileo so much in its publication, was that the world would now learn that he, who had been denounced as a heretic, had always been an orthodox Christian, into whose head it had never entered, as his enemies gave out, to attack the holy faith. Martin is quite justified in saying that "the reputation of a good Christian and true Catholic was as dear to Galileo as that of a good astronomer."[4]

While Galileo was enjoying the twofold satisfaction of seeing his "Dialogues" attain a wider circulation (they had meanwhile been translated into English),[5] and yet of being acknowledged as a pious subject of the Roman Catholic Church, the Count de Noailles continued his efforts at Rome, before his approaching departure from Italy, to obtain pardon for Galileo. Castelli, who, in consequence of his too great devotion to Galileo and his system, had been banished for three years from Urban's presence, had

  1. Op. x. pp. 25-33; vii. pp. 52, 53, and 128.
  2. Op. x. pp. 29-33; vii. p. 140.
  3. Op. vii. pp. 65, 66, and 67, 68; also Galileo's letter to Bernegger, 15th July, 1636. (Op. vii. pp. 69, 70.)
  4. Page 222.
  5. Comp. Galileo's letter to Giovanni Buonamici, 16th August, 1636. (Op. vii. pp. 139, 140.)