the earth.[1] It was also enjoined upon him not to receive any suspicious visitors.
It is characteristic of the mode of proceeding of the Inquisition, that Fanano set Galileo's own son, who was nursing him with the tenderest affection, to watch over him. The Inquisitor enjoined upon Vincenzo to see that the above orders were strictly obeyed, and especially to take care that his father's visitors never stayed long. He remarks, in a report to Francesco Barberini of 10th March, that Vincenzo could be trusted, "for he is very much obliged for the favour granted to his father to be medically treated at Florence, and fears that the least offence might entail the loss of it; but it is very much to his own interest that his father should behave properly and keep up as long as possible, for with his death a thousand scudi will go, which the Grand Duke allows him annually." In the opinion of the worthy Father Fanano, then, the son must be anxious for his father's life for the sake of the thousand scudi! In the same letter the Inquisitor assured Barberini that he would himself keep a sharp look out that his Holiness's orders were strictly obeyed, which, as we shall soon see, he did not fail to do.
Galileo's confinement in Florence was so rigorous that at Easter a special permission from the Inquisition was required to allow him to go to the little Church of San Georgio, very near his house, to confess, to communicate, and to perform his Easter devotions,[2] and even this permission only extended expressly to the Thursday, Good Friday, Saturday, and Easter Sunday.[3] On the other hand, as appears from the dates of his letters,[4] he was allowed,
