influential positions, and likely it would seem to have been better informed, knew, as appears from their correspondence with Galileo, anything of the proceedings which were being instituted at Rome against him and the Copernican system. The Inquisition knew well enough how to keep its secrets. On 28th February[1] Mgr. Ciampoli writes confidently to Galileo that, notwithstanding all the inquiries he had made, he could learn nothing of any measures against him or the new doctrines; he sets down the whole rumour to the incautious talk of some hot-headed fellow.
On 7th March[2] Dini tells Galileo that Cardinal Bellarmine had said "he did not think that the work of Copernicus would be prohibited, and the worst that would happen would be that some addition would be made to it, stating that this theory was only accepted to explain phenomena,[3] or some such phrase, and with this reservation Galileo would be able to discuss the subject whenever he had occasion." Under the same date Prince Cesi tells Galileo that a work had just been published by a Dominican monk, which brilliantly defended the opinion of Copernicus and made it agree with Holy Scripture. He adds that the work could not have appeared more opportunely.[4]
But what seems the most strange are the express and repeated assurances of the cardinals Barberini, Del Monte, and Bellarmine, to Galileo, through Dini and Ciampoli, that so long as he did not go beyond the province of physics and mathematics, nor enter into any theological interpretations of Scripture, he had nothing to fear.[5] How could Cardinal
- ↑ Op. viii. pp. 350-353.
- ↑ Op. viii. pp. 354-356.
- ↑ As we should say, "as a working hypothesis." [Tr.]
- ↑ This was the work which was condemned and absolutely prohibited by the Congregation of the Index a year later: "Lettera del R. P. Maestro Paolo Antonio Foscarini, Carmelitano, sopra l'opinione de i Pittagorici e del Copernico della mobilita della Terra e stabilita del Sole, e il nuovo Sisteme del Mondo." (For Cesi's letter, Op. viii. pp. 356-358.)
- ↑ See Dini's letter to Galileo, March 14th, 1615 (Op. viii. p. 360); and of August 18th, 1615 (Wolynski, "Lettere Inedite," p. 34); and Ciampoli's of March 21st (Op. viii. pp. 366, 367.)
