The Trial of Galileo, 1612-1633

The Trial of Galileo, 1612-1633

EDITED BY THOMAS F. MAYER
Copyright Date: 2012
Published by: University of Toronto Press
Pages: 224
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt2ttvph
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  • Book Info
    The Trial of Galileo, 1612-1633
    Book Description:

    This unique reader allows students to examine Galileo's trial as a legal event and, in so doing, to learn about seventeenth-century European religion, politics, diplomacy, bureaucracy, culture, and science.

    eISBN: 978-1-4426-0520-6
    Subjects: History, History of Science & Technology

Table of Contents

  1. Front Matter
    (pp. i-iv)
  2. Table of Contents
    (pp. v-v)
  3. Acknowledgments
    (pp. vi-vi)
  4. A Note on Language and Translation
    (pp. vii-viii)
  5. List of Abbreviations
    (pp. ix-ix)
  6. Chronology
    (pp. x-xi)
  7. Sites in Rome of Importance to Galileo’s Trial
    (pp. xii-xii)
  8. Introduction
    (pp. 1-14)

    Galileo’s case has nearly always been portrayed as a cosmic struggle between science and religion. Galileo stands heroically on the side of modernity, daring to claim that the Earth moved and the Sun did not. In revenge, a reactionary church martyred an innocent victim. The only serious variant reverses the black and white hats and blames Galileo for daring to defy the established order.

    As you might suspect, especially given this general interpretation’s widespread acceptance, it is a myth. Like all such myths, it ignores inconvenient facts, including most of Galileo’s trial. This is not all that surprising, since the...

  9. Cast of Characters
    (pp. 15-40)

  10. DOCUMENTS

    • I Sunspot Letters: The Cause of Most of the Trouble
      (pp. 41-66)

      The questions moved by your lordship in your book are very beautiful and curious, founded on rather firm reasons and certain experiences [or experiments]; however, as the things are new, critics are not lacking whom I hope serve only to make your lordship’s understanding sharper and the truth more certain.

      As far as that which you asked me, if holy scripture favors Aristotle’s principles about the universe’s constitution: if your lordship speaks of the heaven’s incorruptibility, to which it seems you refer in your letter saying that new things are discovered in the heaven every day, I reply to you...

    • II Formal Proceedings Begin
      (pp. 67-90)

      Appeared personally and of his free will in Rome in the Palace of the Holy Office in the great hall of examinations in the presence of the Very Reverend Father Brother Michelangelo Seghizzi of Lodi, Dominican, master of sacred theology and general commissary of the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition in my [presence], etc.² Reverend Father Brother Tommaso son of the deceased Giovanni Caccini,³ Florentine, professed priest of the Order of Preachers, master and bachelor [teacher] in the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, about thirty-nine years old, to whom, the oath of telling the truth having been...

    • III The Inquisition and the Index Take Action
      (pp. 91-106)

      Censure made in the Holy Office of Rome Wednesday 24 February 1616 in the presence of the undersigned father theologians.

      First: The sun is the center of the world and entirely immobile by local motion.

      Censure: All said that the said proposition is foolish and absurd in philosophy and formally heretical, in so far as it contradicts the express opinions of holy scripture in many places, according to the proper sense of the words, and according to the common exposition and sense of the holy fathers and theologian doctors.

      Second: The earth is not the center of the world, nor...

    • IV Publication of Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems and the Beginning of the Trial’s Second Phase
      (pp. 107-120)

      I had resolved not to write your most illustrious lordship until I had finished the business of the pension, in which it was necessary to make an effort with a thousand dimensions in order to save the expense of sixtyscudiin the expedition [i.e., sending forward], as I have done, having obtained the grace of the bulls without paying the annates [one year’s revenue, payable to the pope on all benefices]. It remains to pay those offices that are sold, both of writers and of the Chancellery and others, which rises to fortyducati da camera.¹ The first payment...

    • V Summons to Rome and Galileo’s Resistance
      (pp. 121-142)

      There was a congregation [of the Holy Office in the apostolic palace of the Quirinal, in the presence of] The Most Holy Lord Our Lord Pope Urban by divine providence VIII, and the Most Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinals [Gaspar] Borja, [Guido] Bentivoglio, Cremona [Desiderio Scaglia], [Sant’] Onofrio [Antonio Barberini, Sr.], San Sisto [Laudivio Zacchia], [Berlingherio] Gessi, [Fabrizio] Verospi, [Marzio Ginetti], General Inquisitors. Being present the Reverend Father General Commissary [Ippolito Lanci], the Reverend Father [Lord Assessor of the Holy Office {Alessandro Boccabella}] in which were proposed the underwritten cases, which the said Lord Assessor summarized in notes and gave...

    • VI Galileo Arrives in Rome
      (pp. 143-154)

      Lord Galileo appeared in this house¹ yesterday evening in good health. Today he went to visit Mons. [Alessandro] Boccabella, but he did not go to see him as a minister of the Holy Office, since he had already left the post of Assessor sixteen days ago, rather as a friend who has always appeared to be sympathetic and to love him extraordinarily, so that Galileo used the pretext to thank him for such a good disposition so as to have an occasion to visit him, so that he [Boccabella] could give him advice on how to govern himself, which he...

    • VII Formal Proceedings Resume
      (pp. 155-188)

      Summoned, he appeared personally in Rome in the Palace of the Holy Office in the usual rooms of the Reverend Father Commissary in the presence of the Very Reverend Father Brother Vincenzo Maculano of Fiorenzuola, Commissary General, and appearing before Reverend Lord Carlo Sincero, Proctor Fiscal of the Holy Office in my, etc.

      Galileo son of the deceased Vincenzio Galileo, Florentine, seventy years old, to whom given the oath of telling the truth and [the Gospels] touched, etc.

      1) Asked: How and at what time he should be found in Rome.

      He replied: I arrived in Rome the first Sunday...

    • VIII Sentence and Abjuration
      (pp. 189-200)

      We, Gaspar of the title¹ of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme Borja

      Brother Felice Centini of the title of Sant’Anastasia called of Ascoli

      Guido of the title of Santa Maria del Popolo Bentivoglio

      Brother Desiderio Scaglia of the title of San Carlo [al Corso] called of Cremona

      Brother Antonio Barberini called Sant’Onofrio

      Laudivio Zacchia of the title of San Pietro in Vincoli called San Sisto

      Berlingherio of the title of Sant’Agostino Gessi

      Fabrizio of the title of San Lorenzo in Pantisperna Verospi, called priests

      Francesco of San Lorenzo in Damaso Barberini, and

      Marzio of Santa Maria Nova Ginetti

      Deacons by God’s...

  11. Index
    (pp. 201-210)