[The file report begins with a reference to the Pope's decree
of
February 25, 1616:]
Thursday,
25 February 1616. The Lord Cardinal
Mellini notified the
Reverend Fathers, the Assessor, and the Commissary of the Holy Office
that the
censure passed by the theologians upon the propositions of Galileo—to
the effect
that the Sun is the centre of the world and immovable from its place,
and that
the Earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion—had been reported; and
His
Holiness has directed the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine to summon before him
the
said Galileo and admonish him to abandon the said opinion; and, in case of his refusal to obey, that
the Commissary is to enjoin on him,
before a notary and witnesses, a command to abstain altogether from
teaching or
defending this opinion and doctrine and even from discussing it, and,
if he do
not acquiesce therein, that he is to be imprisoned. Friday, the twenty-sixth. At the palace, the usual residence of Lord Cardinal Bellarmine, the said Galileo, having been summoned and being present before the said Lord Cardinal, was, in the presence of the Most Reverend Michelangelo Segizi of Lodi, of the order of Preachers, Commissary-General of the Holy Office, by the said Cardinal, warned of the error of the aforesaid opinion and admonished to abandon it; and immediately thereafter, before me and before witnesses, the Lord Cardinal being present, the said Galileo was by the said Commissary commanded and enjoined, in the name of His Holiness the Pope and the whole Congregation of the Holy Office, to relinquish altogether the said opinion that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth moves; nor further to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing; otherwise proceedings would be taken against him by the Holy Office; which injunction the said Galileo acquiesced in and promised to obey. Done at Rome, in the place aforesaid, in the presence of R. Badino Nores, of Nicosia in the kingdom of Cyprus, and Agostino Mongardo, from a place in the Abbey of Rose in the diocese of Montepulciano, members of the household of said Cardinal, witnesses. |
Decree
of General
Congregation of the
Index March 5, 1616 ...And whereas
it has also come to the knowledge of the said Congregation that the
Pythagorean
doctrine—which is false and altogether opposed to the Holy Scripture—of
the
motion of the Earth, and the immobility of the Sun, which is also
taught by
Nicolaus Copernicus in De revolutionibus
orbium coelestium, and by Diego de Zuniga [in his book] on Job, is
not
being spread abroad and accepted by many—as may be seen from a certain
letter
of a Carmelite Father, entitled Letter of
the Rev. Father Paolo Antonio Foscarini, Carmelite, on the Opinion of
the
Pythagoreans and of Copernicus concerning the Motion of the Earth, and
the
Stability of the Sun, and the New Pythagorean System of the World, at
Naples,
Printed by Lazzaro Scoriggio, 1615: wherein the said Father
attempts to
show that the aforesaid doctrine of the immobility of the sun in the
centre of
the world, and of the Earth’s motion, is consonant with truth and is
not
opposed to Holy Scripture. Therefore, in
order that this opinion may not insinuate itself any further to the
prejudice
of Catholic truth, the Holy Congregation has decreed that the said
Nicolaus
Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium, and
Diego de Zuniga, On Job, be suspended
until they be corrected; but that the book of the Carmelite Father,
Paolo
Antonio Foscarini, be altogether prohibited and condemned, and that all
other
works likewise, in which the same is taught, be prohibited, as by this
present
decree it prohibits, condemns, and suspends them all respectively. In witness whereof the present decree has
been signed and sealed with the hands and with the seal of the most
eminent and
Reverend Lord Cardinal of St. Cecilia, Bishop of Albano, on the fifth
day of
March, 1616. |
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