When asked if I had signified to the Reverend Father, the
Master of the Holy Palace, the injunction privately laid upon me, about
sixteen years ago, by the order of the Holy Office, not to hold,
defend, or "ina any way" teach the doctrine of the motion of the Earth
and the stability of the Sun, I answered that I had not done so.
And, not being questioned as to the reason why I had not intimated it,
I had no opportunity to add anything further. It now appears to
me necessary to state the reason, in order to demonstrate the purity of
my intention, ever foreign to the practice of simulation or deceit in
any operation I engage in.
I say, then, that, as at that time reports were spread abroad by
evil-disposed persons to the effect that I had been summoned by the
Lord Cardinal Bellarmine to abjure certain of my opinions and teachings
and also to submit to penitence for them, I was thus constrained to
apply to his Eminence and to solicit him to furnish me with an
attestation, explaining the cause for which I had been summoned before
him; which attestation I obtained in his own handwriting, and it is the
same that I now produce with the present document. From this it
clearly appears that it was merely announced to me that the doctrine
attributed to Copernicus, of the motion of the Earth and the stability
of the Sun, must not be held or defended; but that, beyond this general
announcement affecting everyone, there should have been ordered
anything to me in particular, no trace thereof appears in it.
Having, then, as a reminder, this authentic attestation in the
handwriting of the very person who informed me of the command, I made
no further application of thought or memory with regard to the words
employed in orally announcing to me the said order not to hold or
defend the doctrine in question; so that the two articles of the
order--in addition to the injunction not to "hold" or "defend" it--to
wit, the words "not to teach it" and "in any way whatsoever"--which, I
hear, are contained in the order enjoined on me, and registered--struck
me as quite novel and as if I had not heard them before; and I do not
think I ought to be disbelieved when I urge that in the course of
fourteen or sixteen years I had lost all recollection of them,
especially as I had no need to give any particular thought to them,
having in my possession so authentic a reminder in writing. Now,
if the said two articles accompanying attestation, there is no doubt
that the injunction contained in the latter is the same command as that
contained in the decree of the Holy Congregation of the Index.
Hence it appears to me that I have a reasonable excuse for not having
notified to the Master of the Holy Palace about the command privately
imposed upon me, it being the same as that of the Congregation of the
Index.
Now, if so be my book was not
subject to a stricter censorship than that made binding by the decree
of the Index, it will, it appears to me, be sufficiently plain
that I adopted the surest and most becoming method of having it
guaranteed and purged of all shadow of taint, inasmuch as I handed it
to the Supreme Inquisitor at the very time when many books dealing with
the same matters were being prohibited solely by virtue of the said
decree. After what I have now stated, I would confidently hope
that the idea of my having knowingly and deliberately violated the
command imposed upon me will henceforth be entirely banished from the
minds of my most eminent and wise judges; hence those faults which are
seen scattered throughout my book have not been artfully introduced
with any concealed or other than sincere intention but have only
inadvertently fallen from my pen, owing to a vainglorious ambition and
complacency in desiring to appear more subtle than the generality of
popular writers, as indeed in another deposition I have confessed;
which fault I shall be ready to correct with all possible industry
whenever I may be commanded or permitted by Their Most Eminent
Lordships.
Lastly, it remains for me to beg you to take into consideration my
pitiable state of bodily indisposition, to which, at the age of seventy
years, I have been reduced by ten months of constant mental anxiety and
the fatigue of a long and toilsome journey at the most inclement
season--together with the loss of a greater part of the years to which,
from my previous condition of health, I had the prospect. I am
persuaded and encouraged to do so by the faith I have in the clemency
and goodness of the most Eminent Lords, my judges; with the hope that
they may be pleased, in answer to my prayer, to remit what may appear
in their entire justice the rightful addition that is still lacking to
such sufferings to make up an adequate punishment for my crimes, out of
consideration for my declining age, which, too, humbly commends itself
to them. And I would equally commend to their consideration my
honor and reputation, against the calumnies of ill-wishers, whose
persistence in detracting from my good name may be inferred from the
necessity which constrained me to procure from the Lord Cardinal
Bellarmine the attestation which accompanies this.
----------------------------
Source: Giorgio de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo
Affair, pp. 258-260 (University
of Chicago Press 1955).
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