CHAPTER X.—GALILEO BEFORE THE INQUISITION.
At last, on April 12, 1633, Galileo appeared before the Commissary-General and the Procurator-Fiscal of the Inquisition. In answer to questions he said he supposed he was summoned on account of the book, which he admitted was written by him. When asked about the injunction laid on him in 1616, he clearly showed that he was only aware of Cardinal Bellarmine's admonition, which he claimed to have obeyed. On the further question of the strict command detailed in the minute on which, as we have seen, the case against him principally rested, he reiterated that if such a command had been issued he had forgotten it. He did not deny it, as he had promised complete submission, but he still maintained that he had not even acted contrary to the command "not to hold or defend" the opinions in question, but had actually shown that the arguments of Copernicus were weak and inconclusive.
He was detained in comfortable quarters belonging to the Procurator-Fiscal, and allowed to take exercise in the corridors, to have his meals sent in by Niccolini, and to have free correspondence with him. It is noteworthy, and does not agree with the ordinary ideas about Galileo's treatment by the Inquisition, that all previous prisoners since its foundation more than four centuries before had been straightway confined in the secret dungeons, from the beginning of their trial.
Three days later three counsellors of the Holy Office
(51)
