Some older authors, and recently Henri Martin,[1] have repeated as a fact the report circulated at the time by Galileo's enemies,[2] that this visit to Rome was by no means so voluntary as he thought fit to give out. Martin appeals in support of this view to a letter of Mgr. Querenghi to Cardinal Alexander d'Este, of 1st January, 1616,[3] in which he says that the philosopher had been cited to appear at Rome, that he might explain how he made his doctrines, which entirely contradict Holy Scripture, agree with it. Martin also states that the Tuscan ambassador at Rome, in a despatch of 11th September, 1632, announced that a document had been discovered in the books of the Holy Office, which showed that Galileo had been summoned to Rome in 1616; and finally, this otherwise excellent biographer of Galileo adds some grounds of probability which, however, are not conclusive. Besides, these arguments, in the face of other facts, are not valid. Even if Galileo's contemporary letters from Rome, in which he repeatedly expresses his satisfaction that he had come there,[4] are not relied upon, and are regarded merely as a consistent carrying out of the fiction, his statement on his trial of 12th April, 1633, bears clear witness that Martin is in error. Being asked if he came at that time to Rome of his own accord, or in consequence of a summons, he answered: "In the year 1616 I came to Rome of my own accord, without being summoned."[5] It was impossible that he should then have persisted in the assumed fiction, for he could not have denied
- ↑ Page 69.
- ↑ Compare the letters of Sagredo from Venice of 11th March and 23rd. April, 1616, to Galileo at Rome. (Op. Suppl. pp. 107-113, Also Nelli, vol. i. p. 414.)
- ↑ Op. viii, p. 383.
- ↑ See his letters of 12th Dec., 1615, and 8th Jan., 1616, to the Tuscan Secretary of State, Curzio Picchena, at Florence. (Op. vi, pp. 211, 212, 214, 215.)
- ↑ Vat. MS. fol. 414 vo.
ciardini, at Rome, to Cardinal del Monte, Paolo Giordano Orsini, and Abbot Orsini; also to Cardinal Orsini, of December 2nd. (Wolynski: "La Diplomazia Toscana e Gal. Galilei," pp. 18-20.)
