afforded by the fact of the witnesses being compelled to silence or suffering punishment."[1]
With the arrival at last of the preface and conclusion, all the obstacles which had threatened the continuation of the printing of the "Dialogues" were removed. Stephani, who was charged by the Inquisitor at Florence to undertake the final censorship, was not the man to place difficulties in the way of the appearance of the book. He took great care, however, that the Pope's commands as to the treatment of the Copernican doctrines should, as far as the letter went, be strictly obeyed. The "Dialogues," from beginning to end, were opposed to the spirit both of the decree of 5th March, 1616, and the papal ordinances, and there was great naiveté in the idea that the fine-spun preface and the various little diplomatic arts which Galileo employed in the course of his work could disguise its real meaning from the learned world. But that was not Stephani's affair; for the MS. as a whole had been sanctioned by Father Visconti and had received the imprimatur for Rome from the authorities of the censorship.
The delay about the preface, which, according to Riccardi's orders, was to be printed before the book, had two results out of which Galileo's enemies afterwards tried to make capital for their intrigues, and which must therefore find mention here. The printing had been long in hand and was proceeding when the preface arrived. It was therefore necessary to print it on a separate sheet, which, according to Riccardi's orders, was placed at the beginning of the book. For technical reasons, also, it was printed in different type from the rest of the work. From these two insignificant circumstances, Galileo was afterwards reproached with having by the outward form destroyed the inner connection between the introduction and the book; and with having thus, to some extent, intended to indicate that it had nothing to do with the "Dialogues."[2] This was at the time when one party was setting every lever in
