he was not summoned, but that his visit was entirely voluntary. This verbal statement of Riccardi's, unsupported by any document, is of no value as evidence, compared with the letters of Galileo of that period, and his depositions afterwards before his judges, who were accurately informed of all the previous proceedings. The second part of his communication to Niccolini is also far from precise. He does indeed say that Galileo, in 1616, had in the name of the Pope and the Holy Congregation been forbidden (prohibito), "il poter tenere questo opinione," but according to the father's account this prohibition was communicated to him by Cardinal Bellarmine. Riccardi is evidently not precisely instructed, and does not know that, according to the notification of 26th February, 1616, Galileo received an absolute prohibition before notary and witnesses.
We shall see the part this "document" was destined to play in the proceedings against Galileo.
The preliminary commission had just then, after about a month's session, completed its labours, and submitted to the Pope a long memorial on the Galileo affair. The document begins with a concise statement of the course of the negotiations about the publication of the "Dialogues," and then the three following indictments were brought against the author:—
(1) Galileo has transgressed orders in deviating from the hypothetical treatment by decidedly maintaining that the earth moves and the sun is stationary. (2) He has erroneously ascribed the phenomena of the tides to the stability of the sun and the motion of the earth, which do not exist; (3) and he has further been deceitfully silent about the command laid upon him by the Holy Office, in the year 1616, which was as follows: "To relinquish altogether the said opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the earth moves; nor henceforth to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing, otherwise proceedings would be taken against him by the
