"Galileo Galilei, most humble servant of your most worthy Eminence, most respectfully showeth that whereas, by command of the Holy Congregation, he was imprisoned outside Florence four years ago, and after long and dangerous illness, as the enclosed medical certificate testifies, has entirely lost his eyesight, and therefore stands in urgent need of medical care: he appeals to the mercy of your most worthy Eminences, urgently intreating them in this most miserable condition and at his advanced age to grant him the blessing of his liberty."
The utmost caution was exercised at Rome before granting this petition. No confidence was placed in the medical certificate; but the Inquisitor-General of Florence, Father Fanano, was instructed to visit Galileo and to make an exact report of his health, and whether it was to be feared, if he lived at Florence, that he would promote the propagation of his errors.[1] Fanano at once conscientiously executed his commission, and on 13th February, 1638, sent the following report to Cardinal Francesco Barberini:—
"In order the better to execute his Holiness's commission, I went myself, accompanied by a strange physician, an intimate friend of mine, to see Galileo, quite unexpectedly, at his villa at Arcetri, to find out the state he was in. My idea was not so much by this mode of proceeding to put myself in a position to report on the nature of his ailments, as to gain an insight into the studies and occupations he is carrying on, that I might be able to judge whether he was in a condition, if he returned to Florence, to propagate the condemned doctrine of the double motion of the earth by speeches at meetings. I found him deprived of his eyesight, entirely blind; he hopes for a cure, as the cataract only formed six months ago, but at his age of seventy the physician considers it incurable. He has besides a severe rupture, and suffers from continual weariness of life and sleeplessness, which as he asserts, and it is confirmed by the inmates of his house, does not permit him one hour's sound sleep in the twenty-four. He is besides so reduced that he looks more like a corpse than a living man. The villa is a long way from the city, and the access is inconvenient, so that Galileo can but seldom, and with much inconvenience and expense, have medical aid."[2] His studies are interrupted by his
↑This passage directly contradicts the remark on this subject in the report of Fra Clemente, the Inquisitor, of 1st April, 1634; his successor, Fra Fanano, seems to have been more favourable to Galileo.
