26th February, 1616, is not a later forgery, it is equally certain that the proceedings did not take place in the rigid manner described in that annotation. In the course of this work we have become acquainted with the various reasons which conclusively prove that the annotation contains a downright untruth, exaggeration, or misrepresentation. To all these reasons one more may now be added. Had the course of events been that recorded in the annotation, so important an act would have been made into a protocol, and would have been signed by Galileo, the notary, and witnesses. Only a document of this kind would have afforded conclusive evidence on another trial. We learn from another document of the trial that such a proceeding was a part of the precautionary measures of the Inquisition, in order that the accused might not be able to deny what had happened. When on 1st October, 1632, Galileo was summoned before the Inquisitor at Florence, who issued the command to him to present himself at Rome in the course of the month, Galileo had to state in writing that he had received the order and would obey it; no sooner had he left the room than it was entered by a notary and witnesses who had been concealed in an adjoining apartment, and affirmed under Galileo's signature that they had been present when he "promised, wrote, and signed the above."[1]
If these measures were so strictly observed in the case of this much less important act, we may be tolerably certain that they would not have been omitted in the far more important one of 1616, if the stringent command had really been issued to Galileo by the Commissary-General in the name of the Pope and the Holy Congregation, before notary and witnesses, to maintain henceforth absolute silence, in speaking and writing, about the Copernican system. Such a document would have furnished the Holy Office with legal grounds for bringing Galileo to trial in case of his breaking his word, and for punishing his dis-
- ↑ Vat. MS. fol. 398 ro.
