obedience; in short, for subjecting him to the consequences of this categorical injunction.
Did such a protocol ever exist? As we doubted the fact of the stringent intimation, we did not believe that such a document ever had existed. Nevertheless, when at Rome, we eagerly sought to discover whether, contrary to all expectation, this most important document was extant, or to learn anything about it. It might perhaps be in the Archives of the Holy Inquisition, in which, in 1848, Professor Gherardi had found such valuable notes about the trial of Galileo. We therefore addressed a memorial to the then Secretary of State, Cardinal Simeoni, in which we made a concise statement of the present state of the researches relating to Galileo's trial, remarking that though the suspicion of a falsification was not tenable, the correctness of the note of 26th February seemed doubtful, and could only be acknowledged as trustworthy if either the original protocol, or some confirmatory notice, were discovered in the Archives of the Inquisition. In the course of four weeks we received the following reply:—
"Illiño Signore,
In sequito della richiesta fattasi da V. S. Illiña di avere dei documenti relativi a Galileo, mi recai a premura di commetterne le opportune indagini. Praticatesi le più diligenti ricerche, vengo informato non esistere affatto negli Archivi i documenti che si desideravano.
Nel portare ciò a sua notizia, ho il piacere di dichiararle i sensi della mia distinta stima—
Di V. S. Illiña,
By this decisive information it is established that now, at any rate, no other document is extant relating to the proceedings of 26th February, 1616, than the well-known annotation. Was this also the case in 1632, when Galileo was arraigned for disobedience and signally punished? The history of the trial, the otherwise incomprehensible attitude of the Interrogator towards Galileo, are strongly in favour of an affirmative
