demned. Cesi added that in that case it would very likely be condemned, as the Peripatetic school was in the majority there, and its opponents were generally hated; besides, it was very easy to prohibit and suspend.[1]
Although Galileo took this hint, and the affair of Caccini was prudently allowed to drop, it must be regarded as the first impetus to all the later persecutions of Galileo.
The questionable merit of having brought Galileo's affairs before the tribunal of the Inquisition belongs to Father Lorini, a friend of Caccini, and brother of the same order. Galileo's fatal letter to Castelli had fallen into his hands; and when, later on, thanks to Caccini's zeal, a great ferment began about it in monkish circles at Florence, Lorini was moved to send a denunciation of the letter and a copy of it secretly to the Holy Office at Rome. The whole statement, which was addressed to Cardinal Mellini, President of the Congregation of the Index, is couched in a most artful and miserable style. The denunciator, too cowardly and too cunning to mention Galileo by name (for he still had powerful friends even among the highest dignitaries of the Church), only speaks of the "Galileists" in general, "who maintain, agreeably to the doctrine of Copernicus, that the earth moves and the heavens stand still." He even ascribes the enclosed letter to Copernicus, in order to leave the honoured philosopher quite out of the question. Lorini goes on to say: "all the fathers of this (his own) devout convent of St. Mark find many passages in this letter which are suspicious, or presumptuous, as when it says that many expressions of Holy Scripture are indefinite; that in discussions about natural phenomena the lowest place must be assigned to them; that the commentators have often been mistaken in their interpretations; that the Holy Scriptures should not be mixed up with anything but matters of religion; that in nature philosophical and astronomical evidence is of more value than holy and Divine (which pas-
- ↑ Op. viii. pp. 337-343.
