an infinite universe was thus brought into question;[1] for, as M. Berti has said,[2] Bruno's doctrine was equally an astro-theology or a theological astronomy.
The Roman Inquisition was not content to let the Venetian court deal with this arch heretic, but wrote in September, 1592, demanding his extradition. The Venetian body referred its consent to the state for ratification which the Doge and Council refused to grant. Finally, when the Papal Nuncio had represented that Bruno was not a Venetian but a Neapolitan, and that cases against him were still outstanding both in Naples and in Rome, the state consented, and in February of the next year, Bruno entered Rome, a prisoner of the Inquisition. Nothing further is known about him until the Congregations took up his case on February 4th, 1599. Perhaps Pope Clement had hoped to win back to the true faith this prince of heretics.[3] However Bruno stood firm, and early in the following year he was degraded, sentenced and handed over to the secular authorities, who burned him at the stake in the Campo di Fiori, February 17, 1600.[4] All his books were put on the Index by decree of February 8, 1600, (where they remain to this day), and as a consequence they became extremely rare. It is well to remember Bruno's fate, when considering Galileo's case, for Galileo[5] was at that time professor of mathematics in the university of Padua and fully cognizant of the event.
Galileo's father, though himself a skilled mathematician, had
- ↑ Berti: 285.
- ↑ Ibid: 282.
- ↑ Fahie: 82-89.
- ↑ Thayer: 299.
- ↑ The publication of A. Favaro's Galileo e l'Inquisizione: Documenti del Processo Galileiano … per la prima volta integralmente pubblicati, (Firenze, 1907), together with that of the National Edition (in 20 vols.) of Galileo's works, edited by Favaro (Firenze, completed 1909), renders somewhat obsolete all earlier lives of Galileo. The more valuable, however, of these books are: Martin's Galilée (Paris, 1868), a scholarly Catholic study containing valuable bibliographical notes; Anon. (Mrs. Olney): Private Life of Galileo, based largely on his correspondence with his daughter from which many extracts are given; and von Gebler's Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia (trans, by Mrs. Sturge, London, 1879), which includes in the appendix the various decrees in the original. Fahie's Life of Galileo (London, 1903), is based on Favaro's researches and is reliable. The documents of the trial have been published in part by de l'Epinois, von Gebler and Berti, but Favaro's is the complete and authoritative edition.
