Galileo's Dream (22 page)

Buonamici appeared at the gate one day, and when Cartophilus got free they went down to the little church where Sarpi was hiding, and sat in the cool of the shade among the chickens. Some of the street tykes were having a water fight, squirting it at each other through reeds they had found.

The spymaster flicked seed shells at the skinny birds as he told the men part of what he had learned. “A few weeks ago young Cardinal Orsini made an appeal on Galileo's behalf directly to Pope Paul. He explained Galileo's view of things, and declared there was no contradiction between that view and Scripture, but the pope told him Galileo should give up his views. When Orsini tried to continue, Paul cut him off by saying the matter was being looked into.”

“That was Bellarmino,” Buonamici said.

“Yes. Paul called him in and instructed him to convoke a special congregation of the Holy Office, who were to be explicitly tasked to identify Galileo's opinion as erroneous and heretical. This congregation
gathered just a few days later—six Dominicans, a Jesuit, and an Irish priest. They reported to the pope that the idea that the sun was the center of the universe was ‘foolish and absurd.'
Stultam et absurdam
. Also formally heretical. The idea that the Earth moved was ‘erroneous in faith' and ‘contradicted the sense of Holy Scripture.'”

Cartophilus put his head between his knees, feeling sick to his stomach. Even Buonamici, the coolest of men, was looking a bit pale. “Formally heretical. That's new, yes?” he said.

“Yes,” Sarpi said dryly. “And so it was that Galileo was called into Bellarmino, so that the lord cardinal could order him to abandon the Copernican view. If he refused to do it, he was to be sent to Segizzi, who would order him formally to abjure his positions. If he refused that order, he was to be incarcerated until he agreed to obey it.”

“So Segizzi jumped the sequence.”

“Yes.”

“All of this,” Cartophilus pointed out gloomily, “was caused by Galileo coming to Rome to argue his case. If he had not come, all this would not have happened.”

Sarpi shrugged, staring at Cartophilus curiously. “But that isn't what happened. So we have to deal with this, now.”

“Yes, Father.”

“It's also apparently the case that Segizzi has put a document in Galileo's file that states his warning was comprehensive. Now it's in the hands of the clerks, and back in the boxes and shelves of the innermost offices. Out of reach of anyone who might want to change it.”

There was silence for a while, and the low cackle and hum of the city wafted into the church and over them. The tykes were shrieking.

“We still have some angles of attack available,” Sarpi reassured them. “Galileo needs to talk to Bellarmino again, because Bellarmino is angry, and that could be a big help. And I'm going to see if I can get our man an audience with Paul again. Of course I will have to use an intermediary; I can't ask him directly!” His laughing face was both ugly and beautiful.

At first after the interview with Bellarmino, Galileo had told everyone about it, getting angrier every time. His friends in the city came by
and tried to calm him down, but he became even more enraged when they did, and shouted so loudly that anyone on the Pincian Hill could hear him. Cesi came by, then Antonio Orsini, then Castelli, but he only got angrier.

Guicciardini dictated letters home to Picchena and Cosimo that could be heard during their composition, or read by anyone who cared to slip into his offices at night and dig into the courier's bags. One at this time said,

That same day, March 6, Galileo was writing his own report to Picchena, which was something he did on a weekly basis. He apologized for having missed writing the previous week's letter, explaining that it was because nothing had happened.

A week later news came that the Congregation of the Index had ordered Copernicus's books taken out of circulation, until corrections were added to them that made it clear his hypothesis was a mathematical
convenience only, and not a statement of physical fact. The Copernican books of Diego de Zuñiga and Foscarini were prohibited outright.

Galileo, however, was not mentioned in this decree, nor was the word
heresy
used. Nor had he been ordered to appear before the public tribunal of the Inquisition. So his warning from Bellarmino and Segizzi remained a private matter. Bellarmino and Segizzi had told no one about it, and Galileo belatedly began to keep the details of that meeting to himself.

Nevertheless, all Rome was buzzing with the news. The outline of the story was all too clear. Galileo had come to Rome to campaign for the Copernican view, and in spite of this—indeed, because of this—his view had been declared formally false and contrary to Scripture. Many were pleased at this, and rumors that he had been admonished even more severely in private were widespread.

Now Galileo wrote to Picchena.
I can show that my behavior in this affair has been such that a saint would not have handled it either with greater reverence or with greater zeal toward the Holy Church. My enemies have not been so fine, having used every machination, calumny and diabolical suggestion anyone could possibly imagine
.

That was a bit of an exaggeration, but typical of Galileo's bitter rants against his enemies.

Then, to everyone's surprise, Galileo managed to obtain another audience with the pope himself. This was a real coup, and, given Paul's part in instigating the actions against the Copernican view, difficult to account for. Young Cardinal Antonio Orsini was said to have interceded on his behalf, although even this did not seem like it should have worked. Nevertheless, Tuesday March 11, 1616, found them strolling in the Papal Garden of the Vatican, just as they had in the vineyards of the Villa Malvasia in 1611.

They walked ahead of their retinue, but spoke freely enough that trailing servants could hear most of their conversation. Galileo complained freely about the malice of his persecutors. He swore that he was as good a Catholic as anyone, that everything he had ever done or said was designed to help the Church avoid an unfortunate error that would later embarrass her.

Paul nodded as he spoke, and answered that he was well aware of Galileo's uprightness and sincerity.

Galileo bowed deeply, then hurried to catch up to the immensely rotund pontiff. “Thank you, Sanctissimus, thank you ever so much, but I find I am still somewhat anxious about the future, because of the fear of being pursued with implacable hate by my enemies.”

Paul cheered him up brusquely: “You can put all care away, because you are held in such esteem by me, and the whole Congregation. They will not lightly lend their ears to calumnious reports. You can feel safe as long as I am alive.”

“Thank you, Holiest One,” Galileo said, seizing the pontiff abruptly by the hand and kissing his ring with many enthusiastic whiskery kisses. Paul endured this for a while with a noble look into the distance, and then indicated it was time to leave and headed back toward his chambers like a great ship in a light wind, with Galileo trailing him and expressing his thanks in the floweriest terms. Never had anyone heard Galileo speak with such obsequious gratitude, except perhaps those who had seen him in the Medici's presence in the early years of the century.

After that, Galileo returned to the Hill of Gardens in infinitely better spirits. He renewed his efforts to be allowed to see Bellarmino a second time, which turned out to be a long campaign. But several weeks later, again to everyone's surprise, an audience there too was granted. One morning near the end of May he returned to the little lord cardinal's house in the Vatican, and told him of the rumors being reported back to him from all over Italy, and how badly they were harming his reputation and his health. He didn't mention Segizzi's unexpected appearance during his last visit, but he did assure Bellarmino that he had said nothing about that meeting afterward to anyone (an incredible lie), adding that he was sure Bellarmino had been perfectly discreet as well. The implication was clear: Segizzi and his companions must therefore be responsible for the rumors.

Bellarmino's eye twinkled a little as he listened to all this. There was no doubt at all that he took the implication. He nodded, looking around his study as if he had lost something in it; perhaps he was remembering Segizzi's little invasion. Finally, with a small smile, he
called in a secretary, and had him write out a certificate for Galileo that he dictated on the spot.

Still smiling his small ironic smile, Bellarmino signed the document, and when it was sanded and dried, gave it to Galileo, nodding at it as if to indicate that this was the warning he had meant to convey all along: no holding of the opinion, or defending it—but no ban on discussing it. This document would always exist to make that clear.

Guicciardini made his semiannual review of the Villa Medici's accounts and went through the roof. He dictated at nearly the top of his lungs a letter to Piccena:

It was enough. The same courier brought back Cosimo's order to Galileo, which was to return to Florence immediately.

During the week of the journey back to Florence, Galileo spoke to no one about what had happened. He looked exhausted and pensive. At night he got out his telescope again, and made his usual viewings of Jupiter. By day he brooded in silence. It was pretty obvious to all of us that his effort had rebounded on him, that by going to Rome to strengthen his position, he had forced the issue in a way that blocked his work entirely, and indeed brought him very close to Inquisitorial danger. And by no means was that over. From the road he wrote bitterly to Sagredo:
Of all the hatreds, none is greater than that of ignorance for knowledge
.

No doubt it occurred to him often that if he had just stayed in Florence and continued his work without drawing any attention to it, the storm from the clerics might have blown over. Cesi might have been able to campaign gradually on his behalf in Rome, at the level of the cardinals and the College of Rome. It might have worked. Instead Galileo had, in his usual pigheaded way, decided to reason with the pope—to bombard him so suasively that that ultimate arbiter of the situation would be convinced to support him. He couldn't imagine things turning out any other way.

Either that, or else, as some of us said when he was asleep, he had seen a danger and run straight at it, attacking it in the hope of killing it when it was young. It was quite possible he had made an accurate estimate of the danger, had calculated the odds and made his best attempt. But failed.