Sky's Dark Labyrinth (33 page)

‘Once we have his final deposition, we can decide his eventual fate,' said Urban.

‘Your Holiness, he's an old man. Has he not suffered enough?' asked Barberini.

‘His age makes our actions all the more urgent,' said Urban. ‘One must meet God cleansed of sin. If Galileo will not cleanse himself
willingly
, then we are forced to do it for him.'

Pippe smiled at the prospect.

‘Once more, Galileo, we are here to establish your true intention in writing the
Dialogue
.' Maculano sounded bored, but this time Galileo knew better than to read anything into it. What was beyond doubt, however, was that he was here, with the same two cardinals for the fourth time. That had to mean something.

If only he could force his mind to work. He had offered to correct the
Dialogue
, why was that not enough?

Maculano spoke again. ‘Do you have anything to say?'

That was when it hit Galileo, as it used to when he was young: the sudden clarity of thought. Felt more than seen, everything suddenly made sense. Now he knew the truth. He could see it on the two
cardinals
' faces: the book was to be banned altogether. He was to be denounced as a heinous criminal.

What now for Galileo? What now?

He forced himself to calm down. ‘I have nothing to say.'

‘How long have you held the Copernican arrangement of Heaven to be correct?'

‘A long time ago, before the decision of the Holy Office, I was … undecided regarding the opinions of Copernicus. It could be true in nature. But after the said decision, I never held it. The Earth's stability is true and indisputable.'

‘Yet you are presumed to hold the opinion because of the manner in which you presented and defended it in your book. I ask you, therefore, to freely tell me the truth as to whether you hold or have held the opinion.' Impatience had seeped into Maculano's voice.

Why won't you believe me? How many more times do I have to say it? This is the truth now, the one I feel in my heart. The one I wish to drape across my past. Surely penitence is all that matters now?

‘I did not write the
Dialogue
because I held the Copernican doctrine to be true. I tried to show that neither has the force of conclusive demonstration and so we have to proceed with the Holy Father's guidance.'

‘Galileo,' Maculano's voice was now grave, ‘unless you proffer the truth, we will have no choice but to rely on torture. Do you
understand
me?'

Pippe was leering from his seat.

A wave of nausea swept over Galileo. He had heard of the pricking needles, the branding irons and the stretching racks. He gagged at the mere thought; his body hurt enough from the decrepitude of old age. That was sufficient punishment alone.

How could you be so wicked to one of your own, a loyal servant? It was beyond reason. Confess and burn, or lie and be tortured
. Either way he was lost. Galileo knew he could not survive the torture chamber. He would never see Maria Celeste again.
I'm so sorry
, he said to her silently. Then he began to weep.

He hated himself for each solitary tear that slipped across his cheek and gathered in his beard. He took a final deep breath. ‘I am here to obey, but I have not held this opinion after the determination of the Holy Office. You must do with me as you please.'

There was a long pause then Maculano rose from the chair. Galileo fought to remain upright. A cyclone of confusion buffeted him as he waited for the command that would see him dragged to the dungeons, and the pricking needles.

‘You may return to the Tuscan embassy …'

‘No, wait,' said Pippe, shooting from his chair.

‘Enough!'

It's too perplexing
. Galileo listened with only vague comprehension. His ordeal seemed to be over, he was to await sentence.

Several days later, Galileo trudged beneath the gothic arches in the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. Spared the journey to the Vatican, he had been called only as far as the city centre. Initially he had been grateful but when he saw the nave's ceiling it touched raw nerves. The very setting was a taunt. The domed arches were painted navy blue and studded with golden stars.

He changed into the set of pure white vestments handed to him and followed the guards to a spiral staircase. He climbed slowly, tripping on his robe because he found it difficult to hold the rail and prevent the material from wrapping around his feet.

When he reached his destination, he saw the room was filled with cardinals and other officials. An unnatural hush fell across them as he appeared. He paused at the door to look at his accusers. Even Grienberger was here, characteristically avoiding eye contact. Galileo stepped inside. He identified Maculano and shuffled across to stand in front of him, head bowed.

Maculano read from a sheet of parchment. His voice was strong and betrayed no emotion. ‘In the judgement of this Holy Office, you have rendered yourself vehemently suspected of heresy, namely in having held and believed the doctrine which is false and contrary to the Sacred and Divine Scriptures, that the Sun is the centre of the universe and that the Earth moves. Consequently you have incurred all the censures and penalties enjoined and promulgated by the sacred Canons and all particular and general laws against such delinquents.'

The room spun around Galileo. That could only mean burning, he was sure of it.

Maculano continued. ‘We are willing to absolve you from them provided that you, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, in our
presence
abjure the said errors in a manner that we will prescribe to you. Furthermore, so that this grievous and pernicious error does not go altogether unpunished, we order that the book
Dialogue
be prohibited by public edict.'

Maculano looked around before completing his statement. ‘Also, as a salutary penance, we impose on you to recite the seven penitential psalms once a week for the next three years. And, finally, we condemn you to formal imprisonment in this Holy Office at our pleasure.'

Imprisonment instead of burning. A life but no life
.

Before he had time to think more, he was presented with a sheet of parchment. The curly script contained his recantation. He read it slowly; taking pleasure in letting the assembled men wait. When he finished the text, he went back to the top and read it again. Then, he handed it back and turned to Maculano.

‘I will not speak these words.'

A pained expression materialised on Maculano's face. ‘Don't you know what you risk? Why ever not?'

‘It states that I lapsed in my adherence to Catholicism. I deny this. My personal judgement may have lapsed but I have never lost my love for the
Catholic Church, not even now. I will not read a passage that states I am a bad Catholic.'

There were murmurings. Maculano drew a number of the cardinals together and a hushed debate ensued. The result was that Maculano motioned to the scribe who crossed through the disputed words.

‘You will now recant,' Maculano said to Galileo.

Two guards supported Galileo and lowered him to his knees. He was passed a copy of the Bible and the script. It quivered in his hand as he raised it to eye level. The room fell silent.

Once more
, he told himself, and began reading aloud. ‘I, Galileo, son of Vincenzio Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy, arraigned personally before this tribunal against heretical depravity, believe all that is held, preached and taught by the Holy Catholic Church. For the act of printing a book that argued in favour of an already condemned doctrine, which is that I believed the Sun is immovable and the Earth moves, I have been judged vehemently suspected of heresy.'

Galileo paused for breath. ‘Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this vehement suspicion, justly conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error, heresy and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church. I swear that in the future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me.'

Galileo paused again. It was so hot in the room he could feel the sweat beading on his forehead.

‘Finish the reading.' It was the voice of Pippe.

Galileo unhurriedly mopped his brow then returned his eyes to the text.

‘In the event of my contravening, which God forbid, any of these promises and oaths, I submit myself to all the pains and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other
constitutions
, general and particular, against such delinquents. So help me God and these, His Holy Gospels, which I touch with my hands.'

He looked up, not needing to read the final line, the hollowest of them all. He recited, ‘I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above with my own hand.'

The housemaid looked around, surprised at the speed with which she had finished Galileo's packing. She was olive-skinned and dark-eyed, young as well, though the details of her features were beyond Galileo's ability to discern.

‘I have nothing, I am nothing,' he said, leaning on the stick he had taken to using. ‘Where am I going?'

‘I don't know, sir.'

‘You must know. Why won't anybody tell me anything?' He tried to watch her move around the room, but she was too quick for him, and he became light-headed. ‘I want to stay here.'

‘The other day, you told me you wanted to go.'

Galileo could not remember the occasion. ‘Well, now I want to stay. I'm too ill to travel – oh, do stand still – I shall die if I'm moved. You'll have me on your conscience.'

‘Come, Galileo, you're strong as an ox.' The voice was male, if lacking a certain timbre.

Galileo turned to see Niccolini. The Tuscan ambassador was dressed informally in a linen tunic.

‘That will be all, thank you,' said Niccolini to the housemaid, who flew from the room.

‘Where am I going?' Galileo demanded.

‘We have struck a bargain with the Inquisition. You are to escape imprisonment if you remain under house arrest.'

‘For how long?'

‘For the rest of your life, Galileo.'

Galileo pretended not to hear.

Niccolini continued. ‘The Archbishop of Siena, Ascanio Piccolomini, has agreed to take you in …'

‘Why can't I go back to Florence?'

‘… He counts two Popes in his lineage.'

‘Why can't I go back to Florence?'

‘You cannot go back to your old life, Galileo. Your sentence can only be fulfilled by a custodian acceptable to the Inquisition. Archbishop Piccolomini is such a man. Cardinal Barberini was most helpful in arguing for your wellbeing.'

Galileo wondered again if by ignoring him he could just pretend nothing had ever happened.

‘Come, Galileo. This is the best we can do for you. It's this or the dungeons. A carriage is waiting to take you to Siena. At least you're returning to Tuscany.'

Galileo did not move until he felt a hand take him by the elbow; the ambassador was surprisingly strong. As Niccolini guided him through the villa, Galileo noticed someone familiar in the hallway and stopped dead.

Galileo stared at the familiar face but could not think of anything to say.

‘No mail today, sir. I'll be sure to forward it, when it arrives,' said Tito.

Everything seemed so meaningless. It was such a long way to the carriage and then such a long way up into the box. The ambassador lifted him inside.

Throwing out the rubbish
, thought Galileo.

A short while later, the wooden vehicle rattled across the gravel and out of the embassy gates. Tito watched from the steps with the
ambassador
at his side, both reluctant to turn away. Before the carriage
disappeared
completely from view, it shimmered in the heat haze.

‘So this is how it ends,' said Tito.

Niccolini leaned close. ‘No one knows this – not the Inquisition, not the Jesuits, not even Galileo – but Archbishop Piccolomini is a Copernican.'

Tito looked round, convinced he had misheard.

Niccolini smiled at his evident confusion.

‘You mean …' began Tito.

‘I mean it isn't over,' said Niccolini.

Johannes Kepler's textbook
Epitome astronomia Copernicanae
, Epitome of Copernican astronomy, became staggeringly influential. The title was a mark of his humble nature as he did not advocate Copernicus but rather his own system of the planets. Even today we talk of the Copernican model, not the Keplerian one. Yet all Kepler took from Copernicus was that the Sun was stationary and the Earth moved. Although astronomers could not prove the Earth moved until 1725, the simplicity of Kepler's elliptical orbits captured the imagination of natural philosophers across Europe and convinced them that the universe was understandable to humans. However, Kepler did not live to see this, dying in 1630 at the age of fifty-eight.

Galileo Galilei was all but broken by his trial. He was protected and nurtured by his supporters, who made sure that his house arrest was conducted in sympathisers' homes. They coaxed from him another book,
Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche
, Discourses and
demonstrations
on two new sciences, about motion and material strength. It was more influential than his astronomical works and is now acknowledged as the first work of modern physics, presenting scientific arguments in precise mathematical detail rather than rhetorical flourishes. The work was smuggled out of Italy and published in Holland.

Kepler's
Epitome
and Galileo's
Discorsi
became the foundation stones for the scientific revolution. They provided Isaac Newton with the raw material to develop his groundbreaking theory of universal gravitation, published in
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, in 1687.

Galileo died, aged seventy-seven, in 1642, the same year that Isaac Newton was born.

The Sensorium of God
, the second book of The Sky's Dark Labyrinth trilogy, tells Newton's story and that of his allies and adversaries. It will be published by Polygon in autumn 2011.
The Day Without Yesterday
– the story of Albert Einstein and Edwin Hubble – will be published in spring 2012.