Galileo's Dream

Chapter seventeen The Trial

The Holy Ofice of the Index’s ban on Galileo’s Dialogo, and the papal order commanding him to present himself to the Holy Office in Rome for examination in the month of October 1632, came as great shocks to Galileo. His book had been approved by all the relevant authorities, and its very title announced its impartiality:

He found out by way of a letter from the grand duke’s new secretary Cioli, sent to him at Arcetri by a single courier. You are hereby commanded by the Holy Congregation of the Church to account for your book in person in Rome. The book itself is banned. Just as flat as that. No one wanted to know him now. Despite all the warning signs and struggles and premonitions, he still couldn’t believe it.

If he had known more of what was going on in Rome, however, he would not have been so surprised. The grand duke’s ambassador to the pontiff, still Francesco Niccolini, could have explained a great deal to him, being caught in the thick of it. The situation far transcended Galileo’s philosophical speculations, which no one but Galileo considered of paramount importance. Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedish king, and previously an ally of Rome’s, was now leading his Protestant army south through Germany, chopping Catholics down. The Spanish were furious, and were of the opinion that Urban was to blame because he had started his papacy overtolerant of Protestants and all kinds of other heterodoxies. Now they wanted to see the harsh suppressions they felt were necessary to keep Catholicism together.

The Jesuits were also angry; their widespread order was the one most harmed by the Protestant inundation of northern Europe. In their annual Good Friday oration in St. Peter’s Cathedral, Father Orazio Grassi himself, Galileo’s old opponent Sarsi, delivered a spine-chilling sermon warning against any further papal weakness, with Urban sitting right there red-faced in his papal box. Such a public reproach of a sitting pope, for negligence in the care of the embattled Church, had not been seen in living memory. As Grassi spoke the congregation fell so silent that they could hear the unkillable pigeons cooing from their nests at the top of the dome.

That was one bad moment among many others. Urban was a superstitious man, and Vesuvius had recently erupted after a hundred and thirty years of complete calm, blanketing the countryside near Naples with a wall of lava that people likened to the Protestant armies. A bad sign, for sure; and the stars themselves all portended catastrophe. Urban’s ban on the publication of horoscopes predicting his death was of course still in force, but more general predictions of disaster could not be stopped, and were the order of the day.

The Thursday convocations of the cardinals became more and more tense. Several were the scene of bitter recriminations between Urban and his chief enemy, the hugely corpulent Cardinal Gasparo Borgia, who served as the Spanish king’s ambassador to the pontificate. The power of Spain was such that the Borgia was almost as influential in Rome as Urban, and every Thursday he stood up and with open contempt accused Urban of being excessively tolerant of heretical activities.

This simmering cauldron had finally boiled over on March 8, 1632. Word quickly got around that at a meeting of the cardinals, the Borgia had stepped up onto a little block of a dais and with his massive bulk thus elevated had announced in a bellow that he was going to read a formal document, “a matter of the greatest interest for religion and the faith.” Copies of the document had been made for distribution by his supporters, and so everyone could read for themselves afterward what he had said, and marvel at its boldness. It was an astonishingly virulent denunciation of all Urban’s policies, labeling in particular Urban’s earlier alliance with Gustavus as heretical.

Instantly red-faced, for he was thin-skinned in body as well as soul, Urban had tried to shout Borgia down, screaming “Stop this!” and “Shut up!” and the like. But the Borgia had ignored him and continued to read, bellowing louder than ever. The effrontery of this flagrant insubordination shocked everyone there. Urban’s supporters all cried out and surged toward Borgia in a mass to drag him down and stop him. But the Borgia had been prepared for this, and around him the cardinals of his faction stood like a bodyguard—Ludovisi, Colonna, Spinola, Doria, Sandoval, Ubaldini, Ablornoz, all facing down the press of Barberini men, while Borgia continued his denunciation in tones that could be heard over everything. People were amazed to tell how Cardinal Antonio Barberini, Urban’s brother, had then hurtled over the Spanish crowd with a great roar, fists and elbows flying, breaking through them to snatch Borgia by the robe and drag him off his dais. Suddenly all the cardinals were in a pile on the ground punching and kicking like two drunken gangs, Colonna flailing at Antonio Barberini until he tore him away from the Borgia, who stood as if to continue proclaiming. Urban was seen to take a step toward Borgia, fist raised, before remembering his station and screaming for his Swiss Guards.

The Swiss in their steel vests and red sleeves restored order with upright pikes, insinuating themselves between Colonna and Antonio Barberini and all the other elderly combatants, all of whom were still madly shouting and spitting, their red robes and red faces separated by the red-sleeved peacemakers, all liberally dashed with blood from cracked lips and pates. A red scene. The Borgia’s men gave out printed copies of his denunciation as they marched out of the room in a mass. Urban had been able to do nothing after that but stand on the confiscated dais and insist on his prerogatives, but at that point his heavy-breathing supporters scarcely even heard him.

It was as close to an open revolt against a pope as could be imagined.

News of this fistfight of the cardinals quickly spread. Niccolini, writing to the Florentine court about it, predicted that loud accusations of heresy would now become the Spanish party’s chief instrument of political pressure on the Curia. Urban would have to be careful; extremists on the Spanish side, including Cardinal Ludovisi, were already threatening to begin the formalities of a papal deposition. Urban was without a doubt cast on the defensive. The riot in the consistory had shown very clearly that he could only count on his own family for real support. Happily he had already appointed lots of Barberinis to the Vatican, so that he could now strike back at the Spanish party in various ways. As a first move he expelled Ludovico Ludovisi from Rome. Borgia himself, however, as ambassador of the Spanish king, and simply as a Borgia, could not be touched. Most of the observers in Rome felt that until Urban could somehow bring Borgia down, or outlive him, he could only play the game Borgia had called. He had to show his leadership by crusading against heresy. Which meant that in some senses Borgia and the Spanish had already won. High Barberinian culture was gone, the mirabile congiunture a thing of the past.

So the ban on Galileo’s Dialogo was just one part of this turn in the Italian political landscape. Once the book was out there, almost all of Galileo’s enemies complained to the Holy Office about its publication, and the hunt was therefore on. Riccardi was in a panic, as he could not deny that he had approved it. He wanted to do whatever would placate Urban in the matter and make it go away. And so late in the summer of 1632 the book was banned, and Galileo ordered to come to Rome to explain himself.

Such a command was already a judgment, as Galileo well knew. It was not like an ordinary trial; the Holy Office of the Congregation made its judgments in advance, in secret, and then called you in to tell you what your punishment would be. All that autumn of 1632, therefore, Galileo tried everything he could think of to avoid going to Rome. Grand Duke Ferdinando II and his court at first helped him in this effort, as both intermediary and advocate, for they too stood to lose if their court philosopher and mathematician were put on trial for heresy. They asked the pope on his behalf if he could submit to examination by written questions from his home in Arcetri, his health being so poor.

The answer came back from Rome: no.

They wrote to ask if he could be interrogated by the Florentine office of the Inquisition.

The answer came back again: no. He must appear in Rome.

He took to his bed, and wrote to explain that at his advanced age of seventy (he was sixty-seven), his health was too poor to allow him to travel.

After a month, a Florentine official of the Inquisition visited him at home to see just how sick he was. Galileo received him from bed, moaning, hectic and bleary-eyed. It looked like an act, although in fact the household had all seen him look just like that hundreds of times. He held out to the Church official a note from his three doctors, to be read and then conveyed to Rome:

We find that his pulse intermits every three or four beats. The patient has frequent attacks of giddiness, hypochondriacal melancholy, weakness of stomach, insomnia, and flying pains about the body. We have also observed a serious hernia with rupture of the peritoneum. All these symptoms, with the least aggravation, might become dangerous to life.

This letter and the cleric’s report were sent to Rome. The pope received it angrily, and had word sent back. Galileo must either come to Rome voluntarily or be taken there in chains.

This was too much papal heat for Grand Duke Ferdinando to withstand. He was only twenty, and Urban had already taken the duchy of Urbino away from him by force, replacing the rightful Medici heir with one of his own people. Ferdinando was intimidated, people said. Whatever the reason, he chose to do nothing more to defend Galileo. In truth, it was not a good time to oppose the pope. There had never been a good time for that, of course, but now less than ever, or so Ferdinando’s new secretary Cioli and his men explained to Galileo, there in the courtyard of Il Gioièllo, as they assured him that he would have the grand duke’s full support, that they were going to convey him to Rome in a fine litter, and that he would be put up there as a guest of the grand duke, as he had not been during certain previous visits, so he could live in comfort there at the Villa Medici, and so on. It would be fine. The ambassador Francesco Niccolini was a most canny diplomat, who would help him in every way possible. There was no escaping it, they concluded. He must go.

As this news sank in, Galileo’s face displayed a most curious mix of surprise, dismay, and something like resignation. He knew this moment. His trial had come.

Before his departure for Rome, Galileo went to see Maria Celeste and Arcangela one last time. Arcangela would not speak, of course, and glared at the walls triumphantly, as if she had prayed for this judgment and was happy it had arrived at last. Galileo couldn’t converse with Maria Celeste properly until he had had Arcangela escorted out of the room.

Then they sat in the sunlight coming in the window, holding hands. Maria Celeste survived by belief, he knew; the Church was all to her, and she revered her father as much as she did by making him a saint in her holy pantheon. Now that was all crossed up by this awesome order from the pope, and she wept in short stifled sobs, as if she were being torn in two but trying to hide the fact out of politeness. Her clutched gasping was a sound that recurred to Galileo often in the sleepless months to come. In that moment, however, he had his own torn feelings, his own fears to preoccupy him; he was contracting into himself, and did not have the usual amount of attention to give to her. All that fall he had been calm, one might even have said serene. Cartophilus knew something extraordinary had happened in his last syncope, but he wasn’t saying anything about it, so there had been no way to know if that was what had had this effect. He had seemed to have faith that things would turn out well. Now his look was darker. He patted her head and left for Rome.