Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia/Appendix 3
III.
ESTIMATE OF THE VATICAN MANUSCRIPT.
We now proceed to the examination of the documents contained in this famous volume. They differ in historical value, for they are not all as Professor Berti says,[1] original documents, but often copies, and more or less cursory annotations. Those only can be considered original documents which have autograph signatures; as all the letters in the MS. with one exception,[2] the protocol of the examination of Caccini, and the protocols of the examinations of Galileo; those of the depositions of Ximenes and Attavanti are copies sent by the Inquisitor at Florence to the Holy Office, and there is therefore no question of their authenticity. The rest of the MS. consists mainly of annotations on the decrees relating to the trial, decrees and mandates of the Pope and Holy Congregation, or notices of their execution. But the original Acts corresponding with these annotations are not comprised in the Vatican MS. Moreover, a careful examination of the Vatican Acts with Gherardi's Documents shows, that especially after the conclusion of the trial till Galileo's death, many papal decrees were issued of which there is no mention in the Vatican MS. So far as this, therefore, it must be looked upon as an incomplete source. But on the other hand, there is no doubt that the Acts of the trial itself lie before us altogether.
Dr. Emil Wohlwill, of Hamburg, has recently expressed the suspicion that a short time before the MS. was removed from the Archives of the Holy Office to France, the Acts of the trial underwent alterations with a special purpose, in the expectation that the Archives would be robbed, and that after the return of the volume in 1846, through Mgr. Marino Marini, Prefect of the Papal Archives, these alterations were completed![3] Wohlwill takes all the preliminary report—the origin of which is clear, and in accordance with the rules of the Inquisition—for a forgery intended to influence "readers outside the Vatican." He also thinks that the opinion of the qualifier of the Holy Office at the head of the Acts is a later addition. The object of this no one can make out, and Dr. Wohlwill himself can give no satisfactory reason for it. As he had only Epinois's first edition of the Vatican MS. (1867), and Berti's imperfect publication in his hands, he often draws incorrect conclusions. It is hardly necessary to say that Dr. Wohlwill's bold conjectures turn out to be phantoms on an actual examination of the papers, and this will certainly be confirmed by Epinois, Berti, Pieralisi, and all who have seen them. This is not the place to refute Wohlwill's suspicions, as we have done so elsewhere.[4] It only remains for us to give the material evidence which indisputably proves that the annotation of 26th February neither is nor can be a later falsification.
As is well known, before we had inspected these documents we had fully adopted the suspicion, expressed by Dr. Wohlwill in Germany, and Professor Gherardi in Italy, that the "document" of 26th February, 1616, was of a later origin, in order to afford a pretext, according to the ideas of the time, for bringing the inconvenient author of the "Dialogues on the Two Systems" to trial for disobedience to an order of the Sacred Congregation, though the work seemed to be protected by the ecclesiastical imprimatur. We confess that we went to Rome with but little hope of finding external evidence for or against the genuineness of the document. It had been long in Professor Berti's hands, and he had defended it with learned dialectics, while the controversy would have been closed by adducing material evidence. It seemed to us, therefore, sufficient inducement to undertake a journey to Rome, if it should enable us to confirm, on external grounds, that the document was not a falsification, even though its genuineness might not be capable of demonstration.
Contrary to all our expectations, after a repeated, careful, and we may say, entirely objective examination, we must pronounce that the suspicion of a later origin is not tenable.
Now for the reasons. The note of 26th February begins on the same page as that of the 25th, and they are in precisely the same ink and handwriting. As, however, in case of a forgery, the perpetrator would not have been so unskilful as to add a note in different ink and writing under another sixteen years old, but would have written both on another sheet, and carefully incorporated them with the Acts, we had to find out whether it was possible that the pages on which the notes are found (folios 378 vo. and 379 ro.), could have been afterwards added to the Acts. This was found to be impossible. It is excluded by two circumstances.
1. Folios 378 vo. and 379 ro. are second pages to existing documents; and folio 378 belongs to 377, on which is written the famous opinion of the Qualifiers of the Holy Office on the two propositions of Galileo, taken from the work on the Solar Spots. Folio 379 again belongs to folio 357, which is a page of the protocol of the examination of Caccini.
2. In this collection of the Acts of the trial, all the paper on which the documents of the Holy Office were written at Rome, bears the same watermark,—a dove in a circle,—which is not found on any of the paper of later date. This mark is distinctly visible on the folios bearing the notes of 25th and 26th February,
As from this evidence the idea of a later insertion of the papers had to be given up, there was still one suspicion left—that the two notes had been written in 1632 on blank sheets of Acts of 1616, of which there are so many, and the authentic notice of 25th February removed. But this hypothesis could not be maintained in face of the fact that, as a scrupulous comparison showed, several other annotations of 1616 are in the same hand as those of 25th and 26th February, while it is not to be found in any document of the later trial.
In the face of these decisive facts it seems no longer justifiable to maintain that the note of 26th February is a later falsification. Nevertheless, Professor Moritz Cantor, of Heidelberg, has conjectured, and Dr. Scartazzini has told us for certain, how the "falsifiers" went to work. In the Revista Europea, vol. iv. part v., 1st December, 1877, Dr. Scartazzini propounds his theory with an effrontery which is most convincing to a layman and astounding to the initiated. And yet it is entirely upset by one simple practical observation. His theory is that the page on which the genuine protocol of the proceedings of 26th February was written was cut out, that this was concealed by folding the edge the other way, while space was found for the existing forgery by transposing blank sheets. Now for our observation: Dr. Scartazzini quotes only the second paging, which was done after the assumed forgery, and it therefore permitted a transposition of pages according to the pleasure—not of the forger, but of Dr. Scartazzini. In 1632 there was a regular numbering from 949–992, originating in 1616, and no transposition of the Acts could have been made on Scartazzini's plan, without entirely disturbing it. His theory therefore belongs to the realm of impossibilities.
But firmly as it is now established that the document of 26th February, 1616, is not a later forgery, it is equally certain that the proceedings did not take place in the rigid manner described in that annotation. In the course of this work we have become acquainted with the various reasons which conclusively prove that the annotation contains a downright untruth, exaggeration, or misrepresentation. To all these reasons one more may now be added. Had the course of events been that recorded in the annotation, so important an act would have been made into a protocol, and would have been signed by Galileo, the notary, and witnesses. Only a document of this kind would have afforded conclusive evidence on another trial. We learn from another document of the trial that such a proceeding was a part of the precautionary measures of the Inquisition, in order that the accused might not be able to deny what had happened. When on 1st October, 1632, Galileo was summoned before the Inquisitor at Florence, who issued the command to him to present himself at Rome in the course of the month, Galileo had to state in writing that he had received the order and would obey it; no sooner had he left the room than it was entered by a notary and witnesses who had been concealed in an adjoining apartment, and affirmed under Galileo's signature that they had been present when he "promised, wrote, and signed the above."[5]
If these measures were so strictly observed in the case of this much less important act, we may be tolerably certain that they would not have been omitted in the far more important one of 1616, if the stringent command had really been issued to Galileo by the Commissary-General in the name of the Pope and the Holy Congregation, before notary and witnesses, to maintain henceforth absolute silence, in speaking and writing, about the Copernican system. Such a document would have furnished the Holy Office with legal grounds for bringing Galileo to trial in case of his breaking his word, and for punishing his disobedience; in short, for subjecting him to the consequences of this categorical injunction.
Did such a protocol ever exist? As we doubted the fact of the stringent intimation, we did not believe that such a document ever had existed. Nevertheless, when at Rome, we eagerly sought to discover whether, contrary to all expectation, this most important document was extant, or to learn anything about it. It might perhaps be in the Archives of the Holy Inquisition, in which, in 1848, Professor Gherardi had found such valuable notes about the trial of Galileo. We therefore addressed a memorial to the then Secretary of State, Cardinal Simeoni, in which we made a concise statement of the present state of the researches relating to Galileo's trial, remarking that though the suspicion of a falsification was not tenable, the correctness of the note of 26th February seemed doubtful, and could only be acknowledged as trustworthy if either the original protocol, or some confirmatory notice, were discovered in the Archives of the Inquisition. In the course of four weeks we received the following reply:—
"Illiño Signore,
In sequito della richiesta fattasi da V. S. Illiña di avere dei documenti relativi a Galileo, mi recai a premura di commetterne le opportune indagini. Praticatesi le più diligenti ricerche, vengo informato non esistere affatto negli Archivi i documenti che si desideravano.
Nel portare ciò a sua notizia, ho il piacere di dichiararle i sensi della mia distinta stima—
Di V. S. Illiña,
Affmo per servirla,
By this decisive information it is established that now, at any rate, no other document is extant relating to the proceedings of 26th February, 1616, than the well-known annotation. Was this also the case in 1632, when Galileo was arraigned for disobedience and signally punished? The history of the trial, the otherwise incomprehensible attitude of the Interrogator towards Galileo, are strongly in favour of an affirmative answer. From his first examination to his defence, Galileo persistently denies having received any other command than the warning of Cardinal Bellarmine, neither to hold nor defend the Copernican doctrine, while the Interrogator maintains that a command was issued to him before a notary and witnesses "not in any way to hold, teach, or defend that doctrine." The contradiction is obvious. In confirmation of his deposition, Galileo brings an autograph certificate from Cardinal Bellarmine which fully agrees with it. One would then have expected to see the Interrogator spare no pains to convict Galileo on this turning-point of the trial. The production of a legal protocol about the proceeding of 26th February would have cleared up the whole affair and annihilated Galileo's defence. But as it was not produced, and the Interrogator, singularly enough, omits all further inquiry into Galileo's ignorance of the absolute prohibition, and simply takes it for granted, we may conclude that in 1633 no other document existed about the Act of 26th February than this note without signature. It must therefore be admitted by the historical critic that one of the heaviest charges against Galileo was raised on a paper of absolutely no legal value, and that sentence for "disobedience" was passed entirely on the evidence of this worthless document.
- ↑ "Il Processo originale di Gal. Galilei," etc., p. v.
- ↑ The Denunciation of Lorini. The signature, however, obviously once existed, but being on the edge of the paper has been effaced in the course of time.
- ↑ "Ist Galilei gefoltert worden." Von Emil Wohlwill. Leipzig, 1877.
- ↑ "Ist Galilei gefoltert worden." Gegenbetrachtungen von K. v. Gebler. Die Gegenwart.
- ↑ Vat. MS. fol. 398 ro.