Friar—His Holiness ordered this edict of prohibition and suspension respectively, to be published by the Master of the Palace."[1]
This document, as Gherardi justly perceived, is of far greater importance than merely for the evidence it affords that Galileo at once submitted to the Cardinal's admonition; it permits the conclusion, almost to a certainty, that a proceeding like that described in the note of 26th February never took place. It is clear from the above that Cardinal Bellarmine was giving a report of the proceedings of 26th February at a private sitting of the Congregation of the Holy Office under the personal presidency of the Pope. His report agrees precisely with the papal ordinance of 25th February: he had admonished Galileo to give up the Copernican doctrines, and he had consented. This was to all appearance the end of the business. The cardinal does not say a word about the stringent proceedings said to have taken place in his presence before notary and witnesses. And yet this part of it would have been of far greater importance than the first. It may perhaps be said that it was not the cardinal's business to report the doings of the Commissary of the Inquisition. But the objection is not valid; for in the first place the conditions did not exist which would have justified the interference of the Commissary, and in the second, his report would certainly also have been given at the sitting where the proceedings of 26th February were reported. But in the note of 3rd March there is not a trace of the report of Brother Michael Angelo
- ↑ Feria V. die III. Martii, 1616.Facta relatione per Illumum. D. Card.em. Bellarminum quod Galilaeus Galilei mathematicus monitus de ordine Sacrae Congregationis ad deserendam (prima stava scritto chiarissimamente, disserendam) opinionem quam hactenus tenuit quod sol sit centrum spherarum, et immobilis, terra autem mobilis, acquievit; ac relato Decreto Congregationis Indicis, qualiter (o, variante, quod) fuerunt prohibita et suspensa respective scripta Nicolai Cupernici (De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. . . .) Didaci a Stunica, in Job, et Fr. Pauli Antonii Foscarini Carmelitæ, SSmus. ordinavit publicari Edictum, A. P. Magistro S. Palatii hujusmodi suspensionis et prohibitionis respective. (Gherardi's Documents, Doc. vi.)
