there could be no question—neither could there be any of the penalty.
The prolonged deprivation of exercise in the open air, which had been so essential to the old man's health,[1] combined with great mental agitation, at length threw him on a sick bed. He wrote on 23rd April to Geri Bocchineri:—
"I am writing in bed, to which I have been confined for sixteen hours with severe pains in my loins, which, according to my experience, will last as much longer. A little while ago I had a visit from the commissary and the fiscal who conduct the inquiry. They have promised and intimated it as their settled intention to set me at liberty as soon as I am able to get up again, encouraging me repeatedly to keep up my spirits. I place more confidence in these promises than in the hopes held out to me before, which, as experience has shown, were founded rather upon surmises than real knowledge. I have always hoped that my innocence and uprightness would be brought to light, and I now hope it more than ever. I am getting tired of writing, and will conclude."[2]
The second examination of Galileo took place on 30th April. It has hitherto astounded all those who have studied this famous trial; for while at the close of his first depositions, Galileo decidedly denied having defended the Copernican system in his "Dialogues," and even asserted that he had done just the contrary, at the second hearing, almost without waiting for the Inquisitor's questions, he makes a humble declaration, which, roundabout as it is, contains a penitent confession that he had defended it in his book. The cause of this change in Galileo is explained by a most
- ↑ There is a passage in a letter of Galileo's to Geri Bocchineri of 25th February, 1633, in which he says: "The cessation of all bodily exercise which, as you know I am accustomed to take for the benefit of my health, and of which I have now been deprived for nearly forty days, begins to tell upon me, and particularly to interfere with digestion, so that the mucus accumulates; and for three days violent pains in the limbs have occasioned great suffering, and deprived me of sleep. I hope strict diet will get rid of them." (Op. vii. p. 23.) Since this time two months had elapsed without Galileo's having been in the open air. Even the Inquisitors saw, as we shall find, that a change must be made in the regulations, if they did not wish to endanger his life.
- ↑ Op. vii. p. 30.
