torture; if he kept firm, he was to be called upon to recant before a plenary assembly of the Congregation of the Holy Office, condemned to imprisonment according to the judgment of the Holy Congregation, and ordered in future not to discuss, either in writing or speaking, the opinion that the earth moves and the sun is stationary, nor yet the contrary opinion, under pain of further punishment for contumacy; further, the work, "Dialogo di Galileo Galilei, Linceo," was to be prohibited. And in order to make this known everywhere, copies of the sentence were to be sent to all papal envoys, and all inquisitors into heretical crimes, and specially to the Inquisitor of Florence, who was to proclaim it in a full conclave of the Congregation, and read it publicly to a majority of the professors of mathematics summoned for the purpose.
It is noteworthy that it was expressly decreed that Galileo was to be enjoined, "nor yet to discuss the contrary opinion," the Ptolemaic. They obviously accredited the clever dialectician with the skill, under pretext of defending the old system, of demonstrating exactly the contrary. It therefore seemed most prudent to impose absolute silence on him on this delicate subject.
ad carcerem arbitrio Sac. Congregationis, Injunctum ci ne de cetero scripto vel verbo tractet ampluis gnovis modo de mobilitate terræ, nec de stabilitate solis et e contra sub poena relapsus. Librum vero ab co conscriptum cuititutus est Dialogo di Galileo Galilei Linceo (publice cremandum fore (sic) ma cassato) prohibendum fore. Praeterea ut haec omnibus innotescant exemplaria Sententiae Decretumque perinde transmitti jussit ad omnes nuntios apostolicos, et ad omnes haereticae pravitatis Inquisitores, ac praecipue ad Inquisitorem Florentiae qui eam sententiam in ejus plena Congregatione, Consultoribus accersitis, etiam et coram plerisque Mathematicae Artis Professoribus publice legatur." (Gherardi's Documents, Doc. xiii.; and Vat. MS. fol. 451 vo.)
It was then apparently at first determined publicly to burn Galileo's book, and it was not till after the decree had been committed to writing that it was altered. At whose instigation this was done, whether at that of the Pope, or in consequence of the remonstrances of some more lenient members of the Congregation, such as the Cardinals Barberini, Borgia, and Zacchia, cannot be decided.
