(of 16th June), his signature was obtained to his deposition, and he was sent back to his place."[1]
There is not in this document, nor in any other extant, the slightest trace that torture was actually applied to Galileo, as has long and even recently been fabled. Since the publication of it by Epinois has acquainted us with the decree of 16th June, none such can be expected ever to be found. In that decree the course of the final legal proceedings was precisely indicated. But it was only the threat of torture that was prescribed, after which recantation and sentence of imprisonment were to follow. The execution of this threat, then, would have been a gross, and under the circumstances, incredible violation of the decrees of the Holy Office itself. Moreover, the assumed torture of Galileo is opposed, as we shall see by and by, to various historical facts. When the whole course of the trial is unrolled before our eyes, we shall go more deeply into the region of fable and malicious fabrication.
But as we pursue the path of history, we come upon an error which Mgr. Marini’s peculiar mode of interpretation has given rise to. He takes the concluding words of the protocol of the trial of 21st June, "remissus fuit ad locum suum," to mean that Galileo was sent back to the Tuscan embassy.[2] Now, it is indisputable, from a despatch of Niccolini’s to Cioli of 26th June, 1633, that after the hearing of the 21st June, the accused was detained in the buildings of the Holy Office, and did not leave them till the 24th.[3]
- ↑ Et cu nihil aliud posset haberi in executione decreti habita eius subscriptione remissus fuit ad locum suum. (Vat. MS. fol. 453 ro.)
- ↑ "Cioè al palazzo del Ministro di Toscana," says Marini, p. 62.
- ↑ The passage in Niccolini’s despatch is as follows: Il Signor Galilei fu chiamato lunedi (20) sera al S. Uffizio, ove si trasferi martedi (21) mattina conforme all’ ordine, per sentire qual che potessero desiderare da lui, ed essendo ritenuto, fa condotto mercoledi (22) alla Minerva avanti alli Sig. Cardinali e Prelati della Congregazione, dove non solamente gli fu letta la sentenza, ma fatto anche abiurare la sua opinione, . . . la qual condannazione gli ful subito permutata da S. B. in una relegazione o confine al giardino della Trinita de’ Monti, dore io lo condussi venerdi (24) sera . . . ." (Op. ix. pp. 444, 445.)
