"that it by no means follows that the three absentees were of a contrary opinion."[1]
Pieralisi does not find the matter so simple, and devotes seven large pages to account for the absence of the three prelates from the Congregation. "Cardinal Borgia," he says, "was on very bad terms with Urban VIII., because he had addressed the Pope in a loud voice in a consistory, and the Pope had imperiously told him to be quiet and to go away."[2] But it has been proved that even after this scene the cardinal appeared at the consistories up to 12th February, 1635, although there were complaints that he took walks in Rome instead of attending the sittings of the Propaganda and the Holy Office. But it is not likely that this cardinal, whose name stands at the head of the sentence, would have absented himself from the final sitting without some good reason. Pieralisi thinks that he was more friendly to Galileo than the other cardinals, an opinion for which there is no evidence and which proves nothing. Even Pieralisi confesses that he can find no reason for the absence of Cardinal Zacchia, but assigns the following motive for that of Cardinal Francesco Barberini: "He probably wished to uphold the right enjoyed by the cardinal nephews, and afterwards by the secretaries of state, of sometimes abstaining from voting in order to reserve to themselves greater freedom in the treatment of public, private, and political affairs." The insufficiency of this explanation is too obvious to need comment. Pieralisi himself comes to the conclusion that these dignitaries did not wish to append their signatures to the famous sentence, which is much the same thing as the conjecture that they did not agree to it.
In accordance with this sentence, certainly not passed
- ↑ "I Cardinale Inquisitori componenti la Congregazione, in cui nome la sentenza è fatta, erano in numero di dieci. Nell' ultima Congregazione se ne trovarono presenti solo sette; quindi sette solo sono sottoscritti. Da cio non può in nessuna maniera desumersi che i tre mancanti fossero di parere contrario." ("Processo originale," etc., p. 149, note 1.)
- ↑ " Urbano VIII. e Galileo Galilei," pp. 218–224.
