tazzini[1] assert, with more boldness than evidence, that most of these documents did exist, but that afterwards and in the present century, as the whole of the documents have been tampered with for a special purpose, these compromising papers have been withdrawn! The Vatican MS. contains one document which, one would think, is indisputable evidence that only the territio verbalis was employed against Galileo. We allude to the Protocol of the last examination of 21st June. Up to the final answer of the accused the questions of the Inquisitor agree verbatim with the formula of examination which the "Sacro Arsenale" gives for questioning as to the Intention;[2] but when, if it was intended to proceed to torture or even to take Galileo into the torture chamber, the decree about it should follow, we find instead the concluding sentence: "Et cum nihil aliud posset haberi in executionem decreti habita eius subscriptione remissus fuit ad locum suum." This is, up to the words "in executionem decreti," the usual concluding sentence of the last examination when it ended without torture.[3] These exceptional words refer to the decree of 16th June, 1633, which minutely described the judicial proceedings to be taken against Galileo, and by which certainly the threat of torture, but by no means actual recourse to it, was ordained by the Pope and the Sacred Congregation.[4]
- ↑ "Il Processo di Galileo Galilei e la Moderna Critica Tedesca," III. Revista Europea, vol. v., fasc. ii., 1878.
- ↑ Page 214.
- ↑ "Sacro Arsenale," pp. 62, 64.
- ↑ The passage in the decree is: "Smus decrevit ipsum (Galileo) inter rogandum esse super intentione, etiam comminata ei tortura et si sustenuerit, previa abiuratione de vehementi in plena Congregatione S.O. condemnandum ad carcerem," etc. (Vat. MS. Fol. 451 vo.) Wohlwill says that the first part of this decree has had about as many interpretations as authors who have quoted it. This may in no small degree be due to the fact that it was not known whether the original reading was et or ac sustinuerit. As it is now decided in favour of et, perhaps an agreement may be come to, and the more so as several students of Galileo's trial have adopted a translation which agrees as to the meaning, to which
