tention, ever foreign to the employment of simulation or deceit in any operation I may engage in. I say, then, that as at that time reports were spread abroad by evil-disposed persons, to the effect that I had been summoned by the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine to abjure certain of my opinions and doctrines, and that I had consented to abjure them, and also to submit to punishment for them, I was thus constrained to apply to his Eminence, and to solicit him to furnish me with a certificate, explaining the cause for which I had been summoned before him; which certificate I obtained, in his own handwriting and it is the same that I now produce with the present document.
From this it clearly appears that it was merely announced to me that the doctrine attributed to Copernicus of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun must not be held or defended and (here the original MS. is defaced). . . beyond this general announcement affecting every one, any other injunction in particular was intimated to me, no trace thereof appears there. Having, then, as a reminder, this authentic certificate in the handwriting of the very person who intimated the command to me, I made no further application of thought or memory with regard to the words employed in announcing to me the said order not to hold or defend the doctrine in question; so that the two articles of the order—in addition to the injunction not to ‘hold’ or ‘defend’ it—to wit the words ‘nor to teach it’ ‘in any way whatsoever—which I heard are contained in the order intimated to me, and registered—struck me as quite novel and as if I had not heard them before; and I do not think I ought to be disbelieved when I urge that in the course of fourteen or sixteen years I had lost all recollection of them. . . whence it appears to me that I have a reasonable excuse for not having notified to the Master of the Sacred Palace the command privately imposed upon me. . .”’ [then follows a paragraph declaring that the faults scattered through this book ‘have not been artfully introduced’ but are inadvertent, owing to a vainglorious ambition and complacency. . . which fault he is ready to correct.]
No one can read this confession and defence without a feeling of deep pity. This is even intensified if we find in it a lack of entire candor as it is hard not to do—‘mistrust in the truthfulness of the accused’—is Gebler's phrase. Galileo returned to his palace feeling that his confession had served him well and that his trial was to come to a favorable issue. His confession had, however, put him in the power of his judges. They believed that now was the time to make a signal example. It was decided by the congregation (June, 1633) to bring Galileo to trial ‘as to his intention and under threat of torture.’
On the morning of June 21 Galileo appeared before the Holy Office, and after being sworn was questioned. His first answer was:
