Chapter 5
The Earlier Inquisition Proceedings (1615–1616)
Clerical Actions and Galilean Responses
In February 1615, the Dominican friar Niccolò Lorini filed a written complaint against Galileo with the Inquisition in Rome, enclosing his letter to Castelli as incriminating evidence. Lorini charged that Galileo’s letter to Castelli was theologically questionable in several ways, but chiefly in claiming that Scripture has no role in scientific investigation, and in defending Copernicus’s view that the Earth moves (which was contrary to Scripture). Then in March of the same year, another Dominican, Tommaso Caccini, who had attacked Galileo from the pulpit in December 1614, made a personal appearance before the Roman Inquisition. In his deposition, he charged Galileo with suspicion of heresy, based not only on the content of the letter to Castelli, but also on the Sunspots book (1613); and he mentioned some hearsay evidence, both general and specific, involving two individuals named Ferdinando Ximenes and Giannozzo Attavanti. The Roman Inquisition responded by ordering an examination of these two individuals and of the two mentioned writings.
In the meantime, Galileo was writing for advice and support to many friends and patrons who were either clergymen or had clerical connections. He had no way of knowing the details of the Inquisition proceedings, which were a relatively well-kept secret. However, he happened to learn about Lorini’s complaint, and he knew about Caccini’s original sermon, which of course had been public.
Moreover, as we have seen to some extent, Galileo wrote and started to circulate privately three long essays on the issues. One, the Letter to Christina, dealt with the religious objections and was an elaboration of the letter to Castelli, which was thus expanded from 8 to 40 pages. Another, now known as “Galileo’s Considerations on the Copernican Opinion,” began to sketch a way of answering the epistemological and philosophical objections, which Galileo had not done before; the importance of such objections had recently been stressed in the letter by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, addressed to Foscarini, but also indirectly meant for Galileo. And the third essay, the “Discourse on the Tides,” was an elementary discussion of the scientific issues, in the form of a new physical argument in support of the Earth’s motion, based on its alleged ability to explain the existence of the tides and of the trade winds; this essay was an anticipation of what Galileo would later elaborate in the Fourth Day of the Dialogue.
Furthermore, in December 1615, after a long delay due to illness, Galileo went to Rome of his own initiative, to try to clear his name and prevent the condemnation of Copernicanism. The results were mixed at best. On the one hand, at a personal and informal level, he was generally well received by friends, acquaintances, and various powerful clergymen. On the other hand, at an official and formal level, the machinery of the Inquisition had been put in motion and was following its own procedures, practices, and rules. But before we come to the Inquisition actions and decisions, it is worth noting one feature of Galileo’s own activities and discussions.
A memorable description of Galileo’s behavior is found in a letter to Cardinal Alessandro D’Este by his secretary Antonio Querenghi. The cardinal was then residing in his hometown of Modena, but he employed a secretary who lived in Rome and was regularly writing reports about what was happening in the eternal city. In a letter dated January 20, 1616, Querenghi included this passage:
Your Most Illustrious Lordship would really like Galileo if you heard him argue, as he often does, surrounded by fifteen or twenty people who launch cruel attacks against him, now about one thing and now about another. But he is so well fortified that he is amused by them all; and although he does not persuade them, on account of the novelty of his opinion, nevertheless he proves the invalidity of most arguments with which his enemies try to bring him down. On Monday in particular, at the house of Mr. Federigo Ghisilieri, his arguments were astonishing; what I liked most was that, before answering the contrary reasons, he amplified and strengthened them with new grounds of great plausibility, so that after he destroyed those reasons, his opponents would appear more ridiculous.1
This Galilean behavior has been widely interpreted as an illustration of the sophist’s art of winning an argument by first defending one thesis, then defending the opposite, and thus confusing and ridiculing opponents. But the truth is almost the opposite. If we look carefully at what Querenghi is saying in this letter, he is clear that Galileo was not being too successful at convincing his interlocutors to accept the Copernican hypothesis of the Earth’s motion. It is equally clear that Galileo was convincing his listeners that the objections to the Earth’s motion were invalid or ineffective. So he was succeeding in refuting the objections against the Earth’s motion, but his success at refutation was not total and did not apply to all objections; he could only refute “most” objections. Yet Querenghi notes that Galileo followed a very striking method of refutation: before responding to the anti-Copernican objections, he strengthened them. In his defense of Copernicanism, Galileo was operating on three levels: he was trying to provide positive or constructive evidence or reasons supporting the Earth’s motion; he was trying to articulate answers to or criticisms of the objections or counter-arguments; and he was trying to formulate the opposite arguments as strongly and plausibly as possible before refuting them.
This is a very sophisticated, powerful, and admirable method of argument, very different from the way Galileo has often been depicted, as ridiculing opponents by means of the trick of first persuading them of one thing and then proving to them the opposite. On the contrary, the Galilean technique of strengthening objections before refuting them shows that the objections, although invalid, are serious, important, and plausible, and therefore that the opponents who believe the contrary thesis are reasonable people. Far from ridiculing opponents, this is a way of ennobling them, paying them respect, and enhancing their standing and credibility. Galileo’s technique is, in fact, the antithesis of the widespread (then and now) practice of demonizing one’s opponents; it is the antidote to the straw-man fallacy.
Later, we shall see that Galileo practiced this technique in the Dialogue and formulated it into a principle in one of his 1633 depositions, and that it represents a universal and perennial lesson from the Galileo affair. For now, let us go back to the earlier Inquisition proceedings and their results.
The consultant who examined the letter to Castelli reported that in its essence its hermeneutical views did not deviate from Catholic doctrine.2 The cross-examination of the two witnesses, Ximenes and Attavanti, exonerated Galileo from the hearsay evidence; his utterance of heresies was found to be baseless. And the examination of his work on Sunspots failed to reveal any explicit assertion of the Earth’s motion or other presumably heretical assertion, if indeed the Inquisition officials examined this book. However, in the process, the status of Copernicanism had become enough of a problem that the Inquisition felt it necessary to consult its experts for a formal opinion.
On February 24, 1616, a committee of eleven consultants filed their report. Their unanimous opinion was two-fold: from a scientific or philosophical point of view, Copernicanism was false; and from a theological point of view, it was heretical or erroneous since it contradicted Scripture. In a way, much of the tragedy of the Galileo affair stems from this opinion, which even Catholic apologists seldom if ever defend nowadays.
Although indefensible, if one wants to understand how this opinion came about, one must recall all the traditional arguments against the Earth’s motion, based on astronomical, empirical, physical, mechanical, philosophical, and epistemological considerations, as well as the theological and scriptural ones. Moreover, one must view the judgment of heresy in the light of the two objections based on the words of the Bible and on the consensus of the Church Fathers; in the light of the traditional hierarchy of disciplines, which made theology the queen of the sciences, and which had been reaffirmed at the Fifth Lateran Council in 1513; and in the light of the Catholic Counter-Reformation rejection of new and individualistic interpretations of the Bible.
However, the Inquisition must have had some misgivings about this assessment by the committee of eleven consultants. It did not accept the heresy part of their recommendation, and so issued no formal condemnation that the Copernican doctrine was a heresy. Instead some milder consequences followed, some pertaining to Galileo personally, and some pertaining to the status of the Copernican doctrine.
Pope Paul V’s Orders
On February 25, 1616, there was a meeting of the Inquisition presided over by Pope Paul V. The decision on the Galileo case was communicated to the Inquisition’s commissary and the assessor by the cardinal secretary. This communication is recorded in a document included in the Vatican dossier of Galilean proceedings.3
These papal orders envisaged three possible steps. First, Cardinal-Inquisitor Bellarmine (Figure 13) would give Galileo an informal and friendly warning to abandon the heliocentric geokinetic doctrine. The content of this warning is expressed in terms of the notion of abandonment, which means to stop believing, accepting, or holding this doctrine, and so refers to an internal mental state.
Figure 13. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621)
The second step would be taken if Galileo rejected Bellarmine’s warning. Then the Inquisition’s commissary was supposed to intervene and issue Galileo an injunction or precept. This would be a formal and official step meant to hold Galileo legally responsible and liable for his external public cognitive activities. The content of this injunction would be much more stringent than the warning: Galileo would be completely prohibited to teach, defend, or even discuss the doctrine. Teaching refers to two relatively distinct activities: one is the explanation of a doctrine for the sake of conveying an understanding of it; the other is a discussion of the doctrine to render it plausible or acceptable, which would be essentially equivalent to supporting it. Similarly, defending can refer to two things: primarily, answering or refuting objections or counter-arguments; but secondarily, supporting a doctrine with evidence or reasons. Thus, the content of the pope’s intended injunction was meant to prohibit Galileo from discussing Copernicanism, understanding that a discussion can include explanatory teaching, supporting with reasons, and defense from objections, among other activities.
Note, however, that discussion does not encompass belief or acceptance. One can discuss a doctrine without necessarily accepting or rejecting it, and conversely one can accept or reject a doctrine, and yet refrain from discussing it. Accordingly, the intended injunction does not include the abandonment of the opinion, but rather refers to external and public activities, distinct from internal mental states.
The third step mentioned in the document refers to what would happen in case Galileo rejected the commissary’s injunction, namely imprisonment. It’s unclear how literally one should take the notion of imprisonment, if that meant indefinite prison without a trial. But it is meant to convey at least the notion of being arrested.
In short, on February 25, Pope Paul ordered Cardinal Bellarmine to give Galileo a friendly warning to stop believing in the geokinetic doctrine; this was an order regarding his private mental state. If, and only if, Galileo rejected this warning, the Inquisition’s commissary was to give him a formal injunction to completely refrain from discussing the doctrine; this was an order regarding his public cognitive activities. And if, and only if, Galileo rejected this injunction was he to be arrested.
Commissary Seghizzi’s Injunction
The following day, February 26, these papal orders were carried out. One description of what happened is given in a memorandum written by a notary and filed among the documents in the Vatican dossier of Galilean trial proceedings.4
According to this document, Galileo was called to Bellarmine’s residence. Here, Bellarmine warned Galileo that he should abandon the heliocentric doctrine, and, immediately thereafter, the Inquisition’s commissary Michelangelo Seghizzi enjoined Galileo to abandon completely the doctrine and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever. It is also reported that Galileo acquiesced after receiving the commissary’s injunction.
The most striking thing about this document is that it reports the occurrence of the first two steps of the papal orders, without motivating the second step. Bellarmine first issued his friendly warning, but we are told nothing about a rejection on Galileo’s part, and yet, allegedly, Commissary Seghizzi immediately went on to issue him a formal injunction, and we are told that Galileo accepted the latter. Of course, Seghizzi’s injunction presupposes that Galileo rejected Bellarmine’s warning; but if that happened then this memorandum should have reported that development. The fact that the memorandum does not report it suggests that it did not happen—that Galileo accepted Bellarmine’s warning; but then Commissary Seghizzi’s injunction would be a deviation from the papal orders, and thus an arbitrary or illegal action.
However, this is not its only irregularity. Another question concerns the content of this injunction. Seghizzi ordered Galileo, among other things, to completely abandon and not to hold in any way the Copernican opinion. But the pope’s intended injunction said nothing about abandonment. The papal orders did mention abandonment as the main point of Bellarmine’s warning, but not as part of the commissary’s potential injunction. Moreover, with regard to holding, insofar as it means believing, the pope had intended its prohibition to be also part of Bellarmine’s warning. Admittedly, insofar as holding also means supporting, the pope did intend to include it in the injunction, being encompassed by some of the connotations of teaching and defending; and these notions are included in Seghizzi’s injunction, and so there is no problem in that regard. In short, Seghizzi’s precept is in one sense more stringent than the pope’s intended injunction, insofar as the former prohibits a private mental state, which the latter had not planned to be the subject of a formal injunction, but rather of a previous friendly warning.
To make this situation even more problematic, it also turns out that Seghizzi’s injunction is in another sense less stringent than the pope’s intended precept. Pope Paul had envisaged that if Galileo rejected Bellarmine’s friendly warning to stop accepting Copernicanism, then Galileo would be issued the formal injunction to refrain from discussing it. The key point now is that a prohibition of discussion clearly includes a prohibition of refutation and criticism, but the latter are not excluded by Seghizzi’s injunction. If Galileo had wanted to publish a technical discussion of why Copernicanism was false, or otherwise flawed, this would not be a way of teaching, supporting, or defending Copernicanism, and so would be allowed by Seghizzi’s injunction; but it would still be a discussion, and hence banned by the pope’s intended injunction.
And there is one further irregularity in Seghizzi’s precept compared to that intended by the pope. This involves the consequences of Galileo’s rejection of the injunction. For the pope, the stated threat was imprisonment, which perhaps could be taken to mean arrest; but in the February 26 document the stated threat is prosecution by the Inquisition. And the latter is certainly weaker than the former.
Given these discrepancies with papal intention,5 the legitimacy of Commissary Seghizzi’s precept is certainly questionable. These irregularities also cast doubt on the factual accuracy of the document regarding what really happened at Bellarmine’s house. Such legal impropriety and/or factual inaccuracy remain even if the document is authentic and not a forgery. Whether the document is genuine is indeed an important topic, but need not be examined here. I am inclined to think that it is authentic. But the question of documentary authenticity should not be confused with the question of legal validity or with the question of factual accuracy.
The Index’s Decree
The legality and/or accuracy of Seghizzi’s injunction is further undermined by two things which Cardinal Bellarmine said and did after meeting with Galileo and Seghizzi on February 26. They are known to us from two crucial documents in which Bellarmine explicitly addresses the question of what happened that day. However, these documents also mention a public decree published by the Congregation of the Index. This is an important document in its own right, and reflects one of the two main decisions reached by the Inquisition in 1616.
On March 5, 1616, the Index issued a decree which did not mention Galileo at all, but contained various censures of the geokinetic doctrine and prohibitions of Copernican books.6 Although dealing mostly with books, the decree also contains a doctrinal pronouncement. The doctrine of the Earth’s motion is declared scientifically false and theologically contrary to Scripture. Note that the latter theological censure is not equivalent to heresy, but is a weaker form of condemnation. Moreover, the book published by Foscarini in 1615 is condemned and permanently banned, because it argued that the Earth’s motion is true and compatible with Scripture; this book was trying to do something that goes explicitly against both parts of the Index’s doctrinal declaration. However, Copernicus’s own book is merely banned temporarily until appropriately revised; this decree does not explain why.
The revisions were explained in a subsequent decree by the Index, published four years later.7 The gist of the 1620 decree was that Copernicus’s book was valuable from the viewpoint of astronomical calculation and prediction; that the book was treating the Earth’s motion primarily as a hypothetical construct, and not as a description of physical reality; that one could easily delete or rephrase the few passages where the book treated the Earth’s motion as physically real or compatible with Scripture; and that specific instructions could be given about how to delete or rephrase the dozen passages where this happened. Such clarifications and corrections may be taken as being implicit already in the 1616 decree.
Thus, we can now better understand a final point concerning books in general, explicitly made in the 1616 decree. It states that all other books teaching the same doctrines are similarly prohibited. In other words, books like Foscarini’s were also condemned and permanently banned, whereas books like Copernicus’s were suspended until and unless revised, to render them hypothetical. This meant presumably that no Catholic could do what Foscarini had tried to do, namely to support the physical reality of the Earth’s motion, or to defend it from the objection that it contradicts Scripture. On the other hand, Catholics were free to treat, and support and defend, the Earth’s motion as a hypothesis for the convenience of saving the appearances and making mathematical calculations and astronomical predictions, as Copernicus had allegedly done.
Cardinal Bellarmine’s Warning
Let us now go back to the two pieces of evidence from Bellarmine. On March 3, 1616, at an Inquisition meeting presided over by the pope, Bellarmine reported what he had done to carry out the pope’s orders of the previous week.8 He says that Galileo accepted his warning to abandon the geokinetic doctrine. He says nothing about any injunction issued to Galileo by Commissary Seghizzi; and of course, this is in accordance with the pope’s earlier orders, which made the injunction contingent on Galileo’s rejection of the warning. The minutes of this meeting also report that the pope ordered the publication of the Index’s decree, which is summarized in terms of the distinction between the suspension of books like Copernicus’s and the prohibition of books like Foscarini’s.
The other action by Bellarmine that sheds light on what happened at his meeting with Galileo and Seghizzi involves a certificate, dated May 26, 1616.9 Bellarmine wrote it at the request of Galileo, who in April received letters from friends saying that there were rumors to the effect that he had been put on trial, condemned, forced to recant, and given appropriate penalties by the Inquisition.
In the document, Bellarmine speaks only of his warning, and not of a formal injunction by Commissary Seghizzi. However, here Bellarmine elaborates the content of his own warning. Previously, he had described it as ordering Galileo to abandon Copernicanism, meaning to stop believing in it. This certificate contains a clarification involving a reference to the Index decree of March 5, 1616, and an explicit mention of the notions of defending and holding.
The meaning of these notions of defending and holding here may be taken to be the same as the meaning we took them to have earlier; they refer to believing, supporting with reasons, and defending from objections. But the reference to the Index decree specifies their meaning even further. Bellarmine is saying partly that what is prohibited is to believe, support, or defend the Earth’s motion as true or as compatible with Scripture, in line with the condemnation and complete prohibition of Foscarini’s book. Bellarmine is also saying that there is no prohibition on believing, supporting, or defending the Earth’s motion as a convenient hypothesis for saving the appearances and making calculations and predictions. This additional permissive clarification is in accordance with the mere suspension of Copernicus’s book, published by the Index two months earlier, and in accordance with the subsequent correction of that book as specified in the 1620 decree.
In short, Bellarmine’s certificate of May 26, 1616, gives us a fourth version of an Inquisition order to Galileo. In a sequence of increasing rigor, we have the following. The mildest order is the warning intended in the pope’s February 25 decision, to abstain from believing the Earth’s motion. The second-weakest order is the one described by Bellarmine in his May 26 certificate: namely, to abstain from believing, supporting, or defending the doctrine as true or as compatible with Scripture. Third, there is the formal injunction supposedly delivered by Commissary Seghizzi according to the February 26 document: to abstain from believing, supporting, defending, or teaching the doctrine in any way whatever. Finally, there is the injunction intended by Pope Paul in case of Galileo’s rejection of Bellarmine’s warning: to completely abstain from discussing the doctrine.
Publishing a refutation of Copernicanism would violate Paul’s intended injunction, but not any of the other three orders. An explanation of the content, the arguments in favor, and the arguments against Copernicanism would violate Seghizzi’s injunction, as well as the one intended by the pope, but neither of the other two orders; such an explanation would be a so-called disputation, in the traditional sense. The same would be true if one were to give a demonstration that the geokinetic doctrine is better than the geostatic one as a hypothesis for saving the appearances and making calculations and predictions; it would violate the two stronger orders, but not the two weaker ones. A simple and clear violation of the last three orders, but not of the first, would be a defense of Copernicanism from the objection that it contradicts Scripture; and this of course is found in Foscarini’s book and in Galileo’s unpublished letters to Castelli and to Christina.
However, the version of Bellarmine’s warning embodied in his certificate given to Galileo is not only the most likely to be factually accurate but also the most plausibly legitimate one. For a start, Bellarmine’s warning, as formulated in the certificate, although different from the pope’s intended warning, may be seen as an elaboration of it. The strengthening of Bellarmine’s order to include the external acts of supporting and defending, besides the internal mental state of believing, is meant to explain its meaning and to render it applicable. When, at Bellarmine’s house, Galileo was first confronted with the warning to abandon or to stop believing the geokinetic doctrine, he is likely to have reacted by saying that he did not really believe the doctrine, because he did not think the issue was settled yet or that the relevant arguments were conclusive. What he had done so far was to discover some new evidence in its favor and to defend it from some old objections. At this point, then, Bellarmine specified and added that the decisions by the pope, the Inquisition, and the Index implied that he (Galileo) was supposed to stop supporting and defending the doctrine as true or as compatible with Scripture. But Bellarmine also weakens the warning by telling Galileo that he could support and defend it as a convenient hypothesis, to save the appearances and to make calculations and predictions.
Secondly, as a cardinal-inquisitor, Bellarmine may be taken to have the authority to interpret, explain, and apply the pope’s intended warning in this manner. As a cardinal-inquisitor, he was both one of the judges of the tribunal and one of the legislators of the relevant rules. Bellarmine was clearly the most respected and authoritative of these judges and legislators. Pope Paul V himself reached his decision by discussing the matter with all the cardinal-inquisitors, but primarily with Bellarmine. So he was not abusing or perverting the papal orders, but primarily interpreting and applying them.
Neither of these two points apply to Seghizzi’s precept. His deviations from the pope’s intended injunction are significant. His addition of a prohibition on Galileo’s belief enables the precept to enter the area of mental states, which is arguably off limits to administrative and legal measures.10 On the other hand, Seghizzi’s failure to prohibit discussion of the topic would allow Galileo to do things (such as criticizing Copernicanism) which Pope Paul had intended to stop and exclude. Moreover, in his position as commissary, Seghizzi did not have the authority to modify the orders of his superiors in such significant ways. It’s not clear that even a cardinal-inquisitor like Bellarmine could have properly made such modifications to a decision reached at an Inquisition meeting presided over by the pope. The point is that Seghizzi’s precept does not merely interpret, apply, or clarify the pope’s orders, but perverts and subverts them. Thus, the irregularity of Seghizzi’s injunction remains.
In conclusion, the 1616 Inquisition’s orders to Galileo regarding Copernicanism were numerous and somewhat confusing. Some of these orders were actually given, and legitimately so; chiefly, Bellarmine’s warning not to hold, support, or defend Copernicanism as true or as compatible with Scripture, but only as a hypothesis. Some orders were intended to be given, but were not actually delivered; such is the case for Pope Paul’s injunction not to discuss Copernicanism. Some orders were allegedly, but probably not actually, given, and in any case illegitimate if issued; that applies to Commissary Seghizzi’s order not to hold, support, or defend Copernicanism in any way. However, this multiplicity and confusion contributed to generating the later proceedings in 1632–3, and will help us understand and explain them.