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The Trial of 1633
Galileo's admonition stopped the Copernican movement dead in its tracks. For Galileo, his admonition marked the beginning of a period of silence. He busied himself with such tasks as using tables of the moons of Jupiter to develop a chronometer for measuring longitude at sea. He endured his rheumatism, enjoyed the attention of his daughter, Maria Celeste, and adjusted to a world which elevated mindless conformism over scientific understanding.
In 1623, Galileo received some hopeful news: Cardinal Maffeo Barberini had been elected Pope. Unlike the dull and mean-tempered Pope Paul V, the new Pope Urban VIII held a generally positive view of the arts and science. Writing from Rome, the Pope's private secretary, Secretary of the Briefs Ciampoli, urged Galileo to resume publication of his ideas: "If you would resolve to commit to print those ideas that you still have in mind, I am quite certain that they would be most acceptable to His Holiness, who never ceases from admiring your eminence and preserves intact his attachment for you. You should not deprive the world of your productions."
In the early years of his reign, Pope Urban VIII held long audiences with Galileo. Encouraged by a Pope who seemed open to renewed debate on the merits of the Copernican system (so long as the arguments fell short of purporting to be a definite refutation of the Earth-centered universe), Galileo began work on a book that would eventually prove his undoing, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.
On December 24, 1629, Galileo told friends in Rome that he had completed work on his 500-page Dialogue. The Dialogue has been described as "the story of the mind of Galileo." The book reveals Galileo as physicist and astronomer, sophisticate and sophist, polemicist and polished writer. Unlike the works of Copernicus and Kepler, Galileo's Dialogue was a book for the educated public, not specialists. Although using the form of a debate among three Italian gentlemen, Galileo marshaled a variety of arguments to lead his readers to one inexorable conclusion: Copernicus was right. The character Salviati, a person of "sublime intellect," clearly speaks for Galileo in arguing for a Sun-centered system. Sagredo is a Venetian nobleman, open-minded and hesitant to draw conclusions--a good listener. Simplico is the straw man of the debate, a stubborn, literal-minded defender of the Earth-centered universe.
Early news from Rome gave Galileo reason for optimism that his book would soon be published. The Vatican's chief licenser, Niccolo Riccardi, reportedly promised his help and said that theological difficulties could be overcome. When Galileo arrived in Rome in May 1630, he wrote: "His Holiness has begun to treat of my affairs in a spirit which allows me to hope for a favorable result." Urban VIII reiterated his previously stated view that if the book treated the contending views hypothetically and not absolutely, the book could be published.
Reading the book for the first time, chief licenser Riccardi came to see the book as less hypothetical--and therefore more problematic--than he expected it to be. Riccardi demanded that the Preface and conclusion to revised to be more consistent with the Pope's position. In August 1630, in the midst of his required revising, Galileo received a letter from his friend Benedetto Castelli in Rome urging him, for "weighty reasons" which he "not wish to commit to paper," to print the Dialogue in Florence "as soon as possible." Galileo's Jesuit opponents in Rome were aiming to block publication.
Riccardi seemed paralyzed with indecision. Caught between two powerful forces, he did nothing as Galileo fretted that his great work might never see the light of day. "The months and the years pass," Galileo complained, "my life wastes away, and my work is condemned to rot."
Finally, reluctantly ("dragged by the hair," according to one account), Riccardi gave the green light. The first copy of Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems came off the press in February 1632. The book, which quickly sold out, soon became the talk of the literary public.
By late summer, Galileo's hopes turned to fears when he learned that orders had come from Rome to suspend publication of his book. On September 5, the full scope of Galileo's problems became clearer when Pope Urban told Francesco Niccolini, who had come to the Vatican to protest the suspension decision, "Your Galileo has ventured to meddle in things that he ought not and with the most grave and dangerous subjects that can be stirred up these days." Jesuit enemies of Galileo had convinced the Pope that the Dialogue was nothing but a thinly-veiled brief for the Copernican model. The Pope complained that Galileo and Ciampoli deceived him, assuring him that the book would comply with papal instructions and then circumventing them. The Pope seemed especially embittered by Galileo's decision to put the Pope's own argument concerning the tides into the mouth of the simple-minded Simplico--an attempt, as he saw it, to ridicule him.
The Pope swung the machinery of the Church into motion. He appointed a special commission to investigate the Galileo matter. Riccardi, the chief licenser, was severely lectured. Ciampoli was exiled to obscure posts, never to return to Rome.
