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Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were in the year 1615 denounced to this Holy Office for holding as true the false doctrine taught by many, that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; for having disciples to whom you taught the same doctrine; for holding correspondence with certain mathematicians of Germany concerning the same; for having printed certain letters, entitled “On the Solar Spots,” wherein you developed the same doctrine as true; and for replying to the objections from the Holy Scriptures, which from time to time were urged against it, by glossing the said Scriptures according to your own meaning: and whereas there was thereupon produced the copy of a document in the form of a letter, purporting to be written by you to one formerly your disciple, and in this diverse propositions are set forth, following the hypothesis of Copernicus, which are contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture:
This Holy Tribunal being therefore desirous of proceeding against the disorder and mischief thence resulting, which went on increasing to the prejudice of the Holy Faith, by command of his Holiness and of the most eminent Lords Cardinals of this supreme and universal Inquisition, the two propositions of the stability of the sun and the motion of the earth were by the theological “Qualifiers’s qualified as follows: The proposition that the sun is the centre of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to the Holy Scripture. The proposition that the earth is not the centre of the world and immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is equally absurd and false philosophically, and theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith.
THE VATICAN’S PREVIOUS ORDER
But whereas it was desired at that time to deal leniently with
you, it was decreed at the Holy Congregation held before his
Holiness on the 25th February, 1616, that his Eminence the Lord
Cardinal Bellarmine should order you to abandon altogether the
said false doctrine, and, in the event of your refusal, that an injunction
should be imposed upon you by the Commissary of the
Holy Office, to give up the said doctrine, and not to teach it to
others, nor to defend it, nor even discuss it; and failing your acquiescence
in this injunction, that you should be imprisoned. And
in execution of this decree, on the following day, at the Palace,
and in the presence of his Eminence, the said Lord Cardinal Bellarmine,
after being gently admonished by the said Lord Cardinal,
the command was intimated to you by the Father Commissary
of the Holy Office for the time before a notary and witnesses, that
you were altogether to abandon the said false opinion, and not
in future to defend or teach it in any way whatsoever, neither verbally
nor in writing; and upon your promising to obey you were
dismissed.
And in order that a doctrine so pernicious might be wholly rooted out and not insinuate itself further to the grave prejudice of Catholic truth, a decree was issued by the Holy Congregation of the Index, prohibiting the books which treat of this doctrine, and declaring the doctrine itself to be false and wholly contrary to sacred and divine Scripture.
A MOST GRIEVOUS ERROR
And whereas a book appeared here recently, printed last year
at Florence, the title of which shows that you were the author,
this title being: “Dialogue of Galileo Galilci on the Two Principal
Systems of the World, the Ptolemaic and the Copernican”; and
whereas the Holy Congregation was afterwards informed that
through the publication of the said book, the false opinion of the
motion of the earth and the stability of the sun was daily gaining
ground; the said book was taken into careful consideration, and
in it there was discovered a patent violation of the aforesaid injunction
that had been imposed upon you, for in this book you
have defended the said opinion previously condemned and to your
face declared to be so, although in the said book you strive by
various devices to produce the impression that you leave it
undecided, and in express terms as probable: which however is
a most grievous error, as an opinion can in no wise be probable
which has been declared’and defined to be contrary to Divine
Scripture:
Therefore by our order you were cited before this Holy Office, where, being examined upon your oath, you acknowledged the book to be written and published by you. You confessed that you began to write the said book about ten or twelve years ago, after the command had been imposed upon you as above; that you requested licence to print it, without however intimating to those who granted you this licence that you had been commanded not to hold, defend, or teach in any way whatever the doctrine in question.
THE FALSE SIDE
You likewise confessed that the writing of the said book is in
various places drawn up in such a form that the reader might fancy
that the arguments brought forward on the false side are rather
calculated by their cogency to compel conviction than to be easy
of refutation; excusing yourself for having fallen into an error, as
you alleged, so foreign to your intention, by the fact that you had
written in dialogue, and by the natural complacency that every
man feels in regard to his own subtleties, and in showing himself
more clever than the generality of men, in devising, even on behalf
of false propositions, ingenious and plausible arguments.
And a suitable term having been assigned to you to prepare your defence, you produced a certificate in the handwriting of his Eminence the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine, procured by you, as you asserted, in order to defend yourself against the calumnies of your enemies, who gave out that you had abjured and had been punished by the Holy Office; in which certificate it is declared that you had not abjured and had not been punished, but merely that the declaration made by his Holiness and published by the Holy Congregation of the Index, had been announced to you, wherein it is declared that the doctrine of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun is contrary to the Holy Scriptures, and therefore cannot be defended or held. And as in this certificate there is no mention of the two articles of the injunction, namely, the order not “to teach” and “in any way,” you represented that we ought to believe that in the course of fourteen or sixteen years you had lost all memory of them; and that this was why you said nothing of the injunction when you requested permission to print your book. And all this you urged not by way of excuse for your error, but that it might be set down to a vainglorious ambition rather than to malice. But this certificate produced by you in your defence has only aggravated your delinquency, since although it is there stated that the said opinion is contrary to Holy Scripture, you have nevertheless dared to discuss and defend it and to argue its probability; nor does the licence artfully and cunningly extorted by you avail you anything, since you did not notify the command imposed upon you.
And whereas it appeared to us that you had not stated the full truth with regard to your intention, we thought it necessary to subject you to a rigorous examination, at which (without prejudice, however, to the matters confessed by you, and set forth as above, with regard to your said intention) you answered like a good Catholic. Therefore, having seen and maturely considered the merits of this your cause, together with your confessions and excuses above mentioned, and all that ought justly to be seen and considered, we have arrived at the underwritten final sentence against you:
Invoking, therefore, the most holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His most glorious Mother, and ever Virgin Mary, by this our final sentence, which sitting in judgment, with the counsel and advice of the Reverend Masters of sacred theology and Doctors of both Laws, our assessors, we deliver in these writings, in the cause and causes presently before us between the magnificent Carlo Sinceri, Doctor of both Laws, Proctor Fiscal of this Holy Office, of the one part, and you Galileo Galilei, the defendant, here present, tried and confessed as above, of the other part,’we say, pronounce, sentence, declare, that you, the said Galileo, by reason of the matters adduced in process, and by you confessed as above, have rendered yourself in the judgment of this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely, of having believed and held the doctrine’which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures’that the sun is the centre of the world and does not move from east to west, and that the earth moves and is not the centre of the world; and that an opinion may be held and defended as probable after it has been declared and defined to be contrary to Holy Scripture; and that consequently you have incurred all the censures and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents. From which we are content that you be absolved, provided that first, with a sincere heart, and unfeigned faith, you. abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church in the form to be prescribed by us.
And in order that this your grave and pernicious error and transgression may not remain altogether unpunished, and that you may be more cautious for the future, and an example to others, that they may abstain from similar delinquencies’we ordain that the book of the “Dialogues of Galileo Galilei” be prohibited by public edict.
We condemn you to the formal prison of this Holy Office during our pleasure, and by way of salutary penance, we enjoin that for three years to come, you repeat once a week the seven penitential Psalms.
Reserving to ourselves full liberty to moderate, commute, or take
off, in whole or in part, the aforesaid penalties and penance.
And so we say, pronounce, sentence, declare, ordain, condemn
and reserve, in this and any other better way and form which we
can and may lawfully employ.
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