The Trial of Galileo: Bellarmino,Galileo,and the Clash of Two Worlds

Le Opere di Galileo Galilei, ed. naz., ed. by Favaro Antonio (20 vols, Florence, 1890–1909), xix, 323.

Galileo to Mazzoni , 30 May 1597, Galileo to Kepler, 4 August 1597; Galileo , Opere, ii, 197–202 and x, 67–68. A letter of Castelli to Galileo, 5 December 1610 (Opere, x, 480–2) was explicitly Copernican and appears to have assumed that it was addressing another acknowledged Copernican. Castelli had been Galileo's student in Padua, and there is every reason to refer the apparently shared conviction to his student years, well before the discoveries with the telescope.

Cigoli to Galileo, 16 December 1611; Galileo , Opere, xi, 241–2.

Galileo's letter to Lorini has been lost, but see Lorini's reply on 5 November 1612; Opere, xi, 427.

Castelli to Galileo, 14 December 1613; Opere, xi, 606.

Galileo to Castelli, 20 December 1613; Opere, v, 281–8.

See the record of the Inquisition on which I primarily rely for the following narrative; Opere, xix, 275–324.

See his deposition in the records of the Inquisition; Opere, xix, 307–11.

See the record of the Inquisition; Opere, xix, 275–9, 295–324.

Galileo to Picchena, 6 February 1616; Opere, xii, 230.

Opere, xix, 320–1. The wording of the second proposition was not as I have given it, but I take this to have been its meaning.

Quoted in Brodrick James , Robert Bellarmine, saint and scholar (Westminster, 1961), 156.

Brodrick quotes at length the contemporary account, by an English priest, Coffin Edward Father , A true relation of the last sickness and death of Cardinall Bellarmine (Saint-Omer, 1622); ibid., 413–21.

Ibid., 303–4.

Without specific reference to the years 1615–16, Bellarmino listed the two among the Congregations on which he served. Die Selbstbiographie des Cardinals Bellarmin, ed. by Döllinger Joh. Jos. Ign. and Reusch Heinrich Fr. (Bonn, 1887), 44.

See Bellarmino to Mercurian (General of the Company of Jesus), 1 August 1573, and Bellarmino to Card. Sirlet, 1 April 1575; Le Bachelet Xavier-Marie , Bellarmin avant son cardinalat, 1542–1598: Correspondence et documents (Paris, 1911), 84–85 and 90–94. A fragment of the dedication of the Controversies to Pope Sixtus V, dated 1586, stated that he had devoted the previous fifteen years to controversies explicating the faith; ibid., 145–6. This chronology extends back nearly to the beginning of the years in Louvain.

Chapter 2, “Seven years in Louvain”; Brodrick , Bellarmine, 25–50.

See the relevant letters in Bachelet Le , Bellarmin, 245–77.

Galli Galla , La Vita e il pensiero di Giordano Bruno (Milan, 1973), 44–45.

Chapter 9, “Trouble with the Republic of Venice”; Brodrick , Bellarmine, 249–63.

Ibid., 279, 294–8.

See for example Bellarmino's judgement on the propositions of Jan Janson, his report on the controversy in Louvain, and his letter to Deckers , 5 October 1591; Bachelet Le , Bellarmin , 162–3, 211–13, and 311–13. All of these documents concern the controversy in Louvain, the forerunner of the Jansenist controversy, over free will and efficacious grace. Although Bellarmino supported the Jesuit Leonard Leys (Lessius) in this struggle, he did not hesitate to say, in typical fashion, that Leys's proposition on election seemed “false” to him; ibid 199.

Bellarmino to Aquaviva, 27 December 1591 and 28 January 1592; ibid., 317–21 and 326–7.

Bellarmino Roberto , Disputationes Roberti Bellarmini Politiani, s.j., S. R. E. Cardinalis, de controversiis christianae fidei, adversus nostri temporis haereticos (4 vols, Venice, 1721), i, Praefatio, n.p. See also the fragment of the dedication of vol. i to Pope Sixtus V: With St Jerome he holds that “there is no one so impious whom a heretic does not exceed in impiety. For because faith is the foundation and source of the whole spiritual structure and of all heavenly benefits, those who labour to take away the faith of the Church, which heretics do, corrupt the entire welfare of the Church at the same time, and strive completely to overthrow the Church itself” ( Le Bachelet , Bellarmin, 145).

Quoted in Brodrick , Bellarmine, 318.

De controversiis, i, Praefatio, n.p.

De verbo Dei, Liber primus, chapter 1; ibid., i, 1.

De verbi Dei interpretatione, Liber tertius (despite the additional word in the title, Book 3 of the first Controversy, De verbo Dei), especially chapter 3; ibid., i, 69. Those familiar with Baldini Ugo and Coyne George V. , “The Louvain Lectures (Lectiones Lovanienses) of Bellarmine and the autograph copy of his 1616 Declaration to Galileo”, Vatican Observatory publications: Studi Galileiani, i, 2 (1984), will recognize that I have received and accepted great assistance from the authors in finding relevant sections in Bellarmino's voluminous writings.

De verbo Dei non scripto, Liber quartus (again, despite the two additional words, Book 4 of the first Controversy, De verbo Dei); I quote here from chapter 9; ibid., i, 93–94. See also the fourth Controversy, De conciliis, et ecclesia militante, chapter 14, ii, 73–74: “The Church is not able to err in any way, not even in foresaking God.” He brings up Calvin's restriction of the Church's inerrancy to doctrines explicitly in Scripture and to the church universal as opposed to the present Catholic Church. “However our opinion is that the Church absolutely cannot err, neither in things absolutely necessary nor in other things which it proposes to us to believe or to do, whether they are explicitly set down in the Scriptures or not.” The Church (which is of course the present Catholic Church) is governed by Christ as by its head and spouse and by the Holy Spirit as by its soul. They guard it against every error.

Prima [i.e., the first in vol. ii, but really the fourth] controversia generalis: De conciliis, et ecclesia militante, chapter 12; ibid., ii, 43. Let me cite the original Latin: “… in Scriptura … non solum sententiae, sed verba omnia, et singula ad fidem pertinent. Credimus enim nullum esse verbum in Scriptura frustra, aut non recte positum.”

Baldini and Coyne , “Louvain Lecture”, 16.

Ibid., 18–20.

Ibid., 22.

Quoted in ibid., 45.

Mercati Angelo , Il sommario del processo di Giordano Bruno (Vatican City, 1942), 5–9, 55–119 (especially 79–83). Galli , Bruno, 45.

Mercati , Sommario, 7 and 117.

Bellarmino's letter to the mathematicians at the Collegio Romano on 19 April stated that he had observed the new phenomena through the telescope, though he did not say that Galileo had assisted him. Galileo , Opere, xii, 87–88. In a letter to Galileo four years later, Piero Dini repeated Bellarmino's recollection of a discussion with Galileo about the discoveries; Dini to Galileo, 15 May 1615; Opere, xii, 151.

Galileo , Opere, xi, 87–88, 92–93. English translation in Brodrick Brodrick , Bellarmine, 343–5.

Galileo , Opere, xix, 275.

Galileo's two letters to Conti do not survive; I infer their content from Conti's replies. Conti to Galileo, 7 July and 18 August 1612; Opere, xi, 354–5 and 376.

Galileo , Opere, v, 138–9. Galileo had become familiar with the Scriptural passages in question some twenty years earlier in the course of digesting the lecture notes of professors of natural philosophy at the Collegio Romano. Wallace William A. , Galileo's early notebooks: The physical questions (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1977), 94, 101–2.

Cesi to Galileo between 24 November 1612 and 26 January 1613; Opere, xi, 437–72 passim. 43. This is what Galileo stated in his letter to Mgr Piero Dini, 16 February 1615; Opere, v, 292.

In a letter to Galileo on 4 October 1614, Cesi said that he was about to leave for Acquasparta. His correspondence shows that he was there from that time until the beginning of the following March, restricted in his movements by his concern over the illness of his wife, who would die without recovering on 1 November 1615. Gabrieli Giuseppe , “Il carteggio linceo della vecchia accademia di Federico Cesi”, Memorie della R. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei: Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, ser. VI, vii, 1 (1938), 462–87.

Cesi to Galileo, 12 January 1615; Galileo , Opere, xii, 128–31.

Galileo to Dini, 16 February 1615; Opere, v, 292.

Galileo to Castelli, 21 December 1613; Opere, v, 282. The letter to Castelli became the first draft of the well known Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, which Stillman Drake has translated, Discoveries and opinions of Galileo (Garden City, N.Y., 1957), 175–216. Galileo copied much of the letter to Castelli verbatim into the Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, and I will use Drake's translations, modified where differences in the original Italian texts make it necessary, as in this case. The modestly different form of this passage appears in Discoveries and opinions, 181.

Galileo , Opere, v, 282. Drake , Discoveries and opinions, 182.

Opere, v, 282. Discoveries and opinions, 181.

Opere, v, 282. Discoveries and opinions, 182.

Opere, v, 283. Discoveries and opinions, 186.

Opere, v, 284. Castelli corrected Galileo's imperfect knowledge of Scripture on this point; the Letter to the Grand Duchess said that the Bible mentioned only Venus; Discoveries and opinions, 184.

Opere, v, 284. Discoveries and opinions, 183.

Opere, v, 284. Discoveries and opinions, 187.

Opere, v, 285. Discoveries and opinions, 209.

Opere, v, 286–7. Discoveries and opinions, 211–15.

A translation of the letter into English appears in Salusbury Thomas , Mathematical collections and translations (a reissue of vol. i of the original publication; London, 1967), Pt 1, 473–503.

Bellarmino to Foscarini, 12 April 1615; Galileo , Opere , xii, 171–2. It is translated in full in Brodrick , Bellarmine, 360–3, from which I quote. Mgr Dini sent a copy to Galileo on 18 April; Opere, xii, 173.

Duhem Pierre , To save the phenomena: An essay on the idea of physical theory from Plato to Galileo, tr. by Doland Edmund and Maschler Chaninah (Chicago, 1969), 104–12. The original was published in France in 1908. See also Duhem Pierre , The aim and structure of physical theory, tr. by Wiener Philip P. (Princeton, 1954), 43. The original French edition of this work appeared in 1906.

Galileo , Opere, xix, 320–1.

Drake , Discoveries and opinions, 191.

Galileo to Picchena , 23 January 1616; Galileo , Opere, xii, 227–8.

Drake , Discoveries and opinions, 195–7.

Ibid., 206.

Ibid., 209. See also analogous texts on pp. 175, 176, 196, 197, 199, 200.

Ibid., 202–3.

Ibid., 215.

Brodrick , Bellarmine, 382.

Bellarmin R. , The mind's ascent to God by a ladder of created things, tr. by Monialís [pseud.] (London, 1925), 4.

Ibid., 106.

Ibid., 124.

Galileo , Opere, xix, 278.

The Tuscan ambassador to Rome, Niccolini, repeated the claim in a letter to the court in Florence, 13 November 1632; Galileo , Opere, xiv, 428.

References to the “League of Pigeons”, Galileo's derisory title for the group lead by Colombe delle Ludoviso , appear in his correspondence in connection with the controversy over his Discourse on bodies in water. See Galileo to Cesi , 5 January 1613, and Cigoli to Galileo, 1 February 1613; Galileo , Opere, xi, 461 and 476.

I refer to its use of the verb ‘serpere’ (see the opening quotation to this article). The verb is not a very common one. I can recall only one other place where I have seen it, the preface to Bellarmino's Controversies, in which he speaks of how the venom of heresy, infecting a hundred others for every one it kills, “creeps [serpit]” far and wide (De controversiis, Praefatio, n.p). The context was identical in the two places, and the verb, with its evocation of the scene in the Garden of Eden, was peculiarly appropriate to Bellarmino's purpose in both.

Galileo , Opere, xix, 321–2.

I take such an assumption to be implicit, for example, in the treatments of di Santillana Giorgio , The crime of Galileo (Chicago, 1955), 242–3, and Drake Stillman , Galileo at work (Chicago, 1978), 252–5.

Bellarmin , The mind's ascent, 76–77.

The account of the trial by Giovanfrancesco Buonamici, July 1633; Galileo , Opere, xix, 411. See Spini Giorgio , “The rationale of Galileo's religiousness”, in Galileo reappraised, ed. by Golino Carlo L. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966), 44–66; and the same article in its original Italian, “La religiosità di Galileo”, in Saggi su Galileo Galilei, ed. by MacCagni Carlo (Florence, 1972), ii, 416–40.

Galileo to Diodati, 15 January 1633; Galileo , Opere, xv, 25.