Essay Review: Galileo Heretic : Problems,as They Appear to Me,with Redondi's Thesis: Galileo Heretic

Science, ccxxxvii (1987), 1059–60.

Much of the research for this paper was made possible by a Guggenheim Fellowship and a grant from the National Science Foundation. A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities also supported the research and made possible a trip to the Archives in Florence that contributed to the paper. I wish to express my appreciation to all of them.

Pp. 240, 287, and 328. Cf. also p. 296 for another passage that is not readily quotable without an introduction.

P. 29.

Gabrieli Giuseppe , “Verbali delle adunanze e cronaca della prima Accademia Lincea (1603–1630)”, Memorie della R. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Classe di scienze morali, sloriche e filologiche, ser. VI, ii (1926), 463–512. Idem, “Il carteggio linceo della vecchia accademia di Federico Cesi”, ibid., vii (2 vols, 1938–41).

Gabrieli , “Verbali”, 497.

Martinori Edoardo , Genialogia e cronistoria di una grande famiglia umbro-romana i Cesi (Rome, 1931).

The meeting was in May 1621. Seven members were present, the largest number that ever attended a meeting. Gabrieli , “Verbali”, 501.

Hülsen Christian , Römische Antikengärten des XVI Jahrhunderts (Abhandlungen der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse) (Heidelberg, 1917), 9.

Cesi to Cassiano del Pozzo, 25 May 1624; Gabrieli , “Il carteggio”, vii/2, 883–4. Cesi to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, 2 April 1624; ibid., 860–1.

Odescalchi Baldassare , Memorie istorico critiche dell'Accademia de' Lincei e del Principe Federico Cesi (Rome, 1806), 316–17.

Stelluti to Galileo , 27 Jan. 1620 and Cesi to Galileo, 4 March 1620. Cf. LaGalla (who was not a Lincean) to Galileo, 6 March 1620. Le opere di Galileo Galilei, ed. by Favaro Antonio (20 vols in 21, Florence, 1890–1909), xiii, 20–21, 25, and 26.

Stelluti to Galileo, 4 April 1620. Cesi to Galileo, 18 May 1620. Ciampoli to Galileo, 18 May, 17 July, and 2 Aug. 1620. Ibid ., 30–31, 37–38, 38–39, 43–44, 46–47. Cesi to Faber, 28 Aug. 1621; Gabrieli , “Il carteggio”, vii/2, 749. The words quoted are from Cesi to Galileo, 4 March 1620, when he was still urging Galileo not to reply himself but to find another, perhaps Guiducci, who would do so. Even the substitute was urged to avoid such language. Galileo , Opere, xiii, 25.

Gabrieli , “Il carteggio”, 641–792 passim.

Cesarini to Galileo, 12 Jan. and 20 March 1623; ibid., 783–4 and 791.

Pp. 14–16.

P. 19.

See for example p. 281.

Wallace William , Galileo and his sources: The heritage of the Collegio Romano in Galileo's science (Princeton, 1984). Carugo Adriano and Crombie Alistair C. , “The Jesuits and Galileo's ideas of science and of nature”, Annali dell'Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza di Firenze, viii/2 (1983), 3–68.

Galileo , Opere , vi, 347–50, 352. For Drake's English translation of the passages, The assayer in The controversy on the comets of 1618 , tr. by Drake Stillman and O'Malley C. D. (Philadelphia, 1960), 309–11, 313.

Galileo , Opere , vi, 351–2. Drake translation, 312–13.

P. 16. The letter, with the marginal note, is found in Galileo , Opere, xii, 474–8.

Pp. 244, 257.

Leman Auguste , Urbain VIII et la rivalité de la France et de la maison d'Autriche de 1631 à 1635 (Paris, 1920).

Archivio di Stato, Firenze; Mediceo 3352, Carteggio Niccolini a Cioli, July–Dec. 1632, ff. 354–7 and 392–4.

Vaquero Quintin Aldea , Iglesia y estado en la España del siglo XVII (Santander, 1961).

P. 232.

Leman , Urbain VIII, 192–3.

ibid., 311–12.

Niccolini to Cioli, 5 Sept. 1632; Galileo , Opere , xiv, 383–4. See also his report of 13 Nov. on a later meeting; ibid., xiv, 429.

Niccolini to Cioli, 13 March 1633; ibid., xv, 68.

On these matters see Galileo to Cioli, 23 July 1633; Niccolini to Galileo , 21 Aug. 1633; the petition from the Ambassador of Tuscany to the Holy Office and Urban's rejection of it on 23 March 1634; Galileo to Diodati, 25 July 1634; Peiresc to Card. Barberini, 5 Dec. 1634 and 31 Jan. 1635; the efforts of the Comte de Noailles as reported in Castelli's letters to Galileo from 25 Nov. 1634 until 2 May 1637; and a reported initiative of the King of Poland near the beginning of 1637 in Giraldi to Galileo, 26 Dec. 1636, and Peri to Galileo, Jan. 1637; Galileo , Opere , xv, 187–8, 234; xvi, 115–19, 164, 169–71, 202, 532–3; xvii, 16, 70–71; and xix, 393–4. Eventually, after Galileo became totally blind, the Church did permit him to move into Florence, though still under house arrest, and it is only fair to note that he chose to stay on in Arcetri. (Card. Barberini to Fanano, 6 March 1638; ibid., xvii, 310–11).

See for example Castelli to Galileo, 30 July 1638; ibid., xvii, 361–2.

P. 48.

Kraus Andreas , Das päpstliche Staatssekretariat unter Urban VIII, 1623–1644 (Rome, 1964).

The biographical sketch is found in the Archivio di Stato, Firenze, in Manoscritti 752, 6. It has been published in full in Targioni-Tozzetti Giovanni , Notizie degli aggrandimenti delle scienze fisiche accaduti in Toscana net corso di anni LX. del secolo XVII (3 vols, Florence, 1780), ii, 102–16, and Domenico Ciampoli cites it nearly in its entirety in his biography of his forebear, Un amico dei Galilei: Monsignor Giovanni Ciampoli, in his Nuovi studi letterari e bibliografici (Rocca S. Casciano, 1900). As perhaps the most generally accessible source, I cite its location in Targioni-Tozzetti, Notizie, ii, 110.

Moreri Louis , Le grande dictionnaire historique , 18th edn (8 vols, Amsterdam, 1740), iii, 419–20. Moreri appears to have been the first to retail this story. His Dictionnaire appeared originally in 1674; I have not seen any edition except for the 18th, which I cite here. See also Negri Giulio , Istoria degli scrittori fiorentini (Ferrara, 1722), 275.

Moreri , Dictionnaire , iii, 419–20. Negri , Istoria , 275. Apparently the biographical sketch by Ciampoli's secretary was the ultimate source here; Targioni-Tozzetti , Notizie, ii, 110.

Ciampoli to Giorgio Cuneo, 7 March 1636; Lettere di Monsignor Giovanni Ciampoli (Venice, 1676), 18–20.

Archivio di Stato, Firenzo; Mediceo 3351, f. 295.

Ibid ., f. 324v. More than a decade later Ciampoli's secretary gave a similar account of his fall; Targioni-Tozzetti , Notizie, ii, 110–11.

Archivio di Stato, Firenze; Mediceo 3551, ff. 348 and 449.

Targioni-Tozzetti , Notizie, ii, 113.

If there is any doubt that Galileo and his friends thought that the Pope had been so convinced, see Castelli to Galileo , 12 July 1636; Galileo , Opere , xvi, 449–50. On 26 July 1636, in sending on the information in Castelli's letter to Micanzio, Galileo added that the notion he intended to deride the Pope, of which his enemies had persuaded Urban, “was the prime mover of all my troubles” (ibid., 455). See also the denunciation of Galileo's young disciple, Famiano Michelini, to the Inquisition in 1641, printed in Paschino Pio , Vita e opere di Galileo Galilei (Rome, 1965), 623. The denunciation quoted Michelini's repetition of what Galileo had told him – to wit, that the Pope, angered that Galileo had put his opinion into the mouth of Simplicio, and encouraged by Galileo's rivals, ordered the trial.

Niccolini to Cioli, 5 Sept. 1632, 13 Nov. 1632 and 13 March 1633; Galileo , Opere, xiv, 383–4, 429 and xv, 68. Niccolini reported the phrase quoted in his letter to Cioli of 27 Feb. 1633; ibid., xv, 56.

Pp. 250–2.

Pp. 240–4.

Cardinal Francesco Barberini to Giovanni Muzzarelli in Florence, 6 February 1638; Galileo , Opere, xx, 582.

Cardinal Francesco Barberini to Muzzarelli, 27 Nov. 1638; ibid., xvii, 406.