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With the history of Galileo and Copernicus, there is connected a man of
such stern and withal striking individuality that the story of the rise
and evolution of astronomy can not be told and this man's name left out.
Giordano Bruno was born in Fifteen Hundred Forty-eight. His parents were
obscure people, and his childhood and early education are enveloped in
mystery. Occasional passages in his writings refer to his sympathy for
outcast children, and he quotes the saying of Jesus, "Suffer little
children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom
of Heaven." He then refers to himself as having been a waif and
robbed of the love that was his due, "the lawful, legal heritage of
every child, sent without its consent into a world of struggle and strife,
where only love makes existence possible."
Evidently, the early life of Bruno was a symbol and shadow of what Fate
held in store for him.
The first authentic knowledge we have of Bruno was when he was
twenty-two years old. He was then a Dominican monk, and he is brought to
our attention because he distinguished himself by incurring the
displeasure of his superiors. His particular offense[Pg
50] was that he had declared, "The infallibility of the
Pope is only in matters spiritual, and does not apply to the science of
material things."
Strangely enough, these words of Bruno are almost identical with words
recently expressed by Cardinal Satolli.
The difference in their reception is owing to a mere matter of a few
hundred years. Truth is a question of time and place. Bruno was banished
for his temerity, and Satolli wears the red hat. Verily, yesterday's
heresy is today's orthodoxy.[Pg
51]
The attitude of the Church toward the teachings of Copernicus,
after the death of the man, was one of patronizing pity.
Instead of putting his great book, "Revolutions of the Heavenly
Bodies," on the "Index," the wiser plan was adopted of
paying no attention to it. Occasionally, however, the subject was broached
by some incautious novitiate, and then the custom was to treat the
Copernican Theory as a mere hypothesis, and its author as a mental
defective.
Bruno would not have it so. To him it was a very important matter
whether the sun revolved around the earth as the priests taught, or the
earth revolved around the sun as set forth in the work of Copernicus. He
came to the conclusion that Copernicus was right, and said so.
It was ordered that he should cease lecturing on the subject of
astronomy and apply himself to spiritual matters. He argued that he should
be allowed to think and speak what he pleased about the stars, since the
whole matter was one of opinion, and even the Pope did not know,
positively, the final facts of astronomy, and if the Copernican Theory was
a hypothesis, so also was the Ptolemaic Theory held by the Church.
It will be seen that Copernicus and Bruno were very different in
temperament: one was gentle, diplomatic, cautious; the other was
headstrong, firm and full of argument.
Bruno was given his choice: to cease the[Pg
52] study of astronomy or to lay aside the Dominican frock. The
hardihood of the young man was seen in that he unfrocked himself, thinking
that once outside of the order he was not responsible to a superior and
could teach what he pleased, so long as it was not "heresy."
Heresy is treason to the Church, but Bruno could not see how spiritual
dogma could cover the facts of Physical Science, since new facts were
constantly being discovered, and the material universe could only be
understood by being studied. He was too innocent to comprehend that a vast
majority of the people believed that popes, cardinals and priests knew
everything, and that when any branch of knowledge was questioned it placed
the priests in doubt. Certainly the Church has not opposed Science—she
has only opposed heresy. But the curious fact is that advancing Science
has usually been to the Church heretical. When Bruno opposed anything that
the priests taught, he opposed the Church. He was warned to leave
Rome—his life was in danger. He fled to Geneva, the home of Calvin.
Here he thought, surely, he could speak and write as he chose. But
alas! Protestantism cared even less about Science than did the monks, and
"heresy" to John Calvin was quite as serious a matter as it was
to Calvin's competitor, the Pope of Rome.
The Protestants of Geneva gave Bruno scant attention;[Pg
53] they had never heard of Copernicus, and the movements of
the stars were as nothing to them, since the world was soon to come to an
end.
The learned men were even then making mathematical calculations, based
on the prophecies of the Old Testament, as to how soon the general
destruction would take place.
Bruno sought to argue them out of their childishness, with the result
that he got himself marked as an infidel and a dangerous man.
From Geneva he went to Lyons, then to Paris, where his personality made
itself felt, and he was given a hearing at the University. Here he
remained for several years, when he went to England, arriving there in
Fifteen Hundred Eighty-four, the same year that a rustic by the name of
William Shakespeare, from Stratford, reached London. Whether they ever met
is doubtful.
Bruno spoke five languages, and his polite accomplishments afforded him
an immediate entry into the best circles of society. He was entertained at
the home of Sir Philip Sidney, and afterward carried on an extensive
correspondence with this prince of gentlemen. Greville presented Bruno to
Queen Elizabeth, who invited him to lecture at the Court on his favorite
theme.
This he did, and it is quite probable that the noble lords and ladies
left "calls" so they could be awakened when the lecture was over
and congratulate the speaker[Pg
54] of the evening on his effort.
At Oxford there were disputations where Bruno's faultless Latin
impressed the pedants much more than did his argument, so they offered him
a position as Professor of Languages, but this he smilingly declined,
excusing himself on the grounds that he had important business on the
Continent: and he had. Already they were collecting fagots for his
benefit.
He returned to Paris and began his lecturing on Science. His arguments
had convinced one person at least, and that was himself, that as the
Church knew nothing of Physical Science, why, possibly it stood in a like
position regarding spiritual truth. That is to say, the so-called
"sacred truths" were mere assumptions piled up to satisfy the
people, and the ignorance and superstition of the many marked high water
for the teaching of the priests. The business of the Church was to satisfy
the people, and not enlighten them, for if the people became enlightened
enough they would see that they did not need the Church, and then where
were the honors and the riches and the red hats!
Bruno cleared his mind of its cobwebs by expression, just as we all
do—that is what expression is for.
The people really dictate to the priests what they shall teach;
moreover, the people absolutely refuse to listen to anything in which they
do not believe, and decline to pay for preaching that is not done to their
own dictation. The business, then, of the Church is to study[Pg
55] carefully the ignorance of the people and conform to it. On
this one thing does its stability depend. Therefore it must, as a matter
of self-preservation, suppress any chance intellect that is ahead of its
time, lest this man honeycomb the whole structure of churchly dogma.
Bruno said that, just as the world seemed to stand still and the stars
move around us, so did the Church seem to most people a fixed fact. But
exactly the opposite was true; the Church moves as the people move, and
unless men outside of the Church educate the people, or the people educate
themselves, they will forever remain in darkness.
Bruno offered to debate the question publicly with the Bishop of Paris.
That worthy was no match for Bruno in point of oratory, but when we can
not answer a man's reasons, all is not lost, for we can at least call him
vile names, and this is often quite as effectual as logic.
The Bishop launched a fusillade of theological lyddite at Bruno,
declaring that any Churchman who would so much as hold converse with such
a wretch was disgraced forever, and that the propositions Bruno wished to
argue were unthinkable to a self-respecting man. He declared that it was
only the mercy of God that kept the lightning from striking Bruno dead as
he wrote his heresies.
Matters were getting strained, and the authorities, fearing
insurrection, acted upon the advice of the good[Pg
56] Bishop and expelled Bruno from France. He went to
Wittenberg, in his innocence, intending to tack on the church-door there
his theses. But Wittenberg had no use for Bruno—he believed too much, or
too little, Luther could not tell which.
The University of Zurich now offered to let the exile come there and
teach what he wished. Thither he journeyed and there his restless mind
seemed for the first time to find a home. His writings were slowly making
head, and around him there clustered a goodly group of students who
believed in him and loved him.
In the midst of this oasis in a troubled life, word came from some of
the old-time friends he had known in Rome. They were now in Venice, and
wished to have him come there and lecture. Bruno thought that his little
leaven was leavening the whole lump—he was not without ambition—he was
flattered by the invitation. He accepted it and went to Venice.
It was simply a ruse to get the man within striking distance. Very soon
after his arrival in Venice he was arrested by agents of the Inquisition
and secretly taken to Rome. He was lodged in a dungeon of the Castle Saint
Angelo. Just what his experience was there we can not say—the horrors of
it all are not ours, for no friend of Bruno's was allowed to approach, and
what he there wrote was destroyed.
We do know, however, that he was asked to recant, and we know he
refused. We also know that he repeated[Pg
57] his heresies and hurled back into the teeth of his accusers
the invective they heaped upon him.
Bribery, persuasion, threat and torture were tried in turn, but all in
vain, for Bruno would not swerve. Unlike Savonarola his quivering flesh
could not wring from his heart an apology.
He scorned the rack and thumbscrew, declaring they could not reach his
soul. He knew that death would be the end; he prayed for it, and even
thought to hasten it by an aggravating manner and harshness of speech
toward his captors, seemingly quite unnecessary.
For seven long years he was in prison. He was burned alive on the
Seventh of February, Sixteen Hundred, aged fifty-two.
When bound to the stake he turned his face from the crucifix that was
held before him, and sought to kiss the fagots. His ashes were thrown to
the four winds. Thus perished Bruno.[Pg
58]
In the year Fifteen Hundred Sixty-four, Galileo Galilei was
born; consequently, he was thirty-six years old when Bruno was executed.
He had known Bruno, had attended many of his lectures, and had followed
his career with interest; and while he agreed with him concerning the
Copernican theory of the earth's revolution, he took exceptions to Bruno's
arbitrary ways of presenting the matter, and also to his scathing
criticisms of theology. At this time Galileo could not see that the
extravagant words of Bruno were largely forced from him by the violence of
the opposition he had encountered. Galileo fully believed that Bruno had
been put to death for treason to the Church, and not on account of his
astronomical teachings.
These men had come up from totally different stations in life. Bruno
was a man of the people—a self-made man—who bore upon his person the
marks of the hammer. Galileo was of noble blood, and traced an ancestry to
a Gonfalonier of Florence. From early infancy he had enjoyed association
with polite persons, and had sat on the knees of greatness.
When eighteen he was graduated from the University of Pisa; and at that
early age his family and friends were comparing him, not without reason,
to a Genius who had come out of Tuscany some years before, Leonardo da
Vinci.
Parents either exaggerate the talents of their children[Pg
59] or else belittle them. The woman who bore George Gordon
called him "that lame brat"; but we call him "The Poet
Byron."
Benjamin Franklin ran away from home, and his family thought themselves
disgraced by his printed utterances. George Washington's mother, after
being told that her son had been made Commander-in-Chief, laughed
knowingly and said, "They don't know him as well as I do!"
Voltaire's father posted his son as irresponsible, tied up a legacy so
"the scapegrace could not waste it," invested good money in
daily prayers to be said for the scapegrace's salvation, and then died of
a broken heart, just as play-actors do on the stage, only this man died
sure enough. Alfred Tennyson at thirteen wrote a poem addressed to his
grandfather; the old gentleman gave him a guinea for it, and then wrote
these words: "This is the first and last penny you will ever receive
for writing poetry." The father of Shelley misquoted Job, and said,
"Oh, to be brought down to the grave in grief through the follies of
an ungrateful child!" And Labouchere says that one of the four
brothers of Shakespeare used to explain that he wasn't the play-actor who
wrote "Hamlet" and "Othello," lest, mayhap, his name
should be smirched.
Galileo's mother had that beautiful dream which I believe all good
mothers have: that her son might be the savior of the world. As he grew to
manhood, her faith in him did not relax.[Pg
60]
In childhood Galileo showed great skill in invention. He made curious
toys with cogs and wheels and eccentrics; whittled out violins, and
transformed simple reeds into lutes, upon which he played music of his own
composition. In fact, so great was his skill in music that at twenty they
wished to make him official organist and choirmaster of the Cathedral. His
personal taste, however, ran more to painting; for some months he worked
at his canvases with an ardor too great to last long. If ever a man was
touched by the Spirit of the Renaissance, it was surely young Galileo. The
Archbishop of Pisa said, "Upon him has fallen the mantle of
Michelangelo."
He gave lectures on Art, and taught Painting by actual example. One of
his pupils, and a great artist, Lodovico Cigoli, always maintained that it
was to the inspiration and counsel of Galileo that he owed his success.
There are really only two things to see at Pisa: one is the Leaning
Tower, from which Galileo with his line and plummet made some of his most
interesting experiments; and the other is the Cathedral where the visitor
beholds the great bronze lamp that is suspended from the vaulted ceiling.
When he was about twenty-one, sitting in the silence of this church (which
the passing years have only made more beautiful), he noticed that there
was a slight swinging motion to this lamp—it was never still. Galileo
set to work timing and measuring these oscillations, and he found that
they were always[Pg
61] done in exact measure and in perfect rhythm. This led, some
years later, to perfecting an astronomical clock for measuring movements
of the stars. And from this was originated the pendulum-clock, where
before we had depended on sundials.
The endeavor of Galileo's parents had been to keep him ignorant of
mathematics and practical life, that he might blossom forth as a saint who
would sing and play and make pictures like those of Leonardo, and carve
statues like Michelangelo, only better.
But parents plan, and Fate disposes.
In Fifteen Hundred Eighty-three, Ostilio Ricci, the famous
mathematician, chanced to be in Pisa, on his way from Rome to Milan, and
gave a lecture at the Court, on Geometry.
Galileo was not interested in the theme, but he was in the speaker, and
so he attended the lecture.
This action proved one of the pivotal points in his life.
"Whether other people really teach us anything, is a
question," says Stanley Hall; "but they do sometimes give us
impulses, and make us find out for ourselves."
Ricci made Galileo find out for himself.
He turned to Archimedes from Plato. Geometry became a passion, and a
very wise man has told us that we never accomplish anything, either good
or bad, without passion. Passion means one hundred pounds of steam on the
boiler, with love sitting on the safety-valve,[Pg
62] when the blow-off is set for fifty.
It surely is risky business, I will admit; accidents will occur
occasionally and explosions sometimes happen, but everything is risky,
even life, since few get out of it alive.
And so, to drop back to the original proposition, nothing great and
sublime is ever done without passion.
Galileo had his mechanical whooping-cough, musical mumps, artistic
measles, and now the hectic flush of mathematics burned on his cheeks. He
talked and dreamed mathematics.
Euclid was in the saddle.
Ricci became interested in the talented young scholar and remained
longer at Pisa than he had intended, that they might sit up all night and
surprise the rising sun, discussing beauties of dimensions and the wonders
of dynamics.
Together they went to Florence, where Ricci introduced his pupil as a
pedagogic sample of the goods, just as Booker Washington usually takes
with him on his travels a few ebony homo bricks as his specimens from
Tuskegee.
The beauty and the grace of Galileo's speech and presence put the
abstract Ricci in the shadow. The right man can make anything interesting,
just as Dean Swift could write an entrancing essay with the broomstick as
a central theme. The man's the thing, Hamlet to the contrary,
notwithstanding.
Galileo knew the Florentine heart, and so he gave[Pg
63] lectures on a Florentine: one Dante, who loved a girl named
Beatrice.
The young Pisan drew diagrams of Dante's Inferno—and surely it was
nobody's else. He gave its size, height, weight, and told how to reach it.
He gave lectures on the Hydrostatic Balance and the Centers of Gravity,
and then published them as serials.
The Florentines crowned him with bay and enthusiastically proclaimed
him, "The Modern Archimedes."[Pg
64]
Pisa now put forth efforts to have her gifted son come home.
There was always rivalry between Pisa and Florence. Pisa could not afford
to supply Florence her men of genius—let her depend upon production from
home, or go without.
Galileo became Professor of Mathematics at the University of Pisa, a
life position, or at least one he could hold during good behavior.
One of the time-honored dictums of the day was that falling bodies fell
with a velocity proportioned to their weight. The question was first
thrashed out in the classroom; and after Galileo had slyly gotten all of
these scientific wiseacres to commit themselves, he invited them, with
their students, to the Leaning Tower.
Then he proved by ocular demonstrations that they were positively
wrong.
It is very beautiful to teach Truth, but error should not be corrected
with too much eclat. If the love of Truth, alone, was the guiding impulse
of Galileo, he might have secretly explained his theory to one of the
wiseacres, and this wiseacre could have casually demonstrated it, so all
the rest could have said, "That is what we always knew and
taught."
Instead of this, Galileo compelled the entire faculty to back water and
dine on fricasseed crow.
They got even by calling him "a scientific bastardino," and
at his next lecture he was roundly hissed. Soon[Pg
65] after he was bluntly informed that his office was to teach
the young, and not to undo the old.
And that is the way the troubles of Galileo began.
He might then have apologized, and slipped back into peace and
obscurity and later been tucked in by kind oblivion. But he had tasted
blood, and the rabies of setting straight the scientific world, for its
own good, was upon him.
That he was wrong in the correction of his elders, he would not for a
moment admit; and he was even guilty of saying, "Antiquity can not
sanctify that which is wrong in reason and false in principle." Soon
after he committed another forepaugh by showing that a wonderful boat
invented by Giovanni de Medici for the purpose of fighting hostile ships,
would not work, since there were no men on board to guide it, and its
automatic steering apparatus would as likely run its nose into land, as
into the hull of the enemy.
He also decorated his argument with a few subtle touches as to the
beauty of fighting battles without going to war and risking life and limb.
Men who are not kind to the faults of royalty can hope for small favor
in a monarchy, though the monarchy be a republic. Galileo was cut off the
Standard Oil payroll, and forced to apply to a teachers' agency, that he
might find employment.
He did not wait long; the rival University of Padua tendered him a
position on a silver platter; and the[Pg
66] Paduans made much dole about how unfortunate it was that
men could not teach Truth in Italy, save at Padua—alas! The Governing
Board of Padua made a great stroke in securing Galileo, and Pisa fell back
on her Leaning Tower as her chief attraction.
From a position of mediocrity, the University of Padua gradually rose
to one of worldwide celebrity. Galileo remained at Padua from Fifteen
Hundred Ninety-two to Sixteen Hundred Ten, which years are famous not
alone through the wonderful inventions of Galileo, but because in that
same interval of time, at least thirty of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays
were written. Surely, God was smiling on the planet Earth!
Galileo's salary was raised every year, starting at two hundred
florins, until it reached over one thousand florins, not to mention the
numerous gifts from grateful pupils, old and young. Students came to Padua
from all over the world to hear Galileo's lectures.
Starting with only a common classroom, the audience increased so fast
that a special auditorium was required that would seat two thousand
persons. It was during this time that Galileo invented the proportional
compasses, an instrument now in use everywhere, without the slightest
change having been made in it.
He also invented the thermometer; but greatest, best and most wonderful
of all, he produced an instrument through which he could view the stars,
and see them much magnified. With this instrument, he saw heavenly[Pg
67] bodies that had never been seen before; he beheld that
Jupiter had satellites which moved in orbits, and that Venus revolved,
showing different sides at different times, thus proving that which
Copernicus declared was true, but which, for lack of apparatus, he could
not prove.
Galileo Galilei was getting to be more than a professor of
mathematics—he was becoming a power in the world.
The lever of his mighty mind was indeed finding a fulcrum.[Pg
68]
The year Sixteen Hundred Nine is forever fixed in history,
through the fact that in that year Galileo invented the telescope.
Every good thing is an evolution. "Specilla," or helps to
read, had been made, and sold privately and mysteriously, as early as the
year Fourteen Hundred. These first magnifying-glasses were associated with
magic, or wonder-working; the words "magnify" and
"magic" having a common source and a similar meaning. Magicians
wore big square glasses, and by their aid, some of them claimed to see
things at a great distance; and also to perceive things stolen, hidden or
lost. Occasionally, the magician would persuade his customer to try on the
glasses, and then even common men could see for themselves that there was
something in the scheme—goodness me! The use of spectacles was at first
confined entirely to these wonder-workers—or men who magnified things
forever. During the Fifteenth Century, public readers and occasionally
priests wore spectacles. To read was a miracle to most people, and a book
was a mysterious and sacred thing—or else a diabolical thing. The
populace would watch the man put on his "specillum," and the
idea was everywhere abroad that the magic glasses gave an ability to read;
and that anybody who was inspired by angels, or devils, who could get hold
of spectacles, could at once read from a book.
We hear of one magician who, about the year Fifteen[Pg
69] Hundred, made a box with a glass cover that magnified the
contents. This great man would catch a flea and show it to the people.
Then he would place the flea in the box and show it to them, and they
would see that it had grown enormously in an instant. The man could make
it big or little, by just taking off and putting on the cover of the box!
This individual worked wonders for a consideration, but Fate overtook
him and he was smothered under a feather bed for having too much wizard in
his cosmos. A wizard, be it known, is a male witch, and the Bible says,
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," although it does not
say anything about wizards.
But please note this: the wizard who had that magic box and flea had
really the first microscope.
Galileo bought a pair of "magic glasses," or spectacles,
about the year Sixteen Hundred Seven; and his action, in so doing, was
freely criticized.
On a visit to Venice, where glass had been manufactured since long
before the Flood, Galileo was looking through one of the glass-factories,
just as visitors do now, and one of the workmen showed him a peculiar
piece of glass which magnified the hairs on the back of his hand many
times.
In a very few days after this, Galileo heard that a Dutch
spectacle-maker had placed certain queer-shaped pieces of glass in a tube,
and offered to sell this tube to the Government, so by its use, soldiers[Pg
70] could see the movements of an enemy many miles away.
That night Galileo did not close his eyes in sleep. He thought out a
plan by which he could place pieces of glass in a tube, and bring the
stars close to the earth. By daylight the whole plan was clear in his
mind, and he hastened to the shop of the glassmakers.
There, two lenses were made, one plano-convex, and the other plano-concave,
and these were placed in a tube made of sheet copper. It was tested on
distant objects; and behold! they were magnified by three. Would this tube
show the stars magnified? Galileo knew of no reason why it should not, but
he paced his room in hot impatience, waiting for the night to come with
its twinkling wonders, that he might verify his convictions. When the
first yellow star appeared in the West, Galileo turned his tube upon it,
and behold! instead of twinkling points of light, he saw a round mass—a
world—moving through space, and not a scintillating object with five
points. The twinkling spikes, or points, were merely an optical illusion
of the unaided senses.
Galileo made no secret of his invention. It was called "Galileo's
Tube," but some of the priests called it Galileo's "Magic
Tube."
Yet it marked an era in the scientific world. Galileo endeavored
constantly to improve his instrument; and from a threefold magnifying
power, he finally[Pg
71] made one that magnified thirty-two times.
Galileo made hundreds of telescopes, and sold them at moderate prices
to any one who would buy. He explained minutely the construction of the
instrument, showing clearly how it was made in accordance with the natural
laws of optics. His desire was to dissipate the superstition that there
was something diabolical or supernatural about the "Magic
Tube"—that, in fact, it was not magic, and the operator had no
peculiar powers; you had simply to comply with the laws of Nature, and any
one could see for himself.
It is hard for us, at this day, to understand the opposition that
sprang up against the telescope. We must remember that at this time belief
in witchcraft, fairies, sprites, ghosts, hobgoblins, magic and
supernatural powers was common. Men who believe in miracles make rather
poor scientists.
There were books about "Magic," written by so-called
scientific men, whose standing in the world was quite as high as that of
Galileo.
In Sixteen Hundred Ten, Galileo published his book entitled, "Sidera
Medicea," wherein he described the wonders that could be seen in the
heavens by the aid of the telescope. Among other things, he said the Milky
Way was not a great streak of light, but was composed of a multitude of
stars; and he made a map of the stars that could be seen only with the aid
of the telescope.
There resided in Venice at this time a scientific man[Pg
72] by the name of Porta, who was much more popular than
Galileo. He was a priest, whose piety and learning was unimpeached.
The year after Galileo issued his book, Porta put out a work much more
pretentious, called "Natural Magic." In this book Porta does not
claim that magicians all have supernatural powers; but he goes on to prove
how they deceive the world by the use of their peculiar apparatus, and
intimates that they sometimes sell their souls to the Devil, and then are
positively dangerous. He dives deep into science, history and his own
imagination to prove things.
The man was no fool—he constructed a kaleidoscope that showed an
absolute, geometrical symmetry, where in fact there was only confusion. He
showed how, by the use of mirrors, things could be made big, small, tall,
short, wide, crooked or distorted. He told of how magicians, by the use of
Galileo's Tube, could show seven stars where there was only one; and he
even made such a tube of his own and called the priests together to look
through it. He painted stars on the glass, and had men look at the
heavens. He even stuck a louse on the lens and located the beast in the
heavens, for the benefit of a doubting Cardinal. It was all a joke, but at
the time no sober, sincere man of Science could argue him down. He owned
"bum" telescopes that proved all kinds of things, to the great
amusement of the enemies of Galileo. The intent of Porta was to[Pg
73] expose the frauds and fallacies of Galileo. Porta also
claimed that he had seen telescopes by which you could look over a hill
and around a corner, but he did not recommend them, since by their use
things are often perceived that were not there. And so we see why the
priests positively refused to look through Galileo's Tube, or to believe
anything he said. Porta, and a few others like him, showed a deal more
than Galileo could and offered to locate stars anywhere on order. Galileo
had much offended these priests by his statements that the Bible did not
contain the final facts of Science, and now they were getting even with a
vengeance. It was all very much like the theological guffaw that swept
over Christendom when Darwin issued his "Origin of Species," and
Talmage and Spurgeon set their congregations in a roar by gently sarcastic
references to monkey ancestry.[Pg
74]
Amid the general popping of theological small-arms, Galileo
moved steadily forward. If he had many enemies he surely had a few
friends. As he once had proved more than Pisa could digest, so now he was
bringing to the surface of things more truth than Padua could assimilate.
Venice too was getting uncomfortable. Even the Doge said, in reply to
an enthusiastic admirer of Galileo, "Your master is not famous: he is
merely notorious."
It was discovered that Galileo had been living with a woman by the name
of Marina Gamba, at Venice, even while he held the professorship at Padua,
and that they had a son, Vincenzo Gamba, and two daughters. One of the
enemy drew a map of the heavens, showing Galileo as the sun, Marina Gamba
as the moon, and around them circulated numerous little satellites, which
were supposed to be their children. The picture had so great a vogue that
the Doge issued an order that all copies of it be destroyed.
Of Marina Gamba we know very little; but the fact that she made entries
in Galileo's journal and kept his accounts proves that she was a person of
considerable intelligence; and this, too, was at a time when semi-oriental
ideas prevailed and education was supposedly beyond the feminine grasp.
Galileo did not marry, for the reason that he was practically a priest,
a teacher in a religious school, living with and looking after the pupils;
and the custom[Pg 75]
then was that whoever was engaged in such an occupation should not wed.
The stormy opposition to Galileo was not without its advantages. We are
advertised no less by our rabid enemies than by our loving friends. Cosimo
the Second, Grand Duke of Tuscany, had intimated that Florence would give
the great astronomer a welcome. Galileo moved to Florence under the
protection of Cosimo, intending to devote all his time to Science.
In giving up schoolteaching and popular lecturing, Galileo really made
a virtue of necessity. No orthodox lyceum course would tolerate him; he
was neither an impersonator nor an entertainer; the stereopticon and the
melodramatic were out of his line, and his passion for truth made him
impossible to the many.
He was treading the path of Bruno: the accusations, the taunts and
jeers, the denials and denunciations, were urging him on to an unseemly
earnestness.
Father Clavius said that Galileo never saw the satellites of Jupiter
until he had made an instrument that would create them; and if God had
intended that men should see strange things in the heavens, He would have
supplied them sufficient eyesight. The telescope was really a devil's
instrument.
Still another man declared that if the earth moved, acorns falling from
a high tree would all fall behind the tree and not directly under it.
Father Brini said that if the earth revolved, we would[Pg
76] all fall off of it into the air when it was upside down;
moreover, its whirling through space would create a wind that would sweep
it bald.
Father Caccini preached a sermon from the text, "Ye men of
Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" Only he changed the
word "Galilee" to "Galileo," claiming it was the same
thing, only different, and as reward for his wit he was made a bishop.
Cardinal Bellarmine, a man of great energy, earnest, zealous, sincere,
learned—the Doctor Buckley of his day—showed how that: "if the
Copernican Theory should prevail, it would be the absolute undoing of the
Bible, and the destruction of the Church, rendering the death of Christ
futile. If the earth is only one of many planets, and not the center of
the universe, and the other planets are inhabited, the whole plan of
salvation fails, since the inhabitants of the other spheres are without
the Bible, and Christ did not die for them." This was the argument of
Father Lecazre, and many others who took their cue from him.
Galileo was denounced as "atheist" and
"infidel"—epithets that do not frighten us much now, since
they have been applied to most of the really great and good men who have
ever lived. But then such words set fire to masses of inflammable
prejudices, and there were conflagrations of wrath and hate against which
it was vain to argue.
The Archbishop of Pisa especially felt it incumbent[Pg
77] upon him "to bring Galileo to justice."
Galileo was born at Pisa, educated there, taught in the University; and
now he had disgraced the place and brought it into disrepute.
Galileo was still in communication with teachers at Pisa, and the
Archbishop made it his business to have letters written to Galileo asking
certain specific questions. One man, Castelli, declined to be used for the
purpose of entrapping Galileo, but others there were who loaned themselves
to the plan.
In Sixteen Hundred Sixteen, Galileo received a formal summons from Pope
Paul the Fifth to come to Rome and purge himself of heresies that he had
expressed in letters which were then in the hands of the Inquisition.
Galileo appealed to his friends at Florence, but they were powerless.
When the Pope issued an order, it could not be waived. The greatest
thinker of his time journeyed to Rome and faced the greatest theologian of
his day, Cardinal Bellarmine.
The Cardinal firmly and clearly showed Galileo the error of his way.
Galileo offered to prove for the Cardinal by astronomical observations
that the Copernican Theory was true. Cardinal Bellarmine said that there
was only one truth and that was spiritual truth. That the Bible was true,
or it was not. If not, then was religion a fallacy and our hope of Heaven
a delusion.
Galileo contended that the death of Christ had[Pg
78] nothing to do with the truth, so Science and these things
should not be shuffled and confused.
This attitude of mind greatly shocked the Inquisitors, and they made
haste to inform the Pope, who at once issued an order that the astronomer
should be placed in a dungeon until he saw fit to disavow that the sun was
the center of the universe, and the earth moves.
A sort of compromise, it seems, was here effected by Galileo's promise
not to further teach that the earth revolves.
He was kept at Rome under strict surveillance for some months, but was
finally allowed to return to Florence, and cautioned that he must cease
all public teaching, speaking and writing on the subject of astronomy. On
March Fifth, Sixteen Hundred Sixteen, the consulting theologians of the
Holy Office reiterated that the propositions of Galileo, that the sun is
the center of the universe, and that the earth has a rotary motion, were
"absurd in philosophy, heretical, and also contrary to
Scripture."
The works of Copernicus were then placed upon the "Index,"
and Pope Paul issued a special decree, warning all Churchmen to
"abjure, shun and forever abstain from giving encouragement, support,
succor or friendship to any one who believed or taught that the earth
revolves."
The name of Copernicus was not removed from the "Index" until
the year Eighteen Hundred Eighteen.[Pg
79]
Galileo made his way back to Florence, defeated and
disappointed. He had not been tortured, except mentally, but he had heard
the dungeon-key turned in the big lock and felt the humiliation of being
made a captive. The instruments of torture had been shown to him, and he
had heard the cries of the condemned.
The cell that Bruno had occupied was his, and he was also taken to the
spot where Bruno was burned: the place was there, but where was Bruno!
He realized how utterly impossible it was to teach truth to those who
did not desire truth, and the vanity of replying to men for whom a pun
answered the purposes of fact.
As he could neither teach nor lecture at Florence, his services to the
Court were valueless. He was a disgraced and silenced man.
He retired to a village a few miles from the city, and in secret
continued his studies and observations. The Grand Duke supplied him a
small pension and suggested that it would be increased if Galileo would
give lectures on Poetry and Rhetoric, which were not forbidden themes, and
try to make himself either commonplace or amusing.
We can imagine the reply—Galileo had but one theme, the wonders of
the heavens above.[Pg
80]
So the years went by, and Galileo, sixty-seven years old, was
impoverished and forgotten, yet in his proud heart burned the embers of
ambition. He believed in himself; he believed in the sacredness of his one
mission. Pope Paul had gone on his long journey, for even infallible popes
die. Cardinal Barberini had become Pope Urban the Eighth. Years before,
Galileo and Barberini had taught together at Padua, and when Galileo was
silenced, a long letter of sympathy had come from his old colleague, and
occasionally since they had exchanged friendly letters. Galileo thought
that Urban was his friend, and he knew that Urban, in his heart, believed
in the theory of Copernicus.
Galileo then emerged from his seclusion and began teaching and speaking
in Florence. He also fitted up an observatory and invited the scholars to
make use of his telescope.
Father Melchior hereupon put forth a general denunciation, aimed
especially at Galileo, without mentioning his name, to this effect:
"The opinion of the earth's motion is, of all heresies, the most
abominable, the most pernicious, the most scandalous: the immovability of
the earth is thrice sacred.
"An argument against the existence of God and the immortality of
the soul would be sooner tolerated than the idea that the earth
moves."
In reply to this fusillade, in Sixteen Hundred[Pg
81] Thirty-two Galileo put forth his book entitled, "The
Dialogue," which was intended to place the ideas of Copernicus in
popular form.
Galileo had endeavored to communicate with Urban, but the Pope had
chosen to ignore him—to consider him as one dead. Galileo misconstrued
the silence, thinking it meant that he could do and say what he wished and
that there would be no interference.
A copy of Galileo's book reaching the Pope, his silence was at once
broken. The book was condemned and all copies found were ordered to be
burned by the hangman in the public streets. But the book had met with a
wide sale and many copies had been carried to Germany, England and France,
and in these countries the work was reprinted and sent back to Italy.
Urban ordered Galileo to present himself at Rome forthwith. A score of
years had passed since Galileo's former visit—he had not forgotten it.
He wrote to the Pope and apologized for having broken the silence
imposed upon him by Pope Paul; he offered to go into retirement again;
stated that he was old, infirm, without funds, and excused himself from
obeying the order to go to Rome.
But excuses and apologies were unavailing.
A preventory order was issued and sent to the Papal Nuncio at Florence.
This was equivalent to an arrest. Galileo must go to Rome and answer
for having broken the promises he[Pg
82] had made to the Inquisition. If he would not go willingly,
he should go in chains.
Arriving at Rome, he had several audiences with the Pope, who said
nothing would answer but a specific recantation.
What Barberini had once believed was one thing, and what the Pope must
do was another. Galileo should recant in order to keep the people from
thinking Pope Urban would allow what his predecessors would not.
The matter had become a public scandal.
Galileo tried to argue the question and asked for time to consider it.
An order was issued that he should be imprisoned. It was done.
Galileo asked for pens and paper that he might prepare his defense.
These were refused, and an order of torture was issued. It was not a
trial, defense was useless. Again he was asked to recant—the matter was
all written out—he had but to sign his name. He refused. He was brought
to the torture-chamber.
Legend and fact separate here.
There are denials from Churchmen that Galileo was so much as
imprisoned. One writer has even tried to show that Galileo was a guest of
the Pope and dined daily at his table. The other side has told us that
Galileo was thrust into a dungeon, his eyes put out, and his old
broken-down form tortured on the wheel.
Recent careful researches reveal that neither side told the truth. We
have official record of the case[Pg
83] written out at the time for the Vatican archives. Galileo
was imprisoned and the order of torture issued, but it was never enforced.
Perhaps it was not the intention to enforce it: it may have been only a
"war measure."
Galileo was alternately taken from dungeon to palace that he might
realize which course was best for him to pursue—oppose the Church or
uphold it.
Thus we see that there was some truth in the statement that "he
dined daily with the Pope."
That the man was subjected to much indignity, all the world now knows.
The official records are in the Vatican, and the attempt to conceal them
longer is out of the question. Wise Churchmen no longer deny the blunders
of the past, but they say with Cardinal Satolli, "The enemies of the
Church have ever been o'er-zealous Churchmen."
On bended knees, Galileo, a man of threescore and ten, broken in
health, with spirit crushed, repeated after a priest these words: "I,
Galileo Galilei, being in my seventieth year, a prisoner, on my knees
before your Eminences, the Cardinals of the Holy See, having before mine
eyes the Holy Bible, which I touch with my hands and kiss with my lips, do
abjure, curse and detest the error and heresy of the movement of the
earth."
He also was made to sign the recantation. On arising from his knees,
legend declares that he said, "Yet the earth does move!"[Pg
84]
It is hardly probable that the words reached his lips, although they
may have been in his mind. But we must remember the man's heart was
broken, and he was in a mental condition where nothing really mattered. To
complete his dishonor, all of his writings were placed on the
"Index," and he was made to swear that he would inform the
Inquisition of any man whom he should hear or discover supporting the
heresy of the motion of the earth. The old man was then released, a
prisoner on parole, and allowed to make his way home to Florence, which he
did by easy stages, helped along the way by friendly monks who discussed
with him all questions but those of astronomy.
Galileo's eldest daughter, a nun, whose home was near his, was so
affected by the humiliation of her father that she fell into a nervous
decline and died very soon after he reached home.
Between these two there had been a close bond of love and tender
sympathy, and her death seemed almost the crowning calamity.
But once back in his village home at Arcetri, Galileo again went to
work with his telescope, mapping the heavens.
A goodly degree of health and animation came back to him, but his
eyesight, so long misused, now failed him and he became blind. Thus John
Milton found him in Sixteen Hundred Thirty-eight.[Pg
85]
Castelli, his lifelong friend, wrote to another, "The noblest eye
that God ever made is darkened: the eye so privileged that it may in truth
be said to have seen more wonderful things and made others to see more
wonderful things, than were ever seen before." But blindness could
not subdue him any more than it could John Milton. He had others look
through the telescope and tell him what they saw and then he would
foretell what they would see next.
The policy of the Pope was that Galileo should not be disturbed so long
as he kept to his village home and taught merely the few scholars or
"servants," as they called themselves, who often came to him;
but these were to be taught mathematics, not astronomy. That he was even
at the last under suspicion is shown that concealed in the mattress of the
bed upon which he died were records of his latest discoveries concerning
the revolution of the planets. Legal opposition was made as to his right
to make a will, the claim being that he was a prisoner of the Inquisition
at his death. For the same reason his body was not allowed to be buried in
consecrated ground. The Pope overruled the objection and he was buried in
an obscure corner of the little cemetery of Saint Croce, the grave
unmarked.
So the last few years of Galileo's life were years of comparative peace
and quiet. He needed but little, and this little his few faithful, loving
friends supplied. His death came painlessly, and his last moments were[Pg
86] sustained by the faith that he would soon be free from the
trammels of the flesh—free to visit some of the worlds that his
telescope had brought so near to him.
Galileo was born the day that Michelangelo died; the year of his death
was the year that Sir Isaac Newton, the discoverer of the law of
gravitation, was born.[Pg
87]
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