to suggest how this letter could have reached the Inquisition or Galileo’s enemies in Florence.190 It is often suggested that the propositions came from Caccini’s deposition, but it is worth raising the possibility that they really arose from the censoring of Galileo’s book and that Caccini got his evidence from his sponsors in the Inquisition, not from Ximenes.191
Even had they met straight through until the next day, the consultors did not take long over their decision. They had help moving as fast as they did. Before they made their judgment, Orsini had taken up the cudgels for Galileo. With the enthusiasm of the raw youth given his first big assignment, he barged into the consistory of Wednesday 24 February, stoutly defending Galileo, perhaps even waving around “Discourse on the Tides.”192 Paul replied that it would be well for Orsini to tell Galileo to give up his opinion. Orsini persisted and Paul, visibly annoyed, snapped back, chopping off further discussion (as the Tuscan ambassador put it) by bluntly saying the matter had been turned over to the Inquisition. After Orsini left, Paul summoned Bellarmino, and together the two of them (again, according to the ambassador) decided Galileo’s opinion was “erroneous and heretical.” Of course, the pope should not have done that, even in consultation with Bellarmino, and probably he did not. Nevertheless, things moved with as much speed as if done by a single man. Would Paul have acted so quickly—by himself, with Bellarmino, or through the Inquisition—if Orsini, on Galileo’s instructions, had not egged him on?193
The theologians handed down their brief opinion on 24 February.194 To the first point “everybody said the aforesaid proposition was foolish and absurd in philosophy and formally heretical, in that it expressly contradicts the opinions of Holy Scripture in many places according to the proper sense of the words and the common exposition and sense of the holy fathers and doctors of theology” (“Omnes dixerunt dictam propositionem esse stultam et absurdam in philosophia et formaliter haereticam, quatenus contradicit expresse sententiis Sacrae Scripturae in multis locis secundum proprietatem verborum et secundum communem expositionem et sensum Sanctorum Patrum et theologorum doctorum”). Number 2 (“2.a Terra non est centrum mundi nec immobilis, sed secundum se totam movetur, etiam motu diurno”) fared little better. Again unanimously, the theologians decided that it had the same philosophical status as no. 1 and theologically was “at least erroneous.” Eleven experts signed the opinion. They have usually been dismissed as dunderheads. No generalization could be further from the truth. No, they did not know much about arithmetic, but they knew plenty about theology.
They were the following:195
(1) Peter Lombard, the archbishop of Armagh and primate of Ireland (not to be confused as incredibly enough has sometimes happened with his twelfth-century namesake, one of the inventors of scholastic theology), a prolific writer and almost as well regarded as a theologian in Rome as Bellarmino, his comrade-in-arms against James I of England;196
(2) Giacinto Petronio, Dominican, master of the sacred palace, chief papal censor, later Urban VIII’s point man in the effort to force the Roman Inquisition on the Spanish kingdom of Naples, one of the irritants in the background of the second phase of Galileo’s trial;197
(3) the Aragonese Raphael Riphoz, the number-three man in the Dominican hierarchy on the cardinal nephew’s recommendation;198
(4) Seghizzi;199
(5) Girolamo da Casalmaggiore (whose surname was apparently Cappello), Conventual Franciscan, appointed consultor of the Holy Office just about a year earlier;200
(6) Tomás de Lemos, O.P., one of the most distinguished Spanish theologians of the early seventeenth century and a major figure in the dispute about grace between the Dominicans and the Jesuits;201
(7) the Portuguese Augustinian Gregorio Nuñez Coronel, another member of the papal commission about grace and a consultor by this time for almost twenty years;
(8) Benedetto Giustiniani, S.J., a protégé but perhaps not a relative of Cardinal Giustiniani and once Caetani’s theologian, as well as Bandini’s teacher at the Collegio Romano, deeply involved with Bellarmino in responding to Venetian attacks on the Interdict in 1606;202
(9) Raphael Rastellius, Theatine, doctor of theology, about whom little is known before this moment and who would later lose his job as consultor and have other troubles with the Inquisition over his books;203
(10) Michele da Napoli, a member of Castelli’s order of Cassinese Benedictines and the most obscure of the lot;204 and
(11) Jacopo Tinto, Seghizzi’s socius and his relative, who went on to have a distinguished career as a provincial inquisitor, including in their hometown of Lodi.205
It is hard to miss the Inquisition’s dominance of this panel, seven of whose members also served it as consultors, experts who attended nearly all its meetings. Five were Dominicans, all but one of the total a member of a religious order. The panel was probably carefully chosen to represent a broad range of opinion to make its decision that much more solid. The Inquisition had its grounds for silencing Galileo. The fact that two witnesses agreed about Galileo’s Copernican allegiance, that both propositions documenting it were condemned, and yet the Inquisition still decided noli prosequi confirms that Copernicanism was not the real issue and was instead a smokescreen, intended to deflect the more serious charge of interpreting scripture.206
CHAPTER 3
The Precept of 26 February 1616
Once the consultors finished their work, the stage was set for the Inquisition to move against Galileo. On 26 February 1616, he had a meeting with Inquisitor Roberto Bellarmino. What happened has generated controversy almost from that moment forward.1 The discussion in this chapter and the next about precepts, and that in particular issued to Galileo in 1616, is long and complicated. This is necessary because so much past controversy over Galileo’s treatment and his trial has been conditioned by misunderstandings of the legal role of precepts, and the English language used in translations. In this chapter I shall deal with the textual evidence allowing a reconstruction of the event, and in the next with its legal meaning. I shall argue that Galileo received a precept that in all likelihood ordered him utterly to abandon Copernican ideas. Given improving knowledge of how the Inquisition worked, including how it produced and preserved its records, it becomes possible to create a consistent account of what happened in 1616.2 A point of terminology: I have chosen to use the term “precept” instead of “injunction” because it comes closer to praeceptum (Latin) or precetto (Italian) and also avoids confusion with an injunction in common law, which it only partly resembles. The key difference is that a competent court must issue an injunction, while in canon law any superior with the proper authority (including private) may give a precept.3
Six documents bear directly on the episode in Bellarmino’s palazzo at San Macuto (the present via del Seminario No. 120). All are in the Inquisition’s files, four of them in Galileo’s dossier. The first three as minutes have the greatest authority:
No. 1. Paul V’s order on 25 February to Bellarmino and Commissary Michelangelo Seghizzi transmitted via the Inquisition’s secretary Cardinal Giovanni Garzia Millini (hereafter “Paul’s order”);4 No. 2. A precept dated the next day; there is also an abbreviated (and irrelevant) eighteenth-century copy of both 1 and 2 (“the precept minute”);5 No. 3. The report of a meeting of the Congregation of the Inquisition on 3 March 1616 found in the decree register of that year (“the decretum”).6
The other three texts probably descend from No. 2 and therefore say less about the events of 1616:
No.
