be reluctant” or “unwilling.” I do not need to belabor the point that this last meaning agrees exactly with “incontinenti” as translated by Kurig. Thus Galileo would not have had to do anything more than hesitate to obey or give some sign of annoyance, and Seghizzi would have thought himself within his rights to give the precept.
Unfortunately, Kurig’s elegant solution is wrong. I have found no other instances of incontinenti used in the way he suggests, in a search of the Patrologia latina database, a less systematic survey of other medieval and early modern writing, or, most important, among lawyers. Nowhere in their extensive attention to the word is a definition like Kurig’s so much as hinted at. More curiously yet, none of the commentators I have checked discuss the phrase successive ac incontinenti.
Thus we know much more about the meaning of incontinenti than of successive. Unfortunately, we know least of all about the phrase successive ac incontinenti. Wohlwill correctly identified successive ac incontinenti as a “formula” that he translated in a number of ways.129 As far as anyone now knows, it appears for the first time in the precept minute and might therefore have been invented specially for Galileo.130 (I hasten to add that I make this point facetiously to underscore another crucial gap in our knowledge.) The only evidence I have found in sources generated by the Roman Inquisition comes from Trinity College, Dublin, MS 1232, which postdates Galileo’s trial.131 Unlike most of these volumes, it is composed of case files rather than sentences. Beretta looked it over, but confined himself to the two instances of successive ac incontinenti, ignoring other terms used in similar ways that may help to define the phrase. The first of the two occurrences he did discuss is much like the one in Masini in which a prisoner confronted another prisoner; that is, some indeterminate interval of time must have intervened between two acts. The phrase follows the accused’s signature at the end of a verbale with the note that he was returned to prison and successive ac incontinenti searched.132 The other case is even less help, except that there are two other phrases on the same page that appear to serve the same function. The passage begins with “successive et immediate ubi coram S. fuit ei dictum per Dominum an velit repeti testes examinatos in presenti causa quia dabuntur, etc.” (“successive ac immediate where in the presence of his Holiness the lord [cardinal] said to him whether he wished the witnesses examined in the present case to be reexamined”), to which the accused replied in the negative: “Successive et incontinenti supradictus D. fuit ipsi (?) assignatus terminus decem dierum ad faciendum suas defensiones” (successive et incontinenti the abovementioned lord [cardinal] had assigned him [the suspect] a term of ten days to making his defenses), which he also declined: “Deinde mandavit dominus reponi ad locum suum” (“Then the lord [cardinal] ordered him put back in his place”).133 Thus we have incontinenti parallel to immediate but also to deinde, which simply means thereafter, almost the same thing as successive. There are many cases where deinde or even more basically tunc (then) do the work that successive ac incontinenti sometimes do.134 In an intensive and extensive search in other sources, I have found all of three occurrences in addition to the three just cited. One instance, missing any conjunction, comes between the end of one deposition and the beginning of the next in a processo in Archivio di Stato, Venice, Santo Uffizio, b. 71, an unnumbered and unfoliated piece dated 4 October 1651 at the head. The other two have a conjunction, in the first case of 1630 in the middle of the conferral of a laurea in philosophy at La Sapienza, the second between the first and second questions of the suitability hearing of an auditor of the Rota dating from 1632.135 In short, the translation of successive ac incontinenti as “immediately thereafter” is open to doubt.
Seghizzi’s Career and Its Reflection on His Administration of Galileo’s Precept
The legal impropriety hypothesis demands as a corollary that Seghizzi acted illegally and to say the least incautiously. None of those who defend this thesis have investigated Seghizzi’s tenure as commissary or the rest of his career.136 His tombstone in the cathedral of Lodi encapsulates his success as an inquisitor, calling him “hammer of heretics.” Of course, a hammer can be wielded in any number of ways, including by a homicidal maniac. This was not Seghizzi’s style. Quite the contrary. He was a stickler for proper procedure, of which he had a good deal of experience, beginning as socio of the commissary in Rome from 1601 to 1603.137 Then he was made inquisitor of Cremona and six years later promoted to the the Roman Inquisition’s highest-ranking provincial tribunal, Milan.138 While there, he engaged in a similar procedure to giving a precept (see the next chapter) and was ordered to “gravely warn” (“graviter monere”) a Cassinese Benedictine monk in 1612.139 In both places he peppered the Congregation with questions, many of which led to the elaboration of general principles.140 However that may be, they demonstrated his pronounced caution. The Congregation evidently wanted such a man as commissary, which he became just about a year before he gave Galileo his precept.141 Commissary was an important post that often led to higher office, and it would be natural to think that Seghizzi had the kind of ambition that many other of its holders displayed. While he did not have much experience by early 1616, it seems likely that he would have been inclined to handle Galileo’s case with extreme care, especially in Bellarmino’s presence, lest he damage his prospects. Besides, acting in the reckless fashion often attributed to him would be completely out of line with his previous career.
Not long after Seghizzi gave Galileo his precept, an odd thing happened. Negotiations began for his return to his birthplace of Lodi as its bishop. The holder was allowed to resign on 22 May, and Seghizzi underwent the examination required of a prospective bishop two days later.142 He was “elected” on 25 May and provided by the pope on 13 June.143 The process went remarkably quickly. Unfortunately, Seghizzi died shortly after taking up his new post, making it difficult to interpret the move. It might seem that he had been rusticated for violating orders in Galileo’s case (a point the legal impropriety theorists have never made). Two other interpretations seem much more likely: (1) he went home to acquire seasoning for further promotion, a bishopric often coming in the cursus honorum of an Inquisitor; or (2) he was forced out to make way for his more highly favored successor, Desiderio Scaglia. The second possibility is supported by the fact that Scaglia’s socio, Deodato Seghizzi da Lodi, had already taken office on 7 September.144 Since he almost had to have been Seghizzi’s relative, this looks like a quid pro quo. Even better for Seghizzi, his own socio, Jacopo Tinti, became inquisitor of Casale in August 1616, whence he quickly moved to Como.145 Since ordinarily it seems that the commissary named his own socio, the fact that Scaglia did not, together with Tinti’s appointment and Seghizzi’s own to his hometown see, makes it look as if these were bribes intended to induce him to make way for Scaglia.146
The Precept of 26 February 1616
With a better understanding of the documents recording the event and of the role and character of the Roman Inquisition’s principal agent on that day, we are in a position to make better sense of what happened when Galileo met Cardinal Bellarmino and Commissary Seghizzi on 26 February 1616.
Seghizzi received his orders indirectly from Paul V on 25 February.
The147 Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal [Gian Garzia] Millini [secretary of the Inquisition] notified the Reverend Fathers Assessor [Paolo Emilio Filonardi] and Commissary of the Holy Office [Seghizzi] that the censure of the Father theologians on the propositions of Galileo, mathematician, having been reported, that the sun is the center of the world and immobile by local motion and [that] the earth moves even with a daily motion, His Holiness ordered the Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal [Roberto] Bellarmino to summon to his presence the said Galileo and warn him to abandon148 the said opinion; and if he refused149 to obey, the Father Commissary, in the presence of a notary and witnesses, should give him a precept that he completely abstain from teaching or defending this sort of doctrine and opinion, or dealing with it; if indeed he should not agree, he will be imprisoned.
The
