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2010 02 RenaissanceBy Marc Rugani
RENAISSANCE
My name is Galileo Galilei, son of Vincenzo Galilei and Giulia Ammannati di Pescia. May God be merciful on my dear parents and let Him hold them close for all eternity. How badly I miss them since they were taken to Heaven. There’s not a single day goes by without me thinking of them, and remembering the sweet songs and music of my dear father!
I’ll be joining them soon, because I’m old and weary. It has been 69 years since that day, the 15th February in the year 1564, when my dearest mother brought me into this world in the beautiful town of Pisa! Now my old bones ache and my eyes can barely make out the light from the solar star.
And I feel even older since that terrible day when the Church condemned my teaching and forced me to deny all I believe in, Truth, and to uphold its opposite, to admit that I was false and heretical.
Me, wrong! When I speak only the truth!
Me, a heretic! When my faith in God and my love for the Lord Jesus and all his saints has never wavered for an instant!
How tired I am!
I always have been and still am a learned man – it’s widely recognised, even by the Pope and the Church, until that accursed day...!
My life, which I can feel drawing to a close, can be summed up in a few words. To earn a living and raise my family I became a teacher. I sought to elucidate just a few of the world’s many secrets. I published some work. That’s it – so much and yet so little.
I began my studies at the University of Pisa, with mathematics and then moved onto Padua, where I studied applied mechanics, mathematics, astronomy and military architecture. Then back to Pisa, where I was proud to be appointed First Mathematician of the university and First Mathematician and Philosopher to the Grand Duke of Tuscany and then finally Consul to the Academy of Florence. My classes were very well attended and my teaching highly sought after. I was very successful. Yes, this, too, is the truth! With God’s help - for which I pray every day, blessed be his name - I transmitted to my students all the knowledge I could, not only my own discoveries, but also those of my contemporaries and of the great scholars of the past. I tried to communicate my passion for research and my quest for knowledge. Was I successful? I hope so.
I made a number of important discoveries: about the centre of gravity of certain solids, the oscillation of a pendulum, about cycloids, the proportional compass, the water pump as well as the law of constant acceleration, the thermoscope and the microscope. Yes, all of that! It might seem a lot until you consider the vast number of subjects on this earth and all around us that are still to be researched!
I also perfected – perhaps my greatest achievement – Lippershey’s telescope, making it 20 times more powerful and improving immeasurably its optical quality! What an extraordinary adventure it was, working on that telescope, and what astounding discoveries I was able to make with it! I remember demonstrating it in front of the entire Senate from the top of the campanile in St Mark’s Square in Venice – a triumph! What a great day that was! Then in front of the Tuscan courtiers, with just the same success! Is it sinfully boastful to rejoice in the memory of these moments? I leave God to judge in all his wisdom and omniscience. I was the first to observe the mountains on the moon, the Milky Way, sunspots, Jupiter’s satellites, the phases of Venus, to calculate longitude through the position of Jupiter’s satellites. Yes, all that and more!
I published numerous papers, some of which caused a considerable stir, most notably a treatise on mechanics entitled “Sidereus Nuncius”, on my discoveries concerning the skies, the sun, the planets and the stars, (which my friend Descartes translated into French as “the Celestial Messenger”), the “Saggiatore” and then the undeservedly famous ”Dialogo” on the two great world systems – which was the instrument of my downfall!
Alas, I now realise how proud and blinkered I was throughout this affair – too sure of my past successes, too confident of my political and religious support, so full of myself, so conceited; I deserved what befell me – I should have been subtler, more moderate in my terms, cleverer in managing my enemies and especially those who had doubts, who didn’t know what to think or where the truth lay. God has punished me for my pride!
I now realise that my “Dialogo” was a mediocre, biased dialogue, sadly lacking in objectivity – but, alas, too late! And now the Pope, who used to treat me as a friend and trusted me, feels that I have betrayed him. I’ve lost! And it is all my own fault!
Yet Copernicus is right! And I’m right too! While Aristotle is wrong! Utterly wrong! And the geocentric system is wrong! The truth is that the Earth is round, that the planets orbit the Sun and that Earth is not at the centre of the universe!
But I must keep silent.
It was 17 years ago – the 25th and 26th February 1616, two horrific days for myself and all men of learning - that the Vatican condemned the theories of Copernicus (which I passionately support) as a misguided hypothesis; this in the form of an edict to be followed by all Christians!
And on the 22nd of June in this year 1633, exactly a month ago to the day, the Vatican banned my work “Dialogo” and condemned me to life in prison, having first forced me to renounce all my ideas and convictions. Cursed be the day!
I was absolutely terrified! They threatened to torture me, to break my bones, to rip and burn my flesh! I knew that I would not be able to withstand it. I can’t imagine any condemned criminal is able to endure the torture inflicted by an executioner, skilled in the art of administering pain, intensifying the victim’s suffering over the course of minutes, hours, days until he breaks down into a final confession, total renunciation or death.
I recanted!
I denied it all: my scientific convictions, all my years of study and research, all my experiments, the evidence I had built up - my own, and those of Copernicus, Kepler, all the others, all swept away, erased, reduced to nothing.
Then I read out the shameful declaration that the Vatican had prepared for my appearance before God’s Court. This is it, word for word:
“I, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei of Florence, sixty nine years old, brought here to be judged before the most eminent and holy cardinals, inquisitors against all Christian heresy, holding before me the Holy Gospels, do hereby swear that I hold to be true everything that is affirmed, declared and taught by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, that I have always done so and will, with God’s grace, forever continue to do so. Despite this, even though I had been ordered by the Holy Office to abandon completely all false belief that the Sun is at the centre of the world and does not move, and that the Earth is not at the centre of the world and does move, and no longer to defend or teach this false doctrine in any way, either by written or spoken word, and after having been warned that this doctrine does not conform to the Holy Scriptures, I nevertheless wrote and published a book in which I treat the subject of this illegal doctrine and present it with compelling arguments, without in any way refuting it; all for which I have been held under strong suspicion of heresy, for having professed that the Sun is at the centre of the world, does not move and that the Earth is not the centre and does move...”
What a terrible memory! How ashamed I am of my cowardice and fear! I am constantly haunted and weighed down by the thought of my renunciation!
And now how old and tired I feel! My eyesight is failing. I often think I would like to die.
I am fortunate that the Pope, in all his mercy, has shown his gentleness in commuting my punishment to a lifetime of house-confinement; I have avoided prison and the dark dungeons of the Holy Office and I now live in Sienna in the residence of Archbishop Piccolomini.
I am also fortunate that I have loyal friends who have not abandoned me and that many of the learned men of Europe have continued to show me support.
For example, a letter from Kepler arrived today.
His letter is strange, but that doesn’t greatly surprise me; Kepler is a great scholar, for whom I have much respect and consideration, but he believes in astrology! He collared me on the subject with great passion on a number of occasions, trying to convince me. As a man of science, I am outraged by his belief in all this ridiculous nonsense of the influence of the signs of the zodiac, the Sun, the Moon, Venus in the ascendant and the rest of this astrological construct. He of all people, who in other respects shows such rigour in his work, and applies such a critical, perceptive mind to all scientific questions! It remains a great mystery to me.
It’s a long letter, three pages in beautiful calligraphy; he expresses warm support and encouragement and then announces several extraordinary findings that he claims to have made during some of his recent astrological work. Here is what he said:
“Dear friend, I know that you are sceptical of some of my ideas, but I must tell you that during the last few days, as I’ve been looking into several astral subjects, including your own, it has become clear that a number of favourable influences will soon be working to modify in a significant and definitive manner the unhappy position in which you find yourself.
We are talking about quite far-off events, since Jupiter and Saturn, the planets in question, turn slowly.
But before I go into the nature of these influences, I want to give you some extraordinary news: there are more planets in the skies than are currently known to man! I realise how astonished you must be, dear friend, but, failing some mistake on my part – which is highly unlikely, since I have taken every precaution and rechecked my calculations innumerable times – astronomers that follow in our footsteps will probably discover at least three new planets, at a very great distance from the Sun, but turning around it just like the others! I know that writing such things down can be dangerous, but I run little risk compared to you, being as I am so far from Rome and the Holy Office. I am unsure as to the name of these planets – interpretation is not always obvious – but I give them to you as best I can understand them: Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Don’t you find that astonishing? Three more planets in the heavens, outside Saturn’s orbit! I leave to your imagination the joy and extraordinary enthusiasm with which I have been filled since the zodiac revealed this to me! Three more planets orbiting the Sun, which makes, if we exclude the Moon that bows to the Earth, a total of nine that dance in a ring in the sky, all in honour of the star of day! A revolution indeed! Dear friend, please write to give me your opinion, to which I attach such high value, as fast as you can, but of course taking every necessary precaution given your delicate position - I can’t wait to receive your letter!
I have also read, my dear friend, a second piece of news that is equally exciting and that will fill you with joy, to wit, the precious heliocentric theories of Copernicus are finally due to be recognised and live again! It’s quite true, I assure you. There is no doubt – it was clearly written in the stars. Complete recognition, including from the Church and the Pope. A total renaissance of your ideas which are thus destined some day to illuminate our world! Of course, years will pass before this moment arrives because, as I wrote before, these predictions rely on the slow-moving planets Jupiter and Saturn. It may be some time away, but it will happen, I guarantee you! All your work, your study and your discoveries will be validated! I rejoice for you, dear friend! And I rejoice for all learning, because finally Truth will shine forth and light up the World!
Lastly, during my analyses a mysterious word turned up: “Galilieo”, which must in some way be linked to you, which is why I tell you of it. I couldn’t discern anything apart from this word, nor derive any explanation of what it meant, just a date far off, in the third millennium: 2014. I cannot tell you anything further.
Whichever way you look at it, everything revealed to me by the stars proves to be extremely favorable to you and I rejoice at that. And I am absolutely delighted that my letter can bring this good news to you.
Dear friend, please trust me and believe in the truth of my predictions: your ideas will live again and the heliocentric truth will one day be recognized!”
That is what Kepler wrote to me.
I have no truck with astrology, but his letter overwhelmed me. If only Kepler might be right! If only his predictions might come true! What if the future turned out to be like Kepler sees it in his zodiac and his planet movements! I would have my revenge and both the ideas of myself and Copernicus would rise from the ashes and would triumph. How marvelous it would be to see them recognized as the truth!
After living through such dark days and suffering such tortures of the mind, I feel as if I too am born again, living intensely with wild hope in my heart.
Yes, yes, Kepler must be right! God is just and good and he has forgiven me for my sinful pride! I haven’t lost and I’m going to win through and my ideas will live again. Truth will triumph!
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