The Roman Inquisition. Thomas F. Mayer

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 next day, summoned to Bellarmino’s palazzo, Galileo was probably brought into the cardinal’s innermost public chamber on the piano nobile, the second floor. Bellarmino, Seghizzi, and probably some Dominican friars awaited him, along with a notary. Bellarmino first “warned” Galileo. Galileo objected in some way, perhaps in so mild a fashion as looking grumpy. That “refusal” authorized Seghizzi to take the second action in Paul’s order, and he duly gave Galileo a precept “completely” to abandon Copernicus’s ideas and never again to deal with them in any way, shape or form. Or as the record in Galileo’s dossier has it:

      In¹⁵⁰ the palace, the said Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal Bellarmino’s usual residence and in his lordship’s rooms, the same lord cardinal, the above-mentioned Galileo having been summoned, and the same being in the said cardinal’s house, in the presence of the Very Reverend Father Brother Michelangelo Seghizzi of Lodi, Order of Preachers, Commissary general of the Holy Office, warned the aforesaid Galileo of the error of the abovesaid opinion [Copernicus’s] and that he should abandon it; and thereafter and immediately, in my [presence], etc. and of witnesses, etc. the same lord cardinal still besides being present, the abovesaid Father Commissary, the aforesaid Galileo still also present and established, enjoined and ordered him in His Holiness the pope’s own name and of the whole Congregation of the Holy Office that he completely give up the abovesaid opinion that the sun is the center of the universe and immobile and that the earth moves, nor hold, teach or defend the same otherwise in any manner in word or writing; otherwise, he will be proceeded against in the Holy Office. To which precept the same Galileo agreed and promised to obey. Above which, etc. Done at Rome as above, the Reverend Badino Nores of Nicosia in the kingdom of Cyprus and Agostino Mongardo of the place of the abbey of Rosa in the diocese of Montepulciano, familiars of the said lord cardinal being present, witnesses, etc.

      In short, Galileo received both a warning and a precept, a common combination as we shall see in the next chapter, and agreed to the second, which was administered and recorded in the proper form. He was completely to abandon his belief in Copernicus’s core beliefs, which he had publicly made his own in Sunspot Letters of 1613, and under no circumstances teach, defend, or deal with them. If he did, he would be imprisoned or proceeded against by the Holy Office, two more or less equivalent threats (see the next chapter). Galileo the Copernican had been silenced.

      The Aftermath

      Bellarmino stayed busy the next week. First, again on Paul’s orders, he put three books before the Index, Foscarini’s, Copernicus’s, and Diego Zuñiga’s Commentary on Job (1584).¹⁵¹ Foscarini’s book, despite Millini’s protection of its author, was to be condemned and the other two suspended.¹⁵² All of them got into trouble because of Galileo, including the relatively obscure Zuñiga whom Galileo had cited in his “Letter to Christina.” That Millini, one of the two most powerful cardinals in Rome, could not protect his client Foscarini emphasizes how poorly advised Galileo had been to rely on Alessandro Orsini. Millini missed this critical meeting altogether, maybe taken by surprise, since there is no sign the Index had previously considered any of these books.¹⁵³ The discussion may have been quite lively, since two of Galileo’s most powerful backers, Cardinals Maffeo Barberini and Bonifazio Caetani, allegedly tried to prevent the banning of Copernicus.¹⁵⁴ Their resistance may have led to his book’s being only implicitly labeled heretical and to its suspension “pending correction.” It may be that Galileo’s victim Francesco Ingoli, although not yet a consultor of the Index, advised his long-time patron Caetani to go easy on Copernicus.¹⁵⁵ Not too far into the future, Ingoli would be assigned to revise Copernicus’s book, which he argued was useful to mathematicians.¹⁵⁶ No matter how violent or lengthy or careful the debate, the important part of the final draft decree is almost identical to the original proposal. Then that same day, Thursday 3 March, Bellarmino announced to the Inquisition and the pope both what he had done to Galileo and almost in the same breath (both items appear in the same entry in the decree register) the Index’s proposed decree.¹⁵⁷ Six other cardinals attended, including Millini, Agostino Galamini, and Ferdinando Taverna, but, as on nearly all previous important occasions, neither Paolo Emilio Sfondrato nor, perhaps more important to Galileo, Giovanni Battista Bonsi. Unlike Sfondrato, Bonsi usually attended regularly, including on the last occasion of significance to Galileo when his Sunspot Letters had been sent to the censor; Bonsi may have been sulking after he had been frozen out when Millini originally delivered the order to Bellarmino a week earlier. After Bellarmino reported, Paul ordered the master of the sacred palace to issue the decree as drafted.

      The next day, Tuscan ambassador Piero Guicciardini reported on all this activity.¹⁵⁸ Despite his bias against Galileo, he at