The Roman Inquisition. Thomas F. Mayer

Cremonini’s case had opened in 1598 with exactly the same treatment it would shortly give Galileo, a precept not to teach a particular doctrine. When it heated up again in late April, Cremonini’s file fell into first Bellarmino’s hands and then those of Caccini’s patron Galamini, the second of whom was specifically asked to consider the impact of the precept on Cremonini’s failure to observe it both in general and in the particular case of refusing to revise his book as ordered. Put in these terms, Cremonini faced exactly the same situation as Galileo would in 1632.

      Trouble for one thus almost inevitably meant trouble for the other. Did Galileo miss a nudge and wink from Rome?

      In this crisis Galileo relied most heavily not on Maraffi but on Dini, a man like Maraffi of the third tier in Rome, a professional lawyer but nowhere near the top of the legal heap. It is important to the story that Galileo did not read his carefully worded letters closely. Dini had been nominated by the grand duke for the Florentine slot on the Rota, the papal supreme court. Cardinal Nephew Scipione Borghese’s candidate landed the job instead, and Dini wound up with the ordinary consolation prize of “referendary of both signatures,” appointed to practice in the Courts (Signatures) of Grace and Justice, a notch below the Rota.⁴⁸ He was involved with Francesco Ingoli, one of Galileo’s sparring partners, and Cardinal Bonifazio Caetani in the translation of Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos.⁴⁹ He was also one of Galileo’s numerous supporters in the Academy of the Crusca, the Italian equivalent of the Académie Française, the central agency in the invention of modern Italian.⁵⁰ More even than their work together in the increasingly successful Florentine offensive to dominate Italian culture, what really attracted Galileo to Dini was his family. He was the nephew of another Florentine, Cardinal Ottavio Bandini. In his garden on the Quirinal, Bandini had hosted the most important of the parties in Rome in 1611 at which Galileo had demonstrated his telescope and talked about sunspots, the phenomenon that was about to get him in serious trouble.⁵¹ Bandini was also Cardinal Giustiniani’s brother-in-law. Although not yet an Inquisitor or quasi-papal nephew, as he would be under Paul’s successor Gregory XV, Bandini represented money in the bank, and his nephew automatically became a VIP in Rome. Dini’s official status scarcely mattered. He had entrée.

      Galileo called up other soldiers of the Florentine mafia, including Michelangelo’s grand nephew.⁵² Much more important than Dini in the long term was Ciampoli, author of some of the most fawning letters Galileo ever got, which is saying a lot. Galileo ordered him and Dini to coordinate their efforts and decide jointly who else should get the “Letter to Castelli.”⁵³ Like Dini and Ciampoli, most of the rest of the Florentine establishment rallied strongly behind Galileo. This may not have been quite as good a thing as it sounds. For one, it produced a steady stream of reports, especially from Ciampoli in Rome and Castelli in Pisa, that Galileo had nothing to worry about. For another, its most powerful members, the cardinals who were in or close to a position to decide his case, were prepared to defend Galileo only within largely political limits, and not on the issues. If a theological argument could be made against him, politics would have to give way. In other words, if forced to choose between loyalty to the grand duke and to the pope, these men would choose the pope. One of them, Cardinal Francesco Del Monte, inherited his support of Galileo from his brother Guidobaldo who had gotten Galileo his first job; the cardinal had been among Galileo’s protectors in Rome in 1611.⁵⁴ He gladly hosted Galileo’s team of Dini, Ciampoli, and Maraffi.

      Far the most potent backer beyond Bellarmino that Ciampoli tried to enlist was another Florentine cardinal, Maffeo Barberini, the third main protagonist of this tale as Pope Urban VIII, elected in 1623. He was a patron of choice, including of Ciampoli; Matteo Caccini had tried to attach Tommaso to his service.⁵⁵ Barberini may have lacked social cachet, his merchant family having recently arrived in the metropolis from the Florentine outback, but they had moved fast. Maffeo’s uncle Francesco, using the same platform as Dini, referendary of the Signatures, had built up a large fortune and cleared the way for Maffeo’s rapid ascent by buying him offices, opening doors, and making him his heir.⁵⁶ Uncles backing nephews (including when they were actually sons) is true nepotism, the way Rome worked. Rome also worked increasingly by the law, and that is what Maffeo studied, that is, after he had received his basic education from the Jesuits in both Florence and the Collegio Romano and made a start on writing poetry.⁵⁷ Among a vast output, Barberini wrote a poem praising Galileo’s astronomical discoveries. His career in papal service had gone swimmingly, including a highly successful legation to France that left him with a permanent case of Francophilia. That made him an odd man out in strongly pro-Spanish Florence. Paul V rewarded him with a cardinalate. He had then succeeded Cardinal Giustiniani as legate in Bologna, as well as holding one bishopric in partibus infidelium (the archdiocese of Nazareth, in Turkish hands) and the real see of Spoleto where he had made a show of implementing Trent’s decree about visiting his diocese to see what needed correction. When Ciampoli first spoke to him, Barberini, like Cesi, urged caution lest “physical or mathematical limits” be exceeded.⁵⁸ This remained his line. Galileo did not pay much attention, even after Barberini later told Dini that the matter would likely come before either the Index or the Inquisition.⁵⁹

      Galileo’s begging letter to Dini arrived in Rome at almost the same time as Caccini. Galileo had also written Ciampoli, questioning the depth of his devotion, which Ciampoli took pains to demonstrate, calling Galileo among other things “infallible oracle.”⁶⁰ He, Dini, and Maraffi had been hard at work on Galileo’s behalf, and he assured Galileo that no one was making anything of the denunciations. Unfortunately for Galileo, Ciampoli was not the best-informed man in Rome, to put it mildly. His reports were often not quite right. For example, although he should have been keeping his ear as close to the Inquisition’s ground as possible and had at least a couple of times seen Inquisitor Bellarmino, he did not know the elementary fact that the Inquisition met at least twice a week, not once a month, a mistake he made after spending the entire day, so he claimed, with Maraffi who must surely have known better.⁶¹

      That was a comparatively trivial mistake. When Ciampoli told Galileo all was well, he was dead wrong. Three days before he wrote, the Congregation of the Inquisition met in the palazzo of the most senior Inquisitor, Bellarmino. Millini, Galamini, and four other cardinals, but not Sfondrato (he usually avoided meetings at Bellarmino’s residence), considered Lorini’s letter, together with a report on the “Letter to Castelli.”⁶² The six Inquisitors present judged the second letter to contain “erroneous propositions about the meaning and interpreters of sacred scripture” and ordered the archbishop and inquisitor of Pisa to get Galileo’s original from Castelli and send it to Rome.⁶³

      Ordering was one thing, but producing the letter proved to be quite another. As far as the records say, the inquisitor of Pisa never did anything more than acknowledge the order; in this, he was running true to the form of the rest of his career, as we shall see after he moved to Florence in a few months.⁶⁴ The archbishop, Francesco Bonciani, did better. He was an exceptionally smooth character even in an age full of them. He did not make the mistake of summoning Castelli to his presence. Instead, he waited until Castelli got back to Pisa and came to make the necessary courtesy visit. The archbishop smothered Castelli in kindness in an attempt to persuade him to abandon heliocentrism for his (and Galileo’s) own good. At one point, he took Castelli for a ride in his carriage. Eventually the archbishop said the idea that the earth moved was foolish, and Castelli replied in knee-jerk fashion that, no, the idea that it did not was. The archbishop naturally raised the level of his reply, saying that the belief in the earth’s movement needed to be condemned. Calming down, he finally asked Castelli for the “Letter.” Castelli replied that he had sent it back to Galileo.⁶⁵ The archbishop tried again a week later, attempting to win Castelli’s confidence by telling him that the cathedral preacher in Pisa had criticized Caccini’s “brutto termine” (displeasing, dangerous, or inopportune conclusion).⁶⁶ While that information may have been true, it failed to secure Castelli’s cooperation, so the archbishop tried a direct order. Castelli insisted he did not have the “Letter.”⁶⁷ The Inquisitors never got the original, nor do we have it now. The smoking gun disappeared.

      The cathedral preacher was Domenico Gori (1571–1620), Bonciani’s theologian, confessor, and uomo