“So they have the Assessor, and Sinceri. And they’ve stacked the Congregation. And the pope is only hearing what the Congregation tells him. And he’s still angry.”
“As usual. He’d be out of his mind right now anyway. There was another bad horoscope published in the Avvisi, and now he’s having all his food tested. He’s perfectly primed, what can I say.”
Cartophilus nodded. For a long time he stared at the paving stones, thinking things over.
“What are we going to do?” Buonamici asked.
Cartophilus shrugged. “Let’s see what happens in this fourth deposition. I don’t think there’s any way we can avoid that one. Depending on how it goes, we’ll see. We may have to intervene.”
“If we can!”
“If we can. We’ve got Cardinal Bentivoglio in place, and Gherardini. They should be able to help, if we need it. All right. Keep your ear cocked and find out what you can. Let’s be in touch right after the fourth deposition is over.”
And he slipped back into the unquiet Roman night.
On Midsummer’s Day of 1633, six weeks after his third deposition, Galileo was summoned back to the Vatican to submit to a fourth one.
Maculano said, “Do you have anything to say?”
Galileo, sticking to Italian and holding to an impassive manner that hid his irritation and fear, replied, “I have nothing to say.”
There was a long silence. Maculano spent the time looking down at his notes on the table. Finally he said, very slowly, as if reading, “Do you hold, or have you held, and for how long, that the sun is the center of the world and the earth is not the center of the world, but moves also with diurnal motion?”
Galileo too hesitated before speaking. This was a new line of attack, a direttissima. When supposedly they already had a deal.
Finally he replied, “A long time ago—that is, before the decision of the Holy Congregation of the Index, and before I was issued that injunction, I was undecided, and regarded the two opinions, those of Ptolemy and Copernicus, as disputable, because either the one or the other could be true in nature. But after the above-mentioned decision, assured by the prudence of the authorities, all my uncertainty stopped, and I held, as I still hold, as very true and undoubted Ptolemy’s opinion, namely the stability of the earth and the motion of the sun.”
Once again, a very questionable assertion under oath.
Maculano tapped the fat copy of the Dialogo on the table for emphasis. “You are presumed to have held the said Copernican opinion after that time, from the manner and procedure in which the said opinion is discussed and defended in this book you published after that time, indeed from the very fact that you wrote and published the said book. Therefore you are asked to freely tell the truth about whether you hold or have held that opinion.”
Therefore you are asked. Maculano seemed to be distancing himself from these questions—as well he might, considering how they broke the deal he had made. These were not his questions; he had had these questions pressed on him from somewhere above. Galileo could either take comfort from that realization or be newly afraid, depending on which aspect of it he considered. Meanwhile he had to answer very, very carefully.
“In regard to my writing of the Dialogo already published, I did not do so because I held Copernicus’s opinion to be true,” he said steadily. “Instead, deeming only to be doing a beneficial service, I explained the physical and astronomical reasons that can be advanced for one side and for the other; I tried to show that neither those in favor of this opinion or that, have the strength of a conclusive proof, and that therefore to proceed with certainty one would have to resort to the determination of more subtle doctrines. As one can see in many places in the Dialogo.”
This was not actually true, but what else could he say? His ruddy complexion had turned beet red, and he stared at Maculano as if to burn holes in him.
Maculano, however, now kept his eyes on his notes. The trial had gone over his head.
Galileo saw this, and went on. “So for my part, I conclude,” as if studying it objectively from the outside, “that I do not hold, and after the determination of the authorities I have not held, the condemned opinion.”
Maculano paused, then read on from the sheet he held as if he had not heard Galileo’s response.
“From the book itself, and the reasons advanced for the affirmative side, namely that the earth moves and the sun is motionless, you are presumed, as it was stated, that you hold Copernicus’s opinion, or at least that you held it at the time you wrote. Therefore you are now told, that unless you decide to proffer the truth, one would have recourse to the remedies of the law and to appropriate steps against you.”
The instruments of torture were laid out on a table against the side wall of the room. All this was according to the strict laws governing the Inquisition; first the warnings, then the display of the instruments of torture; only after that, if the accused persisted in obstructing the judgment, came the use of the instruments. As the Inquisition’s manual “On the Manner of Interrogating Culprits by Torture” stated it:
The culprit having denied the crimes, and the latter not having been fully proved, in order to learn the truth it is necessary to proceed against him by means of a rigorous examination. The function of torture is to make up for the shortcomings of witnesses, when they cannot adduce a conclusive proof against the culprit.
As, for instance, now. But Galileo could not admit to more than he already had admitted to, without putting himself in extreme danger of admitting to heresy. His back was already to the wall.
Also, unfortunately, he was getting more and more angry at Maculano, and at those above Maculano who had ordered this move; you could see it in the way the back of his neck went dark red, and in the set of his shoulders. Anyone who had ever worked for him would have exited the room immediately.
He spoke tightly, grimly, the words chopped each from the next. “I do not hold this opinion of Copernicus, and I have not held it after being ordered by injunction to abandon it. For the rest, here I am in your hands; do as you please.”
“Tell the truth!” Maculano ordered. “Otherwise we will have recourse to torture.”
Galileo, with no idea of what the pope might want him to confess, drew himself up. “I am here to submit, but I have not held this opinion after the determination was made, as I said.”
Silence in the room.
And since nothing else could be done for the execution of the decision, after he signed he was sent to his place.
The execution of the decision, the scribe had written. Which decision—to haul him in for this added interrogation and confession—ultimately must have been Urban’s. But why that had been decided, no one but Urban seemed to know.
Galileo was again confined to the rooms of the Dominican dormitory where he had been held during the time of his first three depositions. This was a bad sign, retrograde and ominous. There was no way to tell what would happen next, or when. Whatever deal or understanding there had been was obviously gone.
He sat on his bed, staring at the wall, eating a bit of his supper, drinking his cup of wine thoughtfully. He lay down late in the night, and only after he fell asleep did he moan and groan—although it has to be said that he often moaned and groaned while he slept, no matter what the circumstances. His sleep was not comfortable to him. But his insomnia was even worse.
The Congregation of the Holy Office was composed of ten cardinals, and since the Borgia was one of them, it was not a sure thing that Urban’s will would determine their judgment. Borgia wanted Urban brought down so badly that the possibility of Urban being poisoned was on quite a few minds, most of all Urban’s. It was entirely conceivable that faced by this bitter animosity Urban might cast Galileo into the fire, to clear the area around him so that he could fight on without liabilities.