After about a month in Rome, Father Riccardi, whom Philip III of Spain had long ago nicknamed Father Monster, agreed to a meeting with Galileo to discuss the question of Holy Office censorship and the ban of 1616. This meeting was crucial to Galileo’s hopes, so he was pleased when it was scheduled.
But in the meeting itself, Riccardi was very clear and unequivocal. His views were only Urban’s here, Riccardi said, and the pope wanted Copernicanism to remain theory only, with never a suggestion that it had any basis in physical fact. “I myself am sure that angels move all the heavenly bodies,” Riccardi added at the end of this warning. “Who else could do it, seeing that these things are in the heavens?”
Galileo nodded unhappily.
“Don’t concern yourself too much,” Riccardi advised. “We judge that Copernicanism is merely rash, rather than perverse or heretical. But the fact of the matter is, this is no time to be rash.”
“Do you think it’s possible that the pope could say that the theory is permissible to be discussed as a hypothetical mathematical construct only, ex suppositione?”
“Perhaps. I will ask him about that.”
Galileo settled in to Guiducci’s house in Rome. He had begun to understand that his visit needed to be a campaign. Weeks passed, then months. Urban agreed to see him several times, although they were for the most part very formal and brief occasions, and in the company of others. At no time did Urban meet his eye.
Only during his final audience of the visit did the matter of Copernicus come up, and even then, only accidentally. Ciampoli was the one who raised the subject, seizing a lull in the conversation to remark, “Signor Galilei’s fable concerning the cicada and the varying origins of music was both witty and profound, wasn’t it? I recall you said it was your favorite part when I read it to you.”
Galileo, his face reddening, watched the pope closely. Urban continued to contemplate a bed of flowers, apparently still thinking of other things. Even in the months of Galileo’s stay, the carapace of papal power had thickened on him. His eyes were glazed; sometimes he stared at Galileo as if trying to remember who he was.
But now he said, “Yes,” firmly, as if waking up. He shifted his absent gaze to Galileo, looked him straight in the eye for a second, then looked at the flowers again. “Yes, it seemed to refer to what we have spoken of before. A parable of God’s omnipotence, which is sometimes overlooked in philosophical discussions, it seems to us, although we see the power everywhere. As we are sure you will agree.”
“Of course, Holiest Holiness.” Galileo gestured helplessly at the garden. “Everything illustrates that.”
“Yes. And because God is omnipotent, there is no way for mankind to be sure of the physical cause of anything whatsoever. Isn’t that right.”
“Yes….” But Galileo’s head tilted to the side, despite his efforts to stay motionless and deferent. “Although one has to remember that God created logic, too. And it is clear He is logical.”
“But He is not confined by logic, because He is omnipotent. So, whether a physical explanation is logical or not, whether it conserves the appearances poorly or adequately, or even with perfect precision, all that makes no difference when it comes to determining that explanation’s actual truth in the physical world. Because if God had wanted to do it otherwise, He could have. If He wanted to do it one way while making it look like another way, He could do that too.”
“I cannot imagine that God would want to deceive His—”
“Not deceive! God does not deceive. That would be as if to say God lied. It is men who deceive themselves, by thinking they can understand God’s work by their own reasoning.” Another round-eyed quick look, sharp and dangerous. “If God had wanted to construct a world that looked like it ran one way, when actually it ran another way, even a supposedly impossible way, then that is perfectly within His abilities. And we have no way to judge His intentions or desires. For any mere mortal to assert otherwise would be an attempted restriction on God’s omnipotence. So any time we assert that a phenomenon has only a single cause, we offend Him. As your curious and beautiful fable makes so eloquently clear.”
“Yes,” Galileo said, thinking hard. Again he thought, but could not say, But why would God lie to us? And so he had to think of something else. “We see through a glass darkly,” he admitted.
“Exactly.”
“And so, this line of argument suggests that anything can be supposed?” Galileo dared to ask. “Theories, or simply patterns seen, and only expressed ex suppositione?”
“I am sure you will always, in all your studies and writing, continue to make our argument for omnipotence. This is the work God has sent you to do. When you make this ultimate point clear, then all your philosophy is blessed. There is no contradiction to our teaching.”
“Yes, Sanctissimus.”
Escorting Galileo out of the Vatican after the audience, Ciampoli was ecstatic. “That was His Holiness telling you to proceed! He said that if you included his argument then you can discuss any given theory you like! He has given you permission to write about Copernicus, do you see?”
“Yes,” Galileo said shortly. He himself could not be sure what Urban had meant. Barberini had changed.
Even with his telescope the lynx-eyed astrologer cannot look into the inner thoughts of the mind.
—FRA ORAZIO GRASSI
SO GALILEO RETURNED TO FLORENCE, willing to believe that Urban had given him permission to describe the Copernican explanation as a theoretical construct—a mathematical abstraction that could account for the observed planetary motions. And if he made the supposition convincing enough, the pope might then give it his approval, as he had the various arguments in Il Saggiatore. And then all would be well.
And so, over the next several years, he wrote his Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems, which was known around the house as the Dialogo. He wrote it in fits and starts, between interruptions required by the grand duke, or by his family situation, or by illnesses; but always one way or another he kept at it, as if under some kind of compulsion.
In those years, the first question every day was whether Galileo would be well enough to get up. Every time he was ill, it could be just a febbre efimera, a one-day fever, or on the other hand something that would fell him for a month or two. Everyone feared his illnesses as being little catastrophes in the household’s routine; but of course the plague also was abroad, and so his complaints could always be the harbinger of something much worse. One day, one of the workshop’s glassblowers died of plague, which gave them all a terrible fright. Galileo closed the workshop, so the artisans had nothing to do; they shifted out to the field, the barn and granary, the vineyard and cellar. Bellosguardo now served as farm to the convent of San Matteo, and that took a lot of work. And it was true that out in the open air, the plague seemed less of a danger. Out under the sky, tall clouds billowing over the green hills, it looked safer.
Some could not shake the plague fear, however. Galileo’s son Vincenzio and his new wife Sestilia, a wonderful woman, moved away from Florence for a time, leaving their infant behind in the care of La Piera and a wet nurse. Why they left the babe no one could understand, and everyone assumed it was yet more of Vincenzio’s spineless ditherings. No one could figure out why Sestilia Bocchineri had married him. There was a lot of gossip about it. Galileo’s household at this time numbered about fifty people, including still the family of his brother Michelangelo, who played on in Munich. Views on the explanation for Sestilia were split between the notion that Galileo had found her in Venice and paid her to marry his son, or that God had noticed Galileo’s uncharacteristic visit to the house of the Virgin Mary, in Loreto, the month before Sestilia had appeared in their lives, and had therefore rewarded his devotion. This sacred home of the Virgin Mary Casa Santa, had landed in Loreto during the Crusades, after flying across the Mediterranean from the Holy Land to escape destruction at the hands of the Saracens. Galileo on his return from his pilgrimage had been heard to remark that the place had a pretty good foundation, all things considered, but God could have ignored that impertinence and blessed his family anyway. There had to be some explanation for a girl as good as Sestilia going for a sponge like Vincenzio.