His look now suggested that he had not forgotten the denunciation, that he knew he could use it if he wanted to. But Galileo did not know enough to read the look. He had his eye on one thing only, and seizing the thorny opportunity, he felt a quiet moment come on them and asked, “Your Holiness, I wonder if you will bless me with your opinion of my book on the world systems, which I have continued to write, and am ready to submit to Fra Riccardi for approval?”

Urban’s brow furrowed and his look darkened. “If our commissioner is to approve it, why do you ask us? Do you think we would countermand our own appointment to the Holy Office of the Congregation?”

“Not at all, Your Holiness. It’s just that your word is all in all to me.”

“You have made it clear in your book that God can do anything He pleases, correct?”

“Very much so, Holiness. That is the book’s point.”

At the back of the Vatican garden, Cartophilus trembled to hear this. It was impossible to tell from the look on Galileo’s face whether he knew he was lying or not.

For a long time Urban too regarded him closely. The kneeling old astronomer looked like a dressed barrel topped by an upraised head, his bearded red face open and sincere. Finally the pope nodded, a single slow, deep nod—a blessing in itself. “You may proceed with our blessing, Signor Galileo Galilei.”

These words surprised several of the people who heard it. The sound of the sentence hung in the air. Hope itself seemed to hoist Galileo back to his feet, as if he were a much younger man than the one who had knelt.

Francesco Niccolini provided him a room in Ferdinando’s Roman embassy, so that for the next two months Galileo could be comfortable as he went out every day to do his best to align the rest of the forces in Rome in the way Cesi would have. Urban’s private approval had been given, but clearly there was more diplomatic work to be done to secure the project. And yet Galileo had never been a great diplomat. All his life he had flattered his superiors excessively while also presuming to know much more than they did. This was not a good combination, and worse yet, he was still quick with the cutting sarcastic rejoinder if anyone disagreed with him. Thus it was no coincidence that after five visits he had more enemies in Rome than friends. And with rumors of his purpose in the capital widespread, there were many now out to subvert him if they could.

They were effective. At the end of the two months he had managed only to secure a partial permission to publish from Riccardi, conditional on Riccardi’s approval of the full text, which would come only after revision of any areas deemed problematic.

In truth, given the overall situation, he could have expected little more. The words of Urban were the ones he had wanted to hear most, anyway.

So he returned to Florence. He was beginning to hate these trips to Rome, and yet of course they had all been spring picnics compared to the one left to come.

While he was gone, Maria Celeste had found a suitable villa for rent in Arcetri, called Il Gioièllo, the Jewel. The rent was only thirty-five scudi a year—much less than Bellosguardo’s hundred, because it was so much smaller, and in a less convenient location. But Galileo declared that despite the diminution in size he would keep the entire staff, so everyone was happy. They left Bellosguardo, where they had lived together for fourteen years, without a backward glance.

Galileo was particularly happy with the new house. From his bedroom window on the second floor he could look down the lane and see the corner of the convent of San Matteo. He could visit every day, and he did. The house rules there had relaxed to the point where he was free to enter the central hall, and to help the women with their domestic repairs. He did carpentry, he fixed their clock. He wrote them little plays to perform, and even music to sing. Once he intertwined all his favorites of his father’s melodies into one polyphonic chorus, which brought tears to his eyes to hear. He played the lute for them.

Maria Celeste was in her own personal paradise. Arcangela, on the other hand, still would not speak to him. In fact she had stopped speaking entirely; also bathing and combing her hair. She had the look of a madwoman, which was only appropriate; she was a madwoman. They had to keep her away from the wine cellar, even the kitchen. Maria Celeste fed her by hand. If she hadn’t, her sister would have starved. But on they went.

His household still included his sister’s family, his brother’s family, Vincenzio and Sestilia and child, the servants, and a number of artisans, including Mazzoleni and his family, now jammed into a shed off the larger shed they had converted into the new workshop. Despite La Piera’s best efforts in the kitchen, it was chaos every day. Galileo ignored all that and persisted in getting the Dialogo published, now by a new publisher in Florence, which meant he could work directly with the printers in their shop. It proceeded very slowly, but eventually it was time to submit it to Riccardi and get his approval, if he could.

At this point Galileo had obtained permission to publish from the Medicis’ bishop’s vicar, from the Florentine Inquisitor, and from the grand duke’s censor. Riccardi had read some chapters and discussed their contents with Urban, he said, but now he told Galileo that he would need to read the whole manuscript in its final form. That was bad enough, but also the plague had again forced a quarantine on everything moving up and down the peninsula, and a bulky manuscript was unlikely to make it through the whole way. Galileo offered to send the preface and conclusion, which was where the potential problems were dealt with, he said, while the main text of the book could be reviewed and reported on by someone in Florence chosen by Riccardi. Riccardi agreed to this, and his designated reviewer, Fra Giacinto Stefani, read the main text with minute attention to detail, and was won over to the book’s views in the process.

Meanwhile, Riccardi was slow at getting to the preface and conclusion. When he finally did, he changed nothing to speak of, but merely ordered that Galileo add a last paragraph, like a chord at the end of a coda, or an amen, which would make it clear that the book’s speculations were not physical arguments about the real world but mathematical concepts used to help predictions and the like. The angelica dottrina would be thereby affirmed.

Galileo wrote it out thusly, as the final argument of the book, which he put into the mouth of Simplicio:

I admit that your thoughts seem to me more ingenious than many others I have heard. I do not therefore consider them true and conclusive; indeed, keeping always before my mind’s eye a most solid doctrine that I once heard from a most eminent and learned person, and before which one must fall silent, I know that if asked whether God in His infinite power and wisdom could have conferred upon the watery element its observed reciprocating motion using some other means than moving its containing vessels, both of you would reply that He could have, and He would have known how to do this in many ways which are unthinkable to our minds. From this I conclude that, this being so, it would be excessive boldness for anyone to limit and restrict the Divine power and wisdom to some particular fancy of his own.

To which Galileo had Salviati reply:

An admirable and angelic doctrine, and well in accord with another one, also Divine, which, while it grants to us the right to argue about the constitution of the universe (perhaps in order that the working of the human mind shall not be curtailed or made lazy), adds that we cannot discover the work of His Hands. Let us, then, exercise these activities permitted to us and ordained by God, that we may recognize and thereby so much the more admire His greatness.