Gallileo and the specter of Bruno

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Galileo and the Specter of Bruno The two men are often honored as martyrs to science, but for Bruno astronomy was a vehicle for politics and theology. Galileo was tried partly because his aims were mistakenly identified with those of Bruno by Lawrence S. Lerner and Edward A. Gosselin I n 1633 Galileo Galilei was brought before the Roman Inquisition and charged with teaching that the earth moves. The ensuing trial en­ second myth must not simply be dis­ missed as wrongheaded. Indeed, our investigations have convinced us that ian in 1584. At the time Bruno was a member of the London household of the French ambassador to England. gaged the full authority of the Roman Catholic Church in a scientific and an understanding of its role in early 17th-century beliefs is essential to a If one regards the work as an exposi­ tion of the Copernican system together more complete understanding of what theological dispute with the most im­ might be called the climatological pre­ with some other scientific topics, one can only puzzle over its notoriety. It portant scientific figure of the day. As history of the trial of Galileo. We shall appears to be a compendium of non­ is well known, Galileo was forced to recant his scientific convictions pub­ argue that Galileo's troubles came about in part because his contempo­ sense-a disorganized display of gross licly on the grounds that he had de­ fended the Copernican view of the uni­ raries distorted his novel way of think­ passages. Bruno has the Copernican ing into the more traditional and bet­ model of the solar system wrong. He verse, a position condemned as "false ter-understood categories articulated demonstrates total ignorance of the and opposed to Holy Scripture" in by Bruno. most elementary ideas of geometry, let 1616. The incident is now universally regarded as a critical event in the birth of modern science. T error connected by incomprehensible alone geometric optics. He throws in he first myth, depicting Bruno as a scraps of pseudoscientific argument, failed Galileo, was popular in the mostly garbled, and proceeds to high­ In 1600, well within living memory 19th century and well into the 20th; its flying speculations that seem discon­ at the time of Galileo's trial, Giordano moral was congenial to the world view nected from the preceding or subse­ Bruno had also met his fate at the of the 19th-century liberal. The myth quent arguments. Even the diagrams hands of the Roman Inquisition. Bru­ lends support to the appealing legend do not always correspond to the ac­ companying discussions in the text. no too was a celebrated Copernican, that when Galileo recanted his Coper­ but his penalty was much severer: he nican position, he was heard to mutter, was burned at the stake. The careers "Eppur it that deeper significance must have and persecutions of Galileo and Bruno moves"). There is no evidence to sup­ been evident to Bruno's contemporar­ have been linked in two kinds of myth, port that incident, and the real Galileo ies. If Bruno had merely been a fool, which tend to confuse the two figures he might have met with laughter and in curiously opposite ways. According is a poor fit in such a heroic role. He is grossly miscast as a Nathan Hale or a to the first myth, both men challenged William Tell. an ignorant and obscurantist Catholic What about Bruno? How does he fit the first myth that he was a martyr to hement official response. The Roman Inquisition would surely not have gone church in a modern spirit of freedom, and both were martyred to their cause. si muove" ("And yet In this context Bruno was seen as science? For simplicity we shall con­ fine our discussion mainly to his first a kind of proto-Galileo, or perhaps a and most important work on the Co­ Galileo manque. He was a proto-Gali­ pernican system, La Cena de Ie ceneri leo simply because he too espoused ("The Ash Wednesday Supper," or Supper for short). It was written in Italthe Copernican system and suffered an extreme version of Galileo's fate. He But there must be more to it, and derision but not violent enmity and ve­ to the trouble it did to silence and re­ press him: he was imprisoned for eight years and subjected to innumerable hearings and interrogations before he was finally executed. Bruno repeatedly makes it clear that the Supper is really not about the Cowas a Galileo manque in that, lacking Galileo's scientific insight and genius, PORTRAIT OF GALILEO by the 17th-century painter Ottavio Leoni depicts GaliJeo at he resorted to speCUlative mysticism. the age of about 60. The time was one of great intellectual hope for GaliJeo and his There is a kernel of truth to this myth, followers: about a year earlier, in 1623, Maffeo Cardinal Barberini, a fellow Florentine, as there is to many others, but the his­ scholar and lover of the arts, had been elected Pope Urban VIII. A tapestry in the Vati­ torical record yields a much richer and more elaborate tale. The second myth is almost the con­ verse of the first: that Galileo was a kind of resurrected Bruno in that he, like Bruno, was perceived as a reli­ gious and political revolutionary. The can pictures Barberini defending a doctoral dissertation involving the accepted Ptolemaic astronomy, but he had followed GaliJeo's investigations of the Copernican model of the solar system with keen interest. The two men held a series of long conversations in May and June of 1624. Nine years later their friendship had changed to enmity, and Urban forced GaliJeo to recant his scientific convictions. The trial of GaliJeo was a political expedient for the pope, in part because in the public consciousness GaliJeo had come to resemble Giordano Bruno, a theological and political revolutionary and an early propo­ nent of Copernican ideas, who was convicted of heresy and burned at the stake in 1600.

Copernican astronomy should be un­ pernican system at all: it is only pe­ cus in a qualified way as the light be­ ripherally a work on natural science fore a new dawn. He heaps scorn, how­ derstood as a theory for calculation and it is emphatically not to be taken ever, on the anonymous author of the only and not as an account of physical literally. In accordance with the title, preface to Copernicus' work De revo­ lutionibus orbium coelestium, for Bruno reality. (Today scholars know it was its central subject is the nature of the Eucharist: the Christian ceremony of Communion. Bruno praises Coperniclearly recognizes that the preface is spurious: in a fit of caution it suggests written by Andreas Osiander, a Lu­ theran theologian who was one of Co­ pernicus' students. ) For Bruno the value of the Coperni­ can system lies not in its astronomical details but instead in its scope as a po­ etic and metaphoric vehicle for much wider philosophical speculation. The Copernican replacement of the earth by the sun at the center of the solar system is for Bruno a symbolic res­ toration of what he calls the ancient true philosophy; according to him, it is to this philosophy one must turn in order to understand the true meaning of the Eucharist. T he "ancient true philosophy" was Bruno's brand of Hermetism, a mystic view based on Neoplatonic writings of the second and third centu­ ries A.D. In Bruno's day it was widely believed the author of these writings was the semidivine Hermes Trismegis­ tus, said to be a contemporary of Mo­ ses. The Hermetic philosophy had sup­ posedly been handed down through Orpheus, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Plato and the later Greek philosophers, and separately through the Judeo-Chris­ tian tradition. In the process the "an­ cient true philosophy" had become de­ based and corrupted, which for Bruno accounted for the lamentable state of worldly affairs. According to the Brunonian Her­ metic view, man shares in divinity and is therefore at least potentially in con­ stant communion with God. The uni­ versal divine principle is extended to the entities that make up the macro­ cosmic universe as well as to man. Thus both stars and planets (Bruno does not make a distinction) are ani­ mate and endowed with souls; they can be operated on magically to effect so­ cial and political change. Rediscov­ ered and refurbished by Bruno, the "ancient true philosophy" would un­ fetter the divine essence within all men. Its power could heal religious and political wounds and give birth to a new golden age. It is important to understand that Bruno's adoption of natural science to foster broader theological, ethical, so­ cial and political purposes was entire­ ly characteristic of the Renaissance GIORDANO BRUNO is depicted in this anonymous engraving made in the early 17th century, about two decades after Bruno was executed by the Roman Inquisition. It is the earliest rendering of Bruno known, but no source contemporaneous with Bruno's life is known; the likeness is probably spurious. Bruno is shown in the habit of the Dominican order to which he belonged, a connection he acknowledged to varying degrees at different world view. For the people of the Renaissance science was literally a branch of philosophy, often called on to illuminate or illustrate a nonscien­ tific issue. Intelligent and well-educat­ times in his life. Bruno's Dominican name on the inscription is in its Latin form. (His ed people often saw explicit and high­ given name was Filippo.) "Nolanus" refers to his birthplace, Nola, a suburb of Naples. ly anthropocentric parallels between

scientific knowledge and the other as­ pects of life. Bruno is typical of con­ the prospects of Henry IV was so great temporary Hermetists in leaping to that in 159 1 he imprudently interrupt­ ed his wanderings across Europe to conclusions about the relation of hu­ return to Italy. His ultimate aim in re­ man beings to God based on theo­ ries about the workings of the macro­ cosm-and vice versa. As Bruno saw it, one inevitable con­ sequence of a return to the "true phi­ losophy" would be the recognition of the essential unity between the liberal Protestants in England and the liberal Catholics in France. The theme of uni­ turning seems to have been the conver­ sion of the pope himself to Brunonian Hermetism. Bruno's rash behavior almost imme­ diately led to disaster. He was arrested on trumped-up charges by the Vene­ tian Inquisition and then imprisoned. A year later he was moved to Rome, ty is sounded throughout the Supper; where he was confined for another seven years. In prison Bruno was no for example, in the Ptolemaic system there is a fundamental distinction be­ real threat to the Papacy. He had no following, no money and no influence. tween the earth, which was considered In the normal course of events he stationary, and the planets and stars, might simply have remained in prison which were supposed to move within concentric spheres above the earth. On until he was dead or forgotten. His ex­ the other hand, once the Copernican side of a minor political quid pro quo ecution seems to have been the pope's LA CENA DE Ie Cener;. DESC RITT .A IN CINQVE D1ALOGI.PER quanro interlocurori, COD trc ,GIl· fiderationi.Circa doi fu��cttj, 1"0,.<1.... '1......; f!4!A."1.' �Ir 1I1l;(0 refiigio de Ie Marc:. I' IlIoRrilli. MicW di CaCktnouo.Sig. diMauu.i{fier, CODC�(faltO,4 dllonuitl,t)CauaJier del or,uoe-de1 Re Chtiaotite:c Coofcglier oel ruo priuato confcglo. Capiuno di fO. huomini d'arme,Gouc:mator Cl CiapiWlO eli: S.Dcudc:rio. ct Amlnfdator.Ula.irc:1Iilt. Regia. d· la, � ghlJ= ,·'ffj..Jl<'f./<'it.Y·1 � .,. L' vniucrrale intentione r! doc;bia. rata nel proemio. .,.'" ;; view is accepted, the moving earth and with the Spanish Hapsburgs. the moving stars enjoy a similar status. Indeed, Bruno populated an infinite universe with an infinite number of pacy and Spain were announcing to all concerned that there would be no tol­ stars, all in motion and central to their eration of challenges either to reli­ surroundings in an equivalent way. In gious orthodoxy or to the political can picture of the universe is La Cella de Ie like manner, he proposed a framework status quo to which orthodoxy was celleri ("The Ash Wednesday Supper"); the in which the liberal Protestant and Catholic views on the Eucharist could closely linked, a connection we shall title page from the book is shown. The explore further. Nevertheless, Bruno's work was written in Italian and published be seen as essentially equivalent. philosophical heritage survived in the !S.�+. In disposing of Bruno both the Pa­ BRUNO'S STATEMENT of the Coperni­ in England in 1584; an English translation by the authors of this article came out in hat were the implications of this early 17th century in a loose constella­ tion of beliefs, held by an unorganized view for contemporary politics? group of intellectuals called Rosicru­ To maintain the balance of power, En­ cians. The aims and hopes of the Rosi­ gland had traditionally allied itself crucians for a return of Pythagore­ political speculation. with either France or Spain, whichever anism were nurtured in 16 13 by the inexorably to the theme of unity empha­ was weaker. In the late 16th century marriage of Frederick V, elector of the sized throughout the work: "Described in Spain was strong and religiously or­ Rhenish Palatinate, to Elizabeth Stu­ thodox. France was in the throes of a violeht and protracted religious civil art, daughter of James I of England. war, in which Spain supported the or­ "chemical wedding of the Thames and W The marriage, mystically called the 1977. The book is in the form of a debate centered on the Copernican system; Bru­ no's real objective was to extend Coper, nican ideas allegorically to theological and The subtitle leads five dialogues, by four interlocutors, with three reflections, on two subjects [ded­ icated] to the sole refuge of the Muses." thodox Guisard party against the Prot­ the Rhine," was supposed to presage a estants. The moderate French king return to the golden age of Elizabeth I. bearing a remarkable resemblance to Henry that of the 1590's it was all too easy to caught in the middle. Nevertheless, an In 16 18 Frederick and Elizabeth were elected king and queen of Bohe­ alliance between the French moder­ mia, from time to time a center of re­ of Bruno. Hence the second and con­ ates and England, which seemed desir­ able to both parties, was blocked by an ligious liberalism and toleration. Al­ verse myth arises: in the public mind most immediately they were deposed of 1633 Galileo became a revival, al­ III and his adherents were confuse the aims of Galileo with those official commitment of France to Ca­ by the Hapsburg Holy Roman Emper­ beit an unwilling one, of the archetyp­ tholicism. A bridge over religious dif­ or; the incident was the opening salvo al symbol of political and philosophi­ ferences would therefore have been of of the Thirty Years' War, which re­ cal upheaval that Bruno had been great value in fostering the alliance. newed the political and religious strife three decades earlier. Bruno was convinced that a mon­ of the late 16th century. In the years arch inspired and enlightened by Her­ immediately following there was a We now know that Galileo's think­ ing was a radical departure from Re­ metism could lead the world into a golden age under the guidance of the "Rosicrucian scare": a strong and irra­ naissance thought. Indeed, it has often tional fear of Rosicrucian subversion been maintained that Galileo's great­ "true philosophy." His candidates for in Catholic strongholds. est contribution was his way of think­ this role were successively Henry III, Elizabeth I of England and finally Henry IV of France. Indeed, two years S ing about the physical universe. Un­ uch was the prevailing political and after the publication of the Supper he religious climate when Galileo's popular exposition of his own Coper­ confided to Guillaume Cotin, the li­ nican views, Dialogue on the Two Great fortunately that was not necessarily clear to the great majority of his con­ temporaries. They were unable to un­ derstand not only his methods and his brarian of the Abbey of St. Victor in World Systems. was published in 1632. conclusions but also his aims and his Paris, that from 1582 to 1585 he had The publication had profound signifi­ intentions. been a kind of intellectual ambassador cance for people whose memories of Compounding the lack of under­ from the liberal Catholics of Henry III the religious conflicts of the late 16th standing was the fact that the late­ to the liberal Protestant court of Eliza­ century were fresh and detailed. In a political and religious atmosphere Renaissance reader was predisposed beth I. Bruno's later enthusiasm for to expect deliberately obscure writing.

even gressively deeper secrets to the diligent reasons. Earlier Galileo had written when there was no external motive for it. In part its popularity is explained and gifted. Needless to say, Bruno em­ Such obscurity was common, by a fondness for ornamentation and Galileo emphatically did not write a work called The Starry Messenger, whereas in the Supper Bruno called the stars "messengers of God." Further­ for elaborate elegance of expression. in such a manner, but it is much easier more, both Bruno's Supper and Gali­ There was also a strong feeling that knowledge was for the initiate and that to appreciate this fact today than it was in the early 17th century. At that leo's Letter to the Grand Duchess had expressed similar attitudes toward worthwhile understanding could be time there were some people inclined Holy achieved only through much travail. to believe his writing also concealed tained that the Bible often speaks ac­ The writing of Galileo's time is often multiple levels of meaning; in particu­ cording to the common understanding full of multiple meanings, enabling the lar, his Dialogue could readily be seen of the people, and in so doing it may diligent reader to move from depth to as a sequel to Bruno's Supper. actually say things about nature that depth. Such literary conceit was con­ What are the grounds on which such a view was based? First one can list centric enough to have caused Galileo what might be called external literary and Bruno to be closely associated. Fi­ sidered to be an appropriate reflection of the natural world, which yields proployed this approach extensively. Scripture. Both works main­ are not literally true. The view was ec­ nally, it is worth mentioning that both Galileo and Bruno called the Coperni­ can theory Pythagorean, a name often used synonymously with the political­ ly unsavory term Hermetic. S econd, both Bruno's Supper and Galileo's Dialogue are remarkably similar in form. For example, both di­ alogues introduce courtly gentlemen and dogmatic Aristotelians .as inter­ locutors. In both dialogues there is ex­ tensive discussion of a thought ex­ periment in mechanics: If a stone is dropped from the top of the mast of a moving ship, where will the stone land on the deck? Both works also give the same correct answer: The stone will land at the foot of the mast. No matter that the points made by the thought ex­ periment in the two works are entirely different, or that Bruno's arguments are garbled when they are taken in a purely physical way. A suspicious mind not inclined to physics would find it easy to confuse Galileo's inten­ tions with Bruno's. Furthermore, both dialogues are written in Italian rather than in Latin. The reasons for this lin­ guistic departure from contemporary scholarly convention are now known to be quite different, but again a suspi­ cious reader might think in both cases the vulgar tongue was adopted in or­ der to stir debate and intellectual dis­ sent on the widest scale possible. There is another and more global similarity in the form of the two works that could easily lead to the wrong conclusion about Galileo's intentions. In both works the Copernican system is defended in a nonmathematical and nontechnical way, completely ignor­ ing the very details that make the sys­ tem interesting and workable for the practicing astronomer. We have al­ ROBERT CARDINAL BELLARMINE played an important role in deciding Bruno's fate in 1600, and he personally admonished Galileo in 1616 not to hold to or defend the Copernican doctrine that the earth moves. It was clear to Galileo from the interview, however, that Bellarmine did not exclude the study of the Copernican view as a scientific ready shown that Bruno exploits the Copernican vision as a hieroglyph for his religious and reunionist aims. Gali­ leo's dialogue is a purely philosophical hypothesis. Bellarmine's death before Galileo's trial in 1633 left an ambiguity in the and scientific work, but it too does not position of the church as it had previously been stated to Galileo. This painting of Bellar­ really defend the Copernican system mine is in the Roman church of St. Ignatius, where Bellarmine's remains are also kept. in its then current form. Instead Gali-

leo widens his discussion to judge be­ tween his own philosophy of nature cret and rather clumsy pro-French policy. Consequently they engaged in cess admitted him to the confidence of and the Aristotelian one. The Dialogue psychological warfare that played on is thus opened to the suspicion that its Urban's belief in astrology: astrolo­ gers predicted the pope's death with keep such magical operations a close secret. In 1600 the Jesuit Martin del chief aim lies below the surface, as is demonstrably the case for the Supper. The close link between politics and religion we mentioned above underlies a thir.d major reason for confusing Ga­ lileo with Bruno. Copernicanism was widely associated with revolutionary political and religious thought. In 1599 Tommaso Campanella, an apostate the solar eclipse of June, 1628, and lat­ er with the eclipse of December, 1630. the pope. It was necessary, however, to Rio expressed an opinion of the church, in which many forms of magic were condemned. It would not do to Campanella was known to be a magus, or sorcerer, and so Urban enlisted his aid in performing antieclipse magic. let the public see the pope engaged in The magic was apparently successful, cess of his antieclipse magic to put for­ because Urban did not die. For a few years Campanella's sucward his Hermetic views, and to some activity that was arguably heretical. Campanella capitalized on the suc­ degree he was successful. Indeed, at Dominican monk, led a revolt against Hapsburg rule in Calabria, in the southern part of Italy. Campanella's aim was to reestablish the famous an­ cient Pythagorean city of Croton in Calabria, but his revolt was quickly crushed and he spent the next 26 years in prison. During those years he was far from idle. In 1600 he wrote his City of the Sun, a distinctly Hermetic and Copernican work (although it was not Copernican in an astronomical sense). Within a few years of his arrest his jail­ ers lost interest in him, and he was left in relative peace to write, which he did voluminously. In 16 16 Campanella learned that the Jesuit Robert Cardinal Bellarmine planned to admonish Galileo with re­ spect to the dangerous theological im­ plications of his scientific teachings. Campanella hastily wrote an Apologia pro Galileo, in which he attempted to � show t at Galileo's views were actual­ ly more rather than less in accordance with accepted theology than the Ptole­ maic system was. The theological ar­ guments presented by Campanella on this point bear strong similarities to those made by both Bruno and Gali­ leo. To the possible later detriment of Galileo's case, the Apologia is the only work by Campanella in which Bruno is mentioned at all. Campanella also wrote several let­ ters to Galileo from prison. The letters make it clear that he viewed Galileo much as Bruno had viewed Coperni­ cus: as a genius who heralded the dawn of the new truth without comprehend­ ing the philosophical significance of his discoveries. Such an attitude was almost certainly shared by others who were much less friendly to Galileo than Campanella was. W e strongly suspect that Galileo's close, if unwanted, association TOMMASO CAMPANELLA, shown here in a 17th-century engraving by Nicolas de with Campanella was a major ele­ leading a revolt against the rule of the Hapsburgs in southern Italy. Tortured, starved ment in Galileo's eventual recanta­ tion. When Campanella was finally re­ leased from prison, he came into the pope's favor. In the late 1620's. the Spanish grew increasingly angry with Urban VIII for following a partly se- Larmessin the Elder, was an apostate Dominican monk who was imprisoned in 1599 for and frozen while in prison, he nonetheless wrote voluminously about Hermetic and philo­ sophically Copernican ideas. In 16 16 he wrote his Apologia pro Gali/eo ("Apology for Galileo") , in which he argued that Galileo's views on astronomy were in accordance with orthodox Roman Catholic theology. Campanella later enjoyed the pope's confidence for a time, but he again fell from favor. He figures prominently in the confluence of events that finally brought Galileo to trial before the Inquisition. The motto Propter sioll 11011 tacebo recalls Campanella's zeal: "For the sake of the Heavenly City I will not keep still."

one point Urban authorized Campa­ nella to found a college of mission­ aries, bearing the family name Barbe­ rini, which would convert the world to a "reformed," "natural" Catholi­ cism. (Such adjectives were Hermet­ ic watchwords.) Urban found Campa­ nella's Hermetism congenial and was encouraged in his own purely political pro-French policy. He entered into an alliance with France. In the meantime, however, the French had given their support to the Protestant Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus. By 1632 the king's military successes had been so sensational that both the political via­ bility of the Holy Roman Empire and the religious viability of the Roman church throughout much of Germany were seriously threatened. Thus the pro-French policy turned out to be too successful, and the grow­ ing hostility of the Hapsburgs could no longer be ignored. In such a political climate it is not surprising that Ur­ ban began to regard Campanella as a false prophet and all his teachings as dangerous. Since Campanella, Bruno, Hermetism and Copernicanism were all tangled together, it would have DIALOGO D I GALILEO 'GALILEI LINCEO MATEMATICO SOPRAORDIN�RI() DELLOSTVDIO DI PISA. E Fi1oJofo, e Mate matico primario del association and others could have in­ clined the pope and the Roman au­ thorities to mistakenly regard Galileo as an antipapist, a religious liberal and perhaps a Hermetist. T here was a fourth reason for the Renaissance confusion of Galileo with Bruno, which seems peculiar to the modern mind. On the title page of Galileo's SERENISSIMO � been a simple step in Urban's mind to link them with another eminent Co­ pernican, Galileo. Given the proper background of fear and suspicion, this Dialogue his printer, Gio­ vanni Batista Landini, had added a GRADVCA'DITOSCANA� DOlle ne i congrefli di qllattro giornate {i difcorre fQprai due MASSIMI SISTEMI DEL .MONDO TOLEMAICO, E COPERNICAN OJ 'Pl'ojJonendo i11dete1'minatammte Ie ragioni Filojojic'he;e NafuuN tanto per t'vlta) quanto per l'altra parte. colophon, or emblem, which depicted three dolphins swimming after one an­ other in a circle [see illustration on op­ posite page]. The emblem could be­ and was-construed in an extremely damaging sense. In a letter to a friend of Galileo's in Florence, Galileo's Ro­ man disciple Filippo Magalotti gives an account of an interview with Father Niccolo Riccardi. Riccardi was a Flor­ entine who had risen high in the papal bureaucracy to become Master of the Sacred Palace, that is, the pope's theo­ logian. Magalotti writes in part: "On Monday morning. . .the most reverend Father. ..came to seek me. . . . CON PRI VILEGI. Then h e proceeded to disclose another reason for wishing to have. . .the Dia­ logue. . . . Under the seal of secrecy he told me that great offense had been taken at the emblem which was on the frontispiece. . . . On hearing this, I burst out laughing. . .and said I thought I could assure him that Signor Galileo IN FIORENZA, Per Gio:Batifla Landini MDCX'XXII. CON LICENZA DE' SVPEBjORl. was not the man to hide great mys­ teries under such puerilities and that he had said what he meant clearly enough. I declared that I believed I could affirm that the emblem was the printer's own. On hearing this, he ap­ TITLE PAGE from Galileo's Dialoglle 01/ the Two Great World Systems is decorated with peared greatly relieved and told me a printer's colophon, or emblem, that depicts three fish swimming after one another in a that, if I could assure him that such circle. The unintended symbolism of the emblem caused a furor within the Roman church. The fish were assumed to be dolphins-albeit without justification to the modern eye­ and the dolphins were immediately taken as a representation of Hermetic and Brunonian ideas condemned by the church. In the contemporaneous context of the Thirty Years' War the emblem was also interpreted as a symbol of philosophical and theological sup­ port for the French side. The motto of the emblem, Grandior Ilt proles ("Greater than the offspring"), was misinterpreted to imply that Galileo was extending the work of Bruno by was the case. . .the result would be most happy for the author." The dolphin was a fairly common element in Renaissance emblematics, but the emblem in the Dialogue was not a standard cliche. The quest for its harking back to a superior predecessor, perhaps Apollo, Pythagoras or Hermes Trisme­ "real" meaning was one of the factors gistus. Such figures were associated with the officially discredited Hermetic philosophy. that stirred up the first unease about

the work in Rome. Riccardi was favor­ the Spanish ambassador to the Holy ed a sacrifice. Galileo's writings, inter­ ably inclined toward Galileo, and his agitation, together with his implication See, put increasingly heavy pressure preted by men who were intelligent that the entire case against Galileo de­ pended on the colophon, shows how important it must have been. It was not uncommon to convey arcane messages through symbols. The Roman authori­ ties were led to suspect that Galileo and Landini had together contrived the emblem to hide a message, or per­ on the pope for positive support of the Spanish cause. Urban recognized the danger of growing Spanish hostility, and he declared his readiness to try to dissuade France from an alliance with Sweden. In spite of this move, in March of 1632 Borgia openly attacked the pope in consistory, the meeting of the cardinals. Urban was furious, but haps to act as a key or a summary of he held his peace for fear of an open the work that was to follow. rupture with Philip IV of Spain. A suspicious nature could devise connotations of the emblem that were particularly dangerous to Galileo. First the dolphin was associated with the shrine of the god Apollo at Del­ phi. In Greek mythology Apollo was the father of Asclepius, who was one of the major figures of the Hermetic myths. Furthermore, in Homer's Iliad Apollo had been the leading divine To mollify Spain, Urban might have moved against France, move would have but such a risked an open break with the French church. The only course open to him was to make a nonsubstantive but strongly symbolic gesture. He could publicly sacrifice a person associated with the pro-French policies and the Hermetic philosophy from which he badly needed to disso­ but out of touch with his real intent, made him a likely candidate. His sup­ posed mocking of the pope deprived him of Urban's goodwill at a crucial moment. The Hermetic misinterpreta­ tion of his writings had been able to launch events that were later sustained by other forces. O ne of the least convincing of the traditional explanations for Gali­ leo's troubles has been that his trial went forward because of the pope's personal animosity. Urban's feelings alone would not have led him to set the immense machinery of the Inquisition against Galileo. The enormous dispar­ ity between the social and the political positions of Urban and Galileo would have made such a response to a per­ sonal affront entirely inappropriate. supporter of the Trojans, and one of ciate himself. Campanella was the ob­ Our extension of the accepted expla­ the Trojan survivors, Francus, was the nation for the trial shows how Urban's legendary founder of the French royal vious choice. He was clearly connect­ ed not only with the pro-French policy line. To reinforce the speculation, the but also with its underlying philoso­ word "dauphin" is etymologically re­ phy. Besides, he was expendable. strong reaction can be understood. Given the exigencies of the state and the fact that Galileo seemed to fill a lated to "dolphin." In the context of But Campanella knew too much. If political need, the momentary agree­ the Thirty Years' War such a linkage strong and direct action were taken ment between this need and Urban'S of France and Troy might be open to against him, the unedifying story of a personal pique made things go badly serious misinterpretation: as a passing pope who practiced heretical magic for Galileo. of the mantle of Apollo-or in Chris­ would certainly have come out. The next-best choice was Galileo. His asso­ guities of Urban's later treatment of tian terms the passing of the Holy Spir­ One can also understand the ambi­ it that confers authority on the pope­ ciation with Campanella in the public Galileo. Galileo was old and in poor from Rome to the rising collateral lin­ mind is underscored by the fact that health when he was summoned to eage of the Trojans in France. the writer of the preliminary report of Rome, but even when he lost his sight, All such speculation later evaporat­ Dia­ Urban angrily refused to mitigate his ed. After an embarrassing delay Ma­ logue at first penned in Campanella's conditions of house arrest. Yet Urban galotti was finally able to give Riccar­ name instead of Galileo's and then had never tried to interfere with the con­ di another, earlier Landini book with to erase it. the committee investigating the tinued lionization of Galileo, the same colophon. By that time, how­ Given even these demanding cir­ ever, the fat was in the fire: Riccardi even cumstances, Urban might well have by princes of the church. Nor did Ur­ ban make any attempt to intei"fere in was off in full cry over the theology searched further for a scapegoat inas­ any effective way with Galileo's free­ of the Letter to the Grand Duchess, to much as he had long held Galileo in dom to publish, which he surely would whose existence in manuscript Maga­ high regard. Unfortunately, with sin­ have done if he had regarded Gali­ lotti had clumsily called attention. We gularly bad timing Galileo had man­ aged to hurt Urban's feelings. The leo as dangerous outside the context of the Spanish policy. Once Galileo have already mentioned some of the difficulties raised by the Letter; from then on Galileo's adversaries had more substantial issues to chew on. W pope had argued that God could have had served the purpose of being a sym­ accomplished his ends in infinitely many ways; as he put it to Galileo, bolic victim, Urban's further actions seemed to stem from mere personal "You must not necessitate God." Be­ anger rather than official enmity. e can now describe how the spu­ cause Urban knew of Galileo's Coper­ Galileo thus became a symbolic vic­ rious association of Galileo with the Hermetic tradition meshed with contemporaneous political reality and nican views, he had instructed Galileo tim in an age that set great store by not to make any definitive choice be­ tween the Ptolemaic and the Coperni­ symbols, just as Bruno had before him. He was a victim of pan-European rep­ gave a powerful initial impetus to the can systems. Galileo followed the in­ utation and high visibility, and his ex­ judicial machinery in which Galileo structions to the letter: the Dialogue ends with a passage disclaiming any was caught. Urban VIII preferred to avoid the opposing extremes of reli­ gious orthodoxy and Counter-Refor­ mation enthusiasm. His political and choice between the two positions. The disclaimer, however, is clearly hypo­ critical, and Urban's views are put into emplary punishment again taught the lesson of 1600: that anti-Hapsburg, pro-French, religiously conciliatory policies were heretical or at least close personal inclinations led him on a course clear of Spain and thus toward the mouth of the dogmatic and dull­ to it. A caricature of Galileo was con­ cocted from the real man by his ene­ witted Simplicio. Consequently Urban mies and the circumstances of the mo­ France. As we have mentioned, how­ was not unwilling to make a sacrifice ever, his actions had stirred growing of Galileo when one was needed. ment, and so it was a resurrected Bru­ no who went before the Inquisition in anger among the Spaniards. In 1631 Gaspare Cardinal Borgia, Hence three strands are seen to con­ verge. The political situation demand- • © 1986 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC 1633 to furnish a myth around which an existing moral could be woven.