The Sleepwalkers (229 page)

Back
in
1616,
Barberini
had
opposed
the
decree
of
the
Congregation
and
intervened
in
favour
of
Galileo,
a
fact
of
which
he
often
boasted
later
on.
In
1620,
he
had
written
an
ode
in
honour
of
Galileo,
with
the
title
Adulatio
Perniciosa
–
which
may
be
translated
as
"Perilous
Adulation".
He
even
went
so
far
as
to
pay
homage
to
the
memory
of
Copernicus
–
in
an
audience
with
Cardinal
Hohenzollern
in
1624,
after
he
had
become
Pope
–
and
added
the
remark
that
"the
Church
neither
had
condemned,
nor
ever
would
condemn
his
doctrine
as
heretical,
but
only
as
reckless."
⁹

When
Urban
was
installed,
there
began
a
kind
of
second
honeymoon
between
the
repository
of
Faith
and
the
foremost
representative
of
Science
in
Italy.
Renuncini,
a
brother
of
Cardinal
Dini,
wrote
to
Galileo:

"I
swear
to
you
that
nothing
pleased
his
Holiness
so
much
as
the
mention
of
your
name.
After
I
had
been
speaking
of
you
for
some
time,
I
told
him
that
you,
esteemed
Sir,
had
an
ardent
desire
to
come
and
kiss
his
toe,
if
his
Holiness
would
permit
it,
to
which
the
Pope
replied
that
it
would
give
him
great
pleasure,
if
it
were
not
inconvenient
to
you
...
for
great
men
like
you
must
spare
themselves,
that
they
may
live
as
long
as
possible."
¹⁰

Galileo
was
ill,
so
he
could
only
journey
to
Rome
in
the
spring
of
the
next
year.
He
had
six
long
audiences
with
Urban
in
the
course
of
six
weeks.
The
Pope
showered
favours
on
him:
a
pension
for
Galileo's
son,
a
precious
painting,
a
gold
and
silver
medal.
He
also
provided
him
with
a
glowing
testimonial,
addressed
to
the
new
Grand
Duke,
extolling
the
virtues
and
piety
"of
this
great
man,
whose
fame
shines
in
the
heavens,
and
goes
on
earth
far
and
wide."

What
exactly
was
said
during
those
six
audiences,
has
been
another
subject-matter
of
conjecture
and
controversy.
Only
a
few
points
have
been
established
with
certainty:
first,
that
in
spite
of
Galileo's
attempts
at
persuasion,
Urban
refused
to
revoke
the
decree
of
1616;
secondly,
that
Galileo's
impression
derived
from
the
six
long
audiences
was
that
he
could
write
pretty
well
anything
he
pleased
in
support
of
Copernicus
so
long
as
he
avoided
theological
arguments,
and
stuck
to
speaking
ex
hjpothesi
.

Thirdly,
Urban
himself
made
a
suggestion
how
to
get
around
the
difficulty
of
arguing
in
favour
of
the
Copernican
system
without
asserting
it
to
be
true.
The
suggestion
was
this:
assuming
that
a
hypothesis
explains
satisfactorily
certain
phenomena,
this
does
not
necessarily
mean
that
it
is
true,
for
God
is
all-powerful
and
may
have
produced
the
said
phenomena
by
some
entirely
different
means
which
are
not
understood
by
the
human
mind.
This
suggestion
of
Urban's,
on
which
he
laid
great
store,
played
a
crucial
part
in
the
sequel.

Thus
encouraged,
and
in
the
full
sunshine
of
papal
favour,
Galileo,
who
was
now
past
sixty,
felt
the
road
at
last
free
to
embark
on
his
great
apologia
of
Copernicus,
which,
as
we
know,
he
intended
to
call
Dialogue
on
the
Flux
and
Reflux
of
the
Tides
.
It
took
him
nevertheless
four
years
to
write
it
^10a
;
for
nearly
three,
from
1626
to
'29,
he
seems
to
have
laid
it
aside,
under
various
excuses
and
against
the
urging
of
his
friends.
He
probably
felt
that
the
favour
of
princes
is
shortlived
as
the
tide
itself,
and
that
his
powerful
enemies
were
working
against
him.
One
may
also
suspect
that
he
was
hampered
by
a
recurrent
psychological
blockage,
a
repressed
doubt
in
the
soundness
of
his
"conclusive
proof
".

But
once
again
he
could
not
retreat.
In
January,
1630,
the
Dialogue
was
completed.

4.
Dialogue
on
the
Great
World
Systems

The
Dialogue
is
carried
on
by
three
characters.
Salviati,
the
brilliant
savant,
is
Galileo's
mouthpiece;
Sagredo,
an
intelligent
amateur,
plays
second
fiddle
to
him
under
the
guise
of
neutrality,
and
Simplicio,
the
good-humoured
simpleton,
defender
of
Aristotle
and
Ptolemy,
fulfills
the
role
of
the
clown
who
is
kicked
in
the
pants.
Salviati
and
Sagredo
had
been
friends
of
Galileo,
and
were
now
both
dead;
Simplicio,
Galileo
claimed,
derived
his
name
from
Simplicius,
the
sixth
century
commentator
on
Aristotle,
but
the
double
meaning
is
evident.
It
is
Simplicio
who,
after
being
shown
up
as
an
ass
over
and
again,
trots
out
at
the
very
end
Pope
Urban's
argument
as
coming
"from
a
most
eminent
and
learned
person,
and
before
whom
one
must
fall
silent":
whereupon
the
other
two
declare
themselves
silenced
by
"this
admirable
and
angelic
doctrine",
and
decide
"to
go
and
enjoy
an
hour
of
refreshment
in
the
gondola
that
awaits
us".
And
thus
the
Dialogue
ends
with
what
can
only
be
described
as
a
rude
noise
at
the
Pope
–
with
the
consequences
that
one
may
expect.