At Easter, 1624, Galileo, now sixty years old, resolved to proceed to
Rome, to welcome the new pope, and urge his approval of the Copernican
theory. Frail in health, he was carried most of the way in a litter.
During a visit of six weeks, he had six long audiences with Urban VIII.;
but, though he was affably received, the pope was in no wise convinced,
but rather tried to convince Galileo that he was in error.
Yet so kind was he that Galileo went back to Florence with the hope and
belief that he could bring out his great work, "Dialogues on the Two
Principal Systems of the World, the Ptolemaic and Copernican," without
opposition from the church. In this book, Galileo gave the results of
scientific research and discovery in the half century preceding, using
such clear yet brilliant style in writing as to make the work attractive
even to the unlearned.
It was ready for publication in March, 1630, but to be sure that the
pope did not object, Galileo was urged to go in person to Rome. He went
and presented the matter to Urban, who gave his consent provided that
the title should show that the Copernican system was treated as a
hypothesis merely, and that he, the pope, should write the closing
argument.
Rather than forego the publication of that upon which he had worked for
years, Galileo consented, and returned to Florence. A license to publish
was then obtained from the Inquisitor-General, and the Vicar-General of
Florence, after great delay. A second and a third time the papal
authorities wished to look over the manuscript. Two years went slowly
by.
Other anxieties came to the man of sixty-eight, besides the long delay.
The impecunious Michelangelo sent his wife, seven children, and a German
nurse, to the home of Galileo, to be taken care of. The eldest nephew
was sent to Rome to study music. He was found to be obstinate, impudent,
and dissolute, "wicked ways" which his weak and indulgent father said
"he did not learn from me, or any one else belonging to him. It must
have been the fault of his wet nurse!"
Galileo's son Vincenzo had married and brought his wife home to live.
Strange fortune for this man of genius! Strange that he must have
helpless relatives, and constant pecuniary troubles. Most great lives
are as pathetic as they are great.
As ever, the one gleam of light was the daily letter from Maria Celeste,
in which she expressed a tenderness beyond what any daughter ever had
for a father. "But I do not know how to express myself, except by saying
that I love you better than myself. For, after God, I belong to you; and
your kindnesses are so numberless that I feel I could put my life in
peril, were it to save you from any trouble, excepting only that I would
not offend His Divine Majesty."
Finally Galileo moved to Arcetri, over against the convent, to be near
the one who alone satisfied his heart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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