Besides, they found welcome allies in the overwhelming majority of the rest of the clergy. With them the theological considerations we have mentioned formed the motive. And the louder the applause with which the independent scientific world greeted Galileo’s latest remarkable work, the fiercer burnt the flame of ecclesiastical hate. There can be no doubt that the full significance of the “Dialogues” had not been apprehended by any of the censors to whom they had been submitted. This is obvious from the fact that they seriously thought that the diplomatic preface, and a few phrases in the work itself, would suffice to make it appear innocuous. The commotion made by the book in the scientific and theological world convinced them of their mistake. Meanwhile, Galileo in Florence gave himself up to unmixed delight at the brilliant success of his “Dialogues.” His learned friends and followers, such as Fra Bonaventura Cavalieri, Giovan Batista Baliani, Castelli, Fra Fulgenzio Micanzio, Alfonzo Antonini, Campanella, and many others, expressed to him in repeated letters, and often with genuine enthusiasm, their admiration of his splendid work,[264] not one of them had any foreboding that it was to bring its grey-headed author before the bar of the Inquisition; and Galileo himself least of all. He expected violent opposition from his scientific opponents, and was prepared to engage in the contest, but he considered himself quite secure from ecclesiastical persecution. Had not influential personages at Rome, Cesi, Mgr. Ciampoli, Cesarini, and Castelli, been urging him for years to finish his work, the tendency of which they well knew?[265] And when it was at last complete, it was these same friends, as well meaning as they were influential, who had done their best to forward the publication. Besides, the book had appeared not only with the _imprimatur_ and under the protection of the Inquisition at Florence, as prescribed, and with the permission of the political authorities of the city, but Galileo could show also the _imprimatur_ of the Pater Magister Sacri Palatii, which was not at all usual with works not printed at Rome.[266] He considered this a double security; Jesuitism, on the contrary, contrived afterwards to forge an indictment out of this unusual circumstance. Not a word had appeared in print without having been read by the organs of papal scrutiny and having received the sanction of the Church. Might not the author well look forward to the publication of his work with perfect tranquillity, and feel himself secure from any collision with the ecclesiastical authorities? Undoubtedly, if he had not made the solemn promise sixteen years before, “_entirely to renounce the opinion that the sun is the centre of the universe, and is stationary, and that the earth on the contrary moves, and neither to hold the same, nor in any way to teach or defend it in speaking or writing_.”