On 10th May he was summoned for the third time before the Holy Tribunal, where Father Firenzuola, the Commissary-General of the Inquisition, informed him that eight days were allowed him in which to write a defence if he wished to submit one. But Galileo handed it in _at once_,[377] from which we may conclude that he had been informed of this proceeding beforehand. It was as follows:— “When asked if I had signified to the Reverend Father, the Master of the Sacred Palace, the injunction privately laid upon me, about sixteen years ago, by order of the Holy Office, not to hold, defend, or ‘in any way’ teach the doctrine of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun, I answered that I had not done so. And not being questioned as to the reason why I had not intimated it, I had no opportunity to add anything further. It now appears to me necessary to state the reason, in order to demonstrate the purity of my intention, ever foreign to the employment of simulation or deceit in any operation I engage in. I say, then, that as at that time reports were spread abroad by evil-disposed persons, to the effect that I had been summoned by the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine to abjure certain of my opinions and doctrines, and that I had consented to abjure them, and also to submit to punishment for them, I was thus constrained to apply to his Eminence, and to solicit him to furnish me with an attestation, explaining the cause for which I had been summoned before him; which attestation I obtained, in his own handwriting, and it is the same that I now produce with the present document.[378] From this it clearly appears that it was merely announced to me that the doctrine attributed to Copernicus of the motion of the earth and the stability of the sun must not be held or defended, and ... [Here the MS. is defaced] beyond this general announcement affecting every one, any other injunction in particular was intimated to me, no trace thereof appears there. Having, then, as a reminder, this authentic attestation in the handwriting of the very person who intimated the command to me, I made no further application of thought or memory with regard to the words employed in announcing to me the said order not to hold or defend the doctrine in question; so that the two articles of the order—in addition to the injunction not to ‘hold’ or ‘defend’ it—to wit, the words ‘nor to teach it’ ‘in any way whatsoever’—which I hear are contained in the order intimated to me, and registered—struck me as quite novel and as if I had not heard them before; and I do not think I ought to be disbelieved when I urge that in the course of fourteen or sixteen years I had lost all recollection of them, especially as I had no need to give any particular thought to them, having in my possession so authentic a reminder in writing.