Of all these documents, which must have existed if actual torture had been employed, or even if Galileo had been taken into the torture chamber, there is not a trace in the Acts of the trial in the Vatican. Dr. Wohlwill[449] and Dr. Scartazzini[450] assert, with more boldness than evidence, that most of these documents did exist, but that afterwards, and in the present century, as the whole of the documents have been tampered with for a special purpose, these compromising papers have been withdrawn! The Vatican MS. contains one document which, one would think, is indisputable evidence that only the _territio verbalis_ was employed against Galileo. We allude to the Protocol of the last examination of 21st June. Up to the final answer of the accused the questions of the Inquisitor agree _verbatim_ with the formula of examination which the “Sacro Arsenale” gives for questioning as to the Intention;[451] but when, if it was intended to proceed to torture or even to take Galileo into the torture chamber, the decree about it should follow, we find instead the concluding sentence: “_Et cum nihil aliud posset haberi in executionem decreti habita eius subscriptione remissus fuit ad locum suum._” This is, up to the words “_in executionem decreti_,” the usual concluding sentence of the last examination when it ended without torture.[452] These exceptional words refer to the decree of 16th June, 1633, which minutely described the judicial proceedings to be taken against Galileo, and by which certainly the _threat_ of torture, but by no means actual recourse to it, was ordained by the Pope and the Sacred Congregation.[453] The concluding sentence of the last examination of Galileo being on the one hand in exact agreement with the decree of 16th June, and on the other being a precise and definite statement, is a strong proof of the correctness of the opinion long defended by calm and impartial historians, like Albèri, Reumont, Biot, Cantor, Bouix, Troussart, Reusch, and even the passionate opponent of Rome, Prof. Chasles, that Galileo’s feeble frame was never subjected to the horrors of torture. Wohlwill also acknowledges the force of this concluding sentence—if it be genuine. He thinks these words are a falsification in the present century, while originally Galileo’s last answer was followed by the necessary decree for proceeding to torture, and then by the protocol about the proceedings in the torture chamber. Dr. Scartazzini goes even further than Wohlwill, and maintains that not only the concluding sentence, but the whole protocol of the examination of 21st June, as now found in the Vatican MS., is a later falsified insertion. We shall see why he thinks so by and by.