[263] ... “I Gesuiti lo persequiterano acerbissimamente.” (See Magalotti’s letter to Mario Guiducci, from Rome, of 7th Aug., 1632. Op. Suppl. p. 321) [264] See their letters. (Op. ix. pp. 264-267, 270-272, 276-282.) [265] See their letters to Galileo. (Op. ix. pp. 25, 72, 97, 166-168, 174-177, 210, 255; Suppl. p. 181.) [266] On the reverse side of the title page of the “Dialogues” stands:— “Imprimatur, si videbitur Rever. P. Magistro Sacri Palatii Apostolici. A. Episcopus Bellicastensis Vices gerens. Imprimatur. Fr. Nicolaus Ricardus, Sacri Apostolici Palatii Magister. Imprimatur Florentiæ; ordinibus consuetis servatis. 11 Septembris 1630. Petrus Nicolinus Vic. Gen. Florentiæ. Imprimatur. Die 11 Septembris 1630. Fra Clemens Egidius Inquisit. Gen. Florentiæ. Stampisi. A. di 12 di Settembre 1630. Niccolò dell’Altella.” [267] It is reproduced in Venturi, vol. ii. p. 117. [268] See on all this the two detailed letters of Count Magalotti to Mario Guiducci, from Rome, of 7th August and 4th September, 1632. (Op. Suppl. pp. 318-329.) [269] Scheiner had two years before published a work called “Rosa Ursina,” in which he again fiercely attacked Galileo, and stoutly maintained his unjustifiable claims to the first discovery of the solar spots. Galileo did not directly answer him in his “Dialogues,” but dealt him some side blows, and stood up for his own priority in the discovery with weighty arguments. Castelli, in a letter to Galileo of 19th June, 1632 (Op. ix. p. 274), gives an amusing description of Scheiner’s rage. When a priest from Siena praised the book in his presence at a bookseller’s, and called it the most important work that had ever appeared, Scheiner left the shop, pale as death, and trembling with excitement in every limb. But he did not always thus curb his rage. The natural philosopher, Torricelli, who afterwards became famous, a pupil of Castelli’s, reported to Galileo, in a letter of 11th September, 1632 (Op. ix. p. 287), a conversation he had had with Scheiner about the “Dialogues.” Although he shook his head about them, he had concurred in Torricelli’s praise, but could not help remarking that he found the frequent digressions tedious; and no wonder, for they often referred to himself, and he always got the worst of it. He broke off the conversation by saying that “Galileo had behaved very badly to him, but he did not wish to speak of it.” In a letter of 23rd February, 1633, to Gassendi (Op. ix. p. 275), Scheiner is less reserved. Rage and fury evidently guided his pen, and he complains bitterly that Galileo had dared in his work to “lay violent hands” on the “Rosa Ursina.” Scheiner was doubtless one of the most zealous in instituting the trial against Galileo, although Targioni (vol. i. p. 113, note _a_) overshoots the mark in making him his actual accuser. [270] Op. ix. pp. 420-425.