The desire for unlimited temporal power rises like a column out of the life of Urban VIII. Still it is not destitute of the embellishments of art, poetry, and love of learning. It is no fiction that this imperious pontiff found pleasure in turning passages of the Old and New Testaments into Horatian metre, and the song of Simeon into two sapphic strophes! His numerous and often cordial letters to Galileo bear witness also of his interest in science and its advocates; but if these scientific or poetic tastes clashed for a moment with the papal supremacy, the patron of art and science had to give place at once to the ecclesiastical ruler, who shunned no means, secret or avowed, of making every other interest subservient to his assumption of temporal and spiritual dominion. It is simply a psychological consequence of these traits of character, that arbitrary caprice, the twin brother of despotic power, often played an intolerable part in his treatment of those who came in contact with him.[178] This then was the character of the new head of the Catholic Church, on whom Galileo placed great hopes for the progress of science in general, and the toleration of the Copernican system in particular, though they were to result in bitter disappointment. Yet to all appearance he was justified in hailing this election, for not only was Urban VIII. a refreshing contrast to his immediate predecessors, who cared little for art or science, but as Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, he had for years shown the warmest friendship for and interest in Galileo. Many letters from this dignitary to Galileo which have come down to us bear witness to this.[179] Thus he wrote to him from Bologna on 5th June, 1612: “I have received your treatise on various scientific questions, which have been raised during my stay here, and shall read them with great pleasure, both to confirm myself in my opinion, _which agrees with yours_, and, with the rest of the world, to enjoy the fruits of your rare intellect.”[180] The words, “in order to confirm,” etc., have led some not very careful writers to conclude that, at all events when cardinal, Urban VIII. was a follower of Copernicus. But this is quite beside the mark. For the work in question was the one on floating bodies, with which, though the Peripatetics got the worst of it, neither Ptolemy or Copernicus had anything to do. A little more attention would have saved Philarete Chasles and others from such erroneous statements. Another letter to Galileo from the cardinal, 20th April, 1613, after the publication of his work on the solar spots, shows the interest he took in the astronomer and his achievements. He writes:—