He was again summoned before the Inquisition on the 10th May and on the 21st June, when he repeated that he held as true and indisputable the opinion of Ptolemy, that is to say the immobility of the earth and the mobility of the sun. This was the close of the trial. The next day, Wednesday, 22nd June, 1633, he was brought before the cardinals and prelates of the congregation to hear his sentence and to make his recantation. It was in the church of the convent of St. Minerva that Galileo Galilei, aged seventy years, pronounced on his knees a form of recantation. It has been said that Galileo, on rising from his knees, murmured these words: “_E pure si muove!_” No doubt this protestation of truth against falsehood may at this cruel crisis have rushed from his heart to his lips, but it must be remembered that if these words had actually been heard, his relapse would have infallibly led him to the stake. Monsieur Biot, in a learned and conscientious biographical notice, has clearly pointed out, that Galileo was not subjected to torture during any part of his trial anterior to the 22nd June 1633. M. Libri, in his _Histoire des sciences mathématiques en Italie_, is of opinion that as Galileo was subjected to _a rigorous examination_, according to the wording of the sentence, it might be logically inferred that torture had really been inflicted on him. But Monsignor Marini has fully proved that the _rigorous examination_ was an enquiry which did not necessarily include torture. M. Philarète Chasles, in his _Essay on Galileo_ (the best compendium that we have on the life, labours, and persecutions of the learned Italian astronomer), shews that the popular story, or rather fable, of the persecution of Galileo, accepted by the vulgar, is based upon a false document, a letter forged by the Duc Caetani and his librarian, and addressed to Reineri, and which Tiraboschi, a dupe to the fraud, inserted in his _Histoire littéraire d’Italie_. This letter was taken as an authority, and M. Libri, in his remarkable work “_Histoire des sciences mathématiques en Italie_,” cites it in support of his opinion. But this apocryphal letter is rejected by Nelli, Reumont, and all accurate critics. If Galileo was really subjected to torture, how can we account for the circumstance that during his life-time no rumour of it was current?--that his pupils, his partisans, his numerous defenders, knew nothing of it in France, in Holland, or in Germany?