The Inquisition did not, as might have been expected, immediately summon Galileo to their presence. Nearly a year elapsed before they gave any indication of their design; and, according to their own statement, they did not even take the subject under consideration till they saw that the obnoxious tenets were every day gaining ground, in consequence of the publication of the Dialogues. They then submitted the work to a careful examination, and having found it to be a direct violation of the injunction which had been formerly intimated to its author, they again cited him before their tribunal in 1633. The venerable sage, now in his seventieth year, was thus compelled to repair to Rome, and when he arrived he was committed to the apartments of the Fiscal of the Inquisition. The unchangeable friendship, however, of the Grand-duke of Tuscany obtained a remission of this severity, and Galileo was allowed to reside at the house of the Tuscan ambassador during the two months which the trial occupied. When brought before the Inquisition, and examined upon oath, he acknowledged that the Dialogues were written by himself, and that he obtained permission to publish them without notifying to the person who gave it that he had been prohibited from holding, defending, or teaching the heretical opinions. He confessed also that the Dialogues were composed in such a manner, that the arguments in favour of the Copernican system, though given as partly false, were yet managed in such a manner that they were more likely to confirm than overturn its doctrines; but that this error, which was not intentional, arose from the natural desire of making an ingenious defence of false propositions, and of opinions that had the semblance of probability. After receiving these confessions and excuses, the Inquisition allowed Galileo a proper time for giving in his defence; but this seems to have consisted solely in bringing forward the certificate of Cardinal Bellarmine already mentioned, which made no allusion to the promise under which Galileo had come never to defend, nor teach in any way whatever, the Copernican doctrines. The court held this defence to be an aggravation of the crime rather than an excuse for it, and proceeded to pronounce a sentence which will be ever memorable in the history of the human mind.