Foscarini’s Letter on the Opinion of the Pythagoreans and Copernicus
With impressively bad timing, just at this moment the Carmelite friar Paolo Antonio Foscarini published his Letter on the Opinion of the Pythagoreans and Copernicus (Naples: Lazzaro Scorrigio, 1615). Foscarini suffered from the same kind of ambitions as Caccini. He changed his name from Scarini to make it appear that he belonged to a Venetian noble family instead of coming from an undistinguished one in the kingdom of Naples.75 Like Caccini, he tried to make his career in part through preaching, which he was doing in Rome about the time his book appeared, as well as offering to debate all and sundry.76 It might seem from the fact that it was the only book outright condemned the next year that he was a committed Copernican. He was not. His book represented a recent and incomplete conversion. Yes, it defended Copernicus, but Foscarini knew little of mathematics and less of recent astronomy.77 Galileo and even more Castelli had serious reservations about how much use he could be to them, despite Foscarini’s determined efforts to curry favor with both.78
Bellarmino had no doubts at all about the potential dangers in Foscarini’s book. He chose a subtle means of making his point. He wrote the author a letter in April 1615 in which he praised him for treating the Copernican system as merely the best hypothesis, a position to which Bellarmino stuck, while remaining certain that if taken as fact it was heretical.79 Foscarini, who did not treat Copernicus as merely the best available theory, got the letter, but not the point. He replied to Bellarmino supporting himself and Copernicus on scriptural grounds, just the territory Bellarmino was determined to defend to the death.80 Foscarini was not the only one to miss the point. Galileo also failed to get it.
Acting with its usual secrecy, the Inquisition’s machine continued to grind away. Among the results was a very tiny explosion in the form of an anonymous consultor’s opinion on the “Letter to Castelli.”81 The consultor failed to find much cause for complaint. The best he could do was to object mildly to three of Galileo’s statements: (1) although the claim that scripture contained many false propositions according to the “bare sense of the words” could be taken in a good sense, it was still not wise to bandy the label “false” in connection with scripture; (2) using “abstain” and “pervert” relative to scripture “sounds bad”; and (3) the treatment of Joshua could also “sound bad,” although once again it could also be well interpreted—otherwise, no complaints. This was not much, and it is almost surprising to find this short document near the beginning of Galileo’s dossier. The order to the consultor does not appear in the record, nor is there any sign of an official reaction to his report.82
Caccini’s Deposition
The Inquisitors did not need either the opinion or the “Letter to Castelli.” They had something better: Caccini’s live testimony. Massimo Bucciantini argues that Caccini’s deposition combined with Foscarini’s Letter “determined” the decree of 5 March suspending De Revolutionibus. He therefore suggests reading Caccini’s testimony “with great caution” and not ‘rationally,’ dividing what is true from what is false or not yet sufficiently proved.” According to Bucciantini, Caccini went beyond a judicial act and attempted to “delineate the heterodox character contained in the philosophical and scientific conceptions sustained by the group of ‘sectarians’ led by the Tuscan scientist.” The deposition moved on two fronts: (1) the relation between “Copernicanism” and scripture depended on an analysis of Galileo’s writings, especially his “Letter to Castelli”; and (2) an effort to make Galileo a heresiarch founded on more circumstantial evidence, also perhaps on misinterpretations of that same “Letter.”83 The deposition was carefully constructed, as one might expect of a witness like Caccini. Most people did not give evidence to the Inquisition on the recommendation of one of the Inquisitors. Caccini did.84 His patron was his fellow Dominican Galamini.85 Unlike many of the characters in this drama, Galamini came from humble origins. He still profited from nepotism, since his maternal uncle had been general of the Dominicans, the order Galamini entered at a typically young age. After education at the studio in Bologna and in Naples, he followed a typical career as an inquisitor, beginning first in the provinces, Brescia, Genoa, then Milan. With on-the-job training typical of what most inquisitors got, Galamini left them behind when he was summoned to Rome to become commissary in 1604. After an atypically short three years in that post, he made another reasonably typical move up, to master of the sacred palace, chief papal censor. As such he continued to attend Inquisition meetings, but only for a few months. Paul V had other plans for him, having the Dominicans elect him their general in 1608. When in Rome, he continued to attend the Inquisition. He was an active general and frequently absent from Rome, including on an extended visit to the Dominicans of France at royal request. This helped cement a political allegiance to France like Barberini’s. That made them members of the same faction in Rome. Once he became an Inquisitor, Galamini was among the most regular attenders at meetings including many occasions on which he was one of only two or three cardinals present. The other was often the secretary, Cardinal Millini who almost had to attend.86
This was a typical career for a Dominican Inquisitor. Galamini’s intensity and zeal for religion were anything but typical, even in the overheated piety of baroque Rome. The commentators agreed unanimously in praising his sincerity and goodness, at the same time as they stressed his lack of concern for ordinary human considerations. They used on him the same adjective once used to describe the dreaded warrior pope Julius II: terribile, literally terrifying. They also called him “hard” and “courageous.” And rigid.87 Such was Caccini’s new patron, stepping in for the ailing and absent Arrigoni, who nevertheless continued to cooperate with Galamini. The second took complete charge of Caccini’s move to Rome, orchestrating every step.88 Galamini ordered Caccini there by coincidence—or perhaps his plan all along—just when Caccini already intended to do that. Galamini lobbied hard for him, on one occasion talking to “more than fifteen cardinals” on his behalf.89 Even when it appeared that his competitor, backed by the cardinal nephew, had beaten him for the teaching post at the Minerva, Galamini did not give up.90 Caccini’s testimony against Galileo came right in the middle of Galamini’s scheme to promote him.
On 20 March, the day immediately after Galamini reported that Caccini had information about Galileo’s errors and Pope Paul ordered him examined, “he appeared spontaneously” before the Inquisition’s new commissary, Seghizzi, and one of its notaries, perhaps even the chief, Andrea Pettini.91 The interrogation took place in the Palazzo del Sant’Uffizio, immediately south of St. Peter’s where it still is. A new building was or would soon be under construction, but Caccini probably appeared in the old one “in the great hall of examinations.” He began by saying that Galamini had told him yesterday that he had no choice but to “depose judicially” against Galileo. Then he reported an edited version of his scriptural reading without its confrontational opening, skipping straight to the exposition of Joshua “first in the literal sense and then in the spiritual meaning for the salvation of souls,” sanctimoniously