But no one told Galileo about this troubling development, being not quite sure what it meant. And because of his meeting with the Pope, and everything else that had happened, he was still full of himself, bumptious and grand. The visit to Rome was a triumph in every way, even if Guicciardini was now hinting that it might be best to leave while he was still being lionized. The ambassador stayed just on the right side of politeness about this, but if Galileo had sneaked into his office and looked at the letters on his desk, as proved fairly easy to do, he would have gained a truer sense of the ambassador’s mind:
Galileo has little strength of judgement wherewith to control himself, so that he makes the climate of Rome extremely dangerous to himself, particularly in these times, when we have a Pope who hates geniuses.
Eventually Galileo took the ambassador’s hint, or decided on his own, and announced he was returning to Florence. Cardinal Farnese hosted the farewell banquet in his honour, and accompanied him in his trip north as far as Caprarola, the country villa of the Farnese, where Galileo was invited to rest a night in luxury. Galileo carried with him a written report he had requested and received from Cardinal del Monte, addressed to Cosimo and Picchena. The Cardinal had finished his tribute with the words, Were we still living under the ancient republic of Rome, I am certain that a statue would have been erected in his honour on the Capitol- perhaps next to the statue of Marcus Aurelius-not a bad companion in fame. No wonder Galileo’s head had been turned. The visit to Rome was a complete success, as far as he knew.
Things continued that way after he got back to Florence. He was feted in fine style by Cosimo and his court, and it was clear that Cosimo was extremely pleased with him; his Roman performance had made Cosimo’s patronage look very discriminating indeed.
The Medici youth was no longer so young; he sat at the head of his table like a man used to command, and the boy Galileo remembered so well was no longer evident. He looked quite a bit the same, physically: slight, a bit pale, very like his father in his features, which was to say long-nosed and narrow headed, with a noble forehead. Not a robust youth, but now much more sure of himself, as only made sense: he was a prince. And he like everyone else had read his Machiavelli. He had given hard commands, and the whole duchy had obeyed them.
‘Maestro, you have set the Romans on their heels,’ he said complacently, offering a toast to the room. ‘To my old teacher, the wonder of the age!’
And the Florentines cheered even louder than the Romans had.
Soon after his return, Galileo got involved in a debate concerning hydrostatics: why did ice float? His opponent was his old foe Colombe, the malevolent shit who had tried to hang scriptural objections around his neck and thus cast him into hell. Galileo was anxious to stick the knives in this man while his Roman victories were fresh in everyone’s mind, and went at the contest like a bull seeing red, yes. But then he was frustrated by Cosimo, who ordered him to debate with such insignificant enemies in writing only, speaking over such a gadfly’s head to the world at large. Galileo did that, writing as usual at great length, but then Cosimo ordered him to debate the issue orally with a Bolognan professor named Pappazoni, whom Galileo had just helped to get his teaching position at Il Bo. This was like staking down a lamb to be killed and eaten by a lion, but Galileo and Pappazoni could only play their parts, and Galileo could not help enjoying it, as it was only a verbal killing after all.
Then Cardinal Maffeo Barberini came through Florence on his way to Bologna. Cardinal Gonzaga also happened to be in the city, and so Cosimo invited both of them to attend a repeat performance of Galileo’s debate on floating bodies, to be held at a court dinner on 2nd October. Papazzoni again made a reluctant appearance, and after a feast and a concert, and much drinking, Galileo again slaughtered him to the roaring laughter of the audience. Then Cardinal Gonzaga stood and surprised everyone by supporting Papazzoni; but Barberini, smiling appreciatively, perhaps remembering their warm meeting back in the spring in Rome, took Galileo’s side.
It was therefore another triumphant evening for Galileo. As he left the banquet, well after midnight, and long after the sacrifice of Pappazoni, Cardinal Barberini took him by the hand, hugged him, bade him farewell, and promised they would meet again.
The next morning, when Barberini was to leave for Bologna, Galileo did not show up to see him off, having been unexpectedly detained by an illness he had suffered in the night. From the road Barberini wrote a note to him:
I am very sorry that you were unable to see me before I left the city. It is not that I consider a sign of your friendship as necessary, for it is well known to me, but because you were ill. May God keep you not only because outstanding persons such as yourself deserve a long life of public service, but because of the particular affection that I have and always will have for you. I am happy to be able to say this, and to thank you for the time that you spent with me.
Your affectionate brother,
Cardinal Barberini
Your affectionate brother! Talk about friends in high places! To a certain extent it seemed he had a Roman patron now to add to his Florentine one.
All was triumph. Indeed it would be hard to imagine how things could have gone better in the previous two years for Galileo and his telescope: scientific standing, social standing, patronage in both Florence and Rome-all were at their peak, and Galileo stood slightly stunned on top of what had proved a double anno mirabilis.
But there were undercurrents and counterforces at work, even on that very morning when Galileo did not show up to see off Cardinal Barberini. Galileo had been ill, yes: because a syncope had struck him when he got home from the banquet the night before. Cartophilus had hopped down from the trap in front of their house in Florence, had stilled the horse, and opened the gate; and there in the little yard stood the stranger, his massive telescope already placed on its thick tripod.
In his crow’s Latin the stranger said to Galileo, ‘Are you ready?’
Chapter Seven The Other Galileo
You are given a light to know evil from good,And free will, which, if it can endureWithout weakening after its first bout with fixed Heaven,
If it is believed in, will conquer all it meets later.So if the present world strays from its course,The cause is in you; look for it in yourself.
-DANTE, Purgatorio, Canto XVI
‘Yes, I’m ready,’ Galileo replied, his blood jolting through him so that his fingers throbbed. He was afraid!
But he was curious too. He said to the stranger, ‘Let’s go up to the altana.’
Cartophilus carried the massive telescope up the outside stairs, bent double under the load. ‘Local gravity getting to you at last?’ the stranger asked acerbically, in Latin.
‘Someone has to carry the load,’ Cartophilus muttered in Tuscan. ‘Not everyone can be a virtuoso like you, signor, and fly off when the bad times come. Skip away like a fucking dilettante.’
The stranger ignored this. On the roof’s little altana, with the telescope on its tripod, he put a fingertip to the eyepiece and swung it into Jovian alignment; it came to rest with a refinement that seemed all its own. Again Galileo felt the sensation that this had happened before.
And indeed the telescope was somehow already aligned. The stranger gestured at it. Galileo moved his stool next to the eyepiece of the glass and sat. He looked through it.
Jupiter was a big banded ball near the centre of the glass, strikingly handsome, colourful within its narrow range. There was a red spot in the middle of the southern hemisphere, curling in the oval shape of a standing eddy in a river. A Jovian Charybdis-and was he going there to meet his own Scylla? For a long time he looked at the great planet, so full and round and banded. It cast its influence over him in just