The Haunts of Galileo

THERE are few men of science whose lives offer so much of picturesqueness and interest to the popular mind as that of Galileo. Marvelous genius though he was, he lived and did his great works among the people, sharing with them in all the vicissitudes of public and private life : not so absorbed in his mighty problems that lie could not bring plain common sense to bear upon the most trivial daily matters ; not shut away from contact and sympathy, as is often the scientist of modern times in consequence of the barriers which have grown up between the trades and the liberal arts. In Galileo’s time trades were arts; the merchant and the dyer felt as great a pride and nearly as much ownership in the discoveries of a scientific fellowcitizen as did the discoverer himself.

Artistic expenditure was a necessity to the beauty-loving Latin race, and whoever enlarged the bounds of knowledge or of pleasure was a benefactor to his humblest neighbor. The spirit of Cimabue’s day had not yet died out. There is a street in Florence called Borgo Allegro, the Joyful Street, because of the delight with which the populace hastened to view a Madonna of surpassing beauty which Cimabue had just completed at his studio in that street. 11 Perugino was not ashamed to paint a banner, or Cellini to turn from the moulding of a Perseus to the fashioning of an inkstand or a key.

Memories of Galileo, not only as a man of science, but as a householder, a son, a father, a friend, cluster about Florence and its neighborhood, —about Pisa, Padua, and Siena. I wish to recall them in connection with these places. Born in Pisa, the son of an impoverished Florentine noble, the youth was destined by his father to be a tradesman ; but his inclinations were entirely averse to this, and doubtless his father, himself a man of considerable scientific culture, secretly sympathized with the longings which he had not the means to encourage. However, Galileo had his way at last, and was allowed to enroll himself as a student of medicine at the University of Pisa ; the father insisting that since he would not learn a trade he should at least adopt a lucrative profession. He was not a favorite with his conservative teachers; his independence of thought was already beginning to be a marked characteristic ; nor was he ignorant of his unpopularity. Probably the happiest hours of his student life were spent in the cathedral, now forever associated with his name. Perhaps he had already in childhood learned to seek this refuge from the sharp tongue of his mother, who made his home anything but a peaceful place.

There is no more lovely, softly melancholy picture in all Italian scenery than this group of buildings, — the cathedral, the baptistery, and the Leaning Tower, — on a sunny afternoon. They stand apart from all other buildings, — a thing unusual in Italy. The short pale grass grows all about them, quite to the cathedral door; their delicate forms do not seem to cut the sky, but rather to repose against it; and their marbles, already mellowed by age in Galileo’s time, harmonize with that peculiar blue, which here is never hard, as in northern countries, however deep its tone. They seem enveloped in an atmosphere of silence and rest. The interior of the cathedral is not less harmonious. The great lamp swinging before the altar attracts our attention, as it probably did Galileo’s, by its marvelous beauty. How many problems besides that of the pendulum may the repose and solitude of this temple have aided him to solve! His treatise on hydrostatics, which brought him the friendship of many learned men, was written while he was at Pisa, and at the age of twenty-six he was appointed to the chair of mathematics in the university. Before his father’s death, in l591, Galileo had become known beyond the Alps, as well as throughout Italy. But, with one exception, the whole body of professors in the university were hostile to him. What did they want, in their calm Aristotelian assurance, of a youngster who not only questioned their judgments, but dared to carp at Aristotle himself ; who was not content with doubting in his own mind, but must put upsetting notions into other people’s heads ? In these days, too, the old cathedral was probably the most peaceful refuge for him. But he had to leave it and Pisa on account of this same tormenting Spirit of inquiry, that would not keep silence even before princes. He expressed his opinion too freely as to the demerits of a hydraulic machine with which Giovanni de’ Medici proposed to empty the wet dock at Leghorn, and which justified the young professor’s criticism by complete failure to do its work. This was too much to he endured, and Galileo, in fear of dismissal from his post, resigned it and quitted Tuscany.

Padua was his next abiding-place. He was appointed, thanks to the influence of his unfailing friend the Marquis Guidubaklo of Pesaro, to be mathematical lecturer to the university. Here, although in exile, he lived at least in peace and honor, and with a salary more than double that which he had received at Pisa. He had need of an increased income, for after his father’s death he became the head of the family, and was looked to not only for counsel, but for pecuniary help in all emergencies. His mother’s temper had not been improved by time. Galileo’s brother writes to him in 1619, “I am not a little astonished that our mother is so terrible; but she is so old that she cannot live a great while, and then there will be an end of quarrels.” There was an unmarried sister, Livia, who had been destined to a convent; but such was her aversion to monastic life that at the close of her novitiate her tender-hearted brother was fain to provide her with a dowry and a husband. An elder sister, married in her father’s lifetime, had also looked to Galileo for her dowry; and this being in arrears, the husband was loudly complaining. As if his sisters were not a sufficient tax upon his purse and patience, there was a younger brother, Michelangelo, who was the ne’er-doweel of the family. He had promised to do something towards Livia’s dowry, but instead of that he got married himself, and his increasing wants led him to repudiate all family obligations. “ I seem fated to bear every burden alone,” complains Galileo ; and Michelangelo retorts, “ I know that you will say I should have waited and thought of our sisters before taking a wife. But, good heavens, the idea of toiling all one’s life just to put by a few farthings to give one’s sisters ! ”

Notwithstanding these vexations, the eleven years that Galileo spent at Padua were without doubt the most peaceful and happy of his life. During them he invented the thermometer, constructed many telescopes, and discovered the satellites of Jupiter, the ring of Saturn, the phases of Venus, and the moon’s libration. He made frequent journeys to Venice to exhibit his telescopes, about which not only scientific men, but courtiers and princes, were enthusiastic. His fame spread throughout Europe ; every monarch wished to play the astronomer, and Marie de Medicis is said to have gone down on her knees to look through the telescope which Galileo had sent to his majesty of France, rather than wait for it to be adjusted. Such were the cares and the satisfactions, both as great as are granted to mortal lot, that walked with Galileo through the streets.of ancient Padua. Unhappily, no external trace of him remains there ; his dwelling is unknown, and great changes have taken place in the city. Where his bust now stands in the Piazza Vittorio Emunuele he probably many a time wandered under the trees in what was then called the Prato della Valle. In the church of St. Antonio he may have sought compensation for the loss of his retreat in the Pisan Duomo.

But his thoughts continually turned back to Tuscany, and he always considered himself an exile. He was glad to be recalled thither in 1611 by the Grand Duke Cosmo II. He was offered a residence at Florence in one of the grand ducal villas, but after a short residence near Segni he fixed his habitation upon the hill of Bellosguardo, in what was then the Villa Segni, now Villa Albizzi. It was at that time a country retreat indeed : the city lay at his feet, the centre of that wonderful panorama which is the dearest remembrance of every visitor to Florence. Galileo, exquisitely sensitive to natural scenery, here saw the sunsets and the moonrises which are nowhere else so fair; here he was free to indulge his love of country pleasures, and hoped to carry on in tranquillity his researches and observations. He did not love the city, and never felt well in it ; probably he visited it seldom in those days, too content with star-gazing to long for inferior companionship.

At this time Galileo had three children, a son and two daughters, born during his stay in Padua. Their mother, a Venetian peasant, afterwards married a respectable man of her own class. What would now be considered only a plain duty—the care of these children by their father—was in Galileo’s times a proof of his extraordinary kindness of heart. He did for his daughters what, according to Italian ideas of that period, was the best possible thing to be done for illegitimate daughters: he put them at an early age into a convent. It is from the letters of the elder daughter, Polissena, whose spiritual name was Marla Celeste, that we get the most interesting details of Galileo’s private life. Over one hundred letters from her to her father are extant, which reflect as in a glass the circumstances of his home and the traits of his character. Maria Celeste became a highly accomplished and intellectual woman, who might have been the comfort of his home ; and in her devotion to her father she exclaims, “ Only in one respect does convent life weigh heavily on me : that is, it prevents my attending on you personally, which would be my desire were it permitted. My thoughts are always with you, and I long to have news of you daily.” She is always contriving to send the convent steward with some preserved citron or a baked pear, “ as an excuse,” so that she may have news of her beloved father. She embroiders napkins for him, and begs him to let her get up his fine linen : and when at last he bethinks himself of employing her to copy his letters her joy is at its height. Galileo tenderly loved her, and was a kind friend to the convent for her sake. He is asked to mend the convent clock, to procure delicacies for the infirmary, to help in its pecuniary difficulties ; and he seems to have responded to all these demands, heavy or trivial, with the same gentleness and generosity. The other daughter, Sister Arcangela, was a nervous, irritable invalid, of whom we see only the melancholy shadow in Maria Celeste’s letters. The son, Vincenzo, was a careless spendthrift, much resembling his uncle Michelangelo.

The convent of St. Matthew, in Arcetri, was the residence of the daughters. The little village of Arcetri is situated upon a hill about a mile distant, in a straight line, from the centre of Florence, on the southern side of the Arno. It overlooks a wide prospect of the Val d’Arno and the Apennines on one side, and the less magnificent but peaceful valley of the Ems on the other. I once lived close by the convent for a month or two, and always fancied that Sister Maria Celeste was looking at me out of its narrow windows. It is a long, low, ugly building, probably little changed outwardly since she lived in it, and its tinkling bell still calls the neighborhood to prayer. A cheerless abode it was, even according to the patient and self-denying Maria Celeste. The cells were damp and ill-lighted ; the convent was exceedingly poor, and the food was often bad, and scarce at that. The good nun does not complain for herself, but she thinks it hard for her ailing sister. She is much concerned for her father’s health, and sends him all manner of convent syrups and simple remedies, with the minutest directions for their use. Especially when the plague visits Florence, in 1631, she is full of anxiety, and eagerly begs that Galileo will not go into the city, or expose himself in any way to the infection. The plague, however, came to him. One of his workmen, a glass-blower, died, and his son Vincenzo fled with his wife to Prato, leaving Galileo alone. What was poor Maria Celeste’s anxiety on hearing this news we learn from the following letter. Immured and forbidden to care personally for the safety of her only earthly friend, she pours out her heart in this way : “ I am troubled beyond measure at the thought of your distress and consternation at the sudden death of your poor glass-worker. I entreat you to omit no possible precaution against present danger. I believe you have by you all the remedies and preventives which are required, so I will not repeat. Yet I would entreat you, with all due reverence and filial confidence, to procure one more remedy, the best of all, to wit, the grace of God, by means of true contrition and penitence.

This is without doubt the most efficacious medicine for both soul and body. For if, in order to avoid this sickness, it is necessary to be always of good cheer, what greater joy can we have in this world than the possession of a good and serene conscience? ... I pray your lordship to accept these few words, prompted by the deepest affection. I wish also to acquaint yon of the frame of mind in which I find myself at present. I am desirous of passing away to the next life, for every day I see more and more clearly the vanity and misery of this present one. And besides that, I should then no longer offend our blessed Lord ; I should hope that my prayers for your lordship would have a greater efficacy. I do not know whether my desire be a selfish one ; may the Lord, who sees all, in his mercy supply me where I am wanting through ignorance, and may he give you true consolation.”

Galileo was getting on in years, and his health, never firm, was beginning to break down more seriously. Perhaps he longed as much as his daughter for more frequent interviews with her than the distance from Bellosguardo to Arcetri permitted; at any rate, he seems to have been the first to propose seeking a home at Arcetri, to which idea Maria Celeste joyfully responded, and with her usual energy set about making inquiries as to purchasable property in the neighborhood. She at length found a villa close to the convent boundaries which proved to be what her father desired. It was called II Gioiello, and belonged to the Martelleni family. There he would be able to see or hear from his daughter daily ; the broad loggia. or covered balcony of the house, looked over towards the convent on the hill above, and he could almost feel that she was with him as he sat or walked there. Here, then, he came, and two years of peace and comfort, before the later troubles of his life thickened about him, were yet in store for him. His biographer, Viviani, tells us that at this time Galileo was “of cheerful and jovial appearance ; he was of a square build, of medium height, and naturally of a strong constitution, but by toil and distress of mind and body he was now greatly debilitated.” Although be loved the quiet and solitude of his villa, be was also very fond of gathering round him learned men and friends. Towards these he exercised an abundant though simple hospitality, his only fastidiousness being in regard to the quality of his wine. His vineyard was one of his chief delights ; he spent his leisure in working with his own hands at pruning and tying up the vines, and cultivating plants in his garden. Close by, too, was a villa with a high tower, called the Torre del Gallo, which belonged to Galileo’s dear friend and admirer, the Canon Girolamo Lanfredini, who was proud to place at the astronomer’s disposal a room in the tower, and indeed as much of the house as he would honor with his use. Thither Galileo often resorted with his pupils, and in the chamber used as his study are now shown his telescope and various other souvenirs of him. From this chamber a narrow stair leads to the top of the tower, whence the view by day or by night must have charmed such a lover of nature as Galileo was. In this peaceful retreat he might have passed his declining years in tranquillity but for that same old spirit of inquiry which had begun to torment him at Pisa. In 1632 his Dialogue on the Ptolemaic and Copernican Systems, which he had been trying to get printed for two years, finally obtained the Papal imprimatur, on condition of certain additions being made to it by way of preface and appendix, written by Papal secretaries, and supposed to be an antidote to any heresies contained in the book itself. Its publication, however, caused an outcry of rage from the Jesuits. Galileo was denounced, and ordered to appear before the tribunal of the Holy Office. He set out for Rome on the 26th of January, 1663. It was a weary winter journey for the infirm old man, already threatened with blindness ; and the prospect of torture, imprisonment, and perhaps death, if things went against him, must have been ever present to his mind. Thus he reached Rome, and was conducted to the house of the Tuscan ambassador, Francesco Niccolini, who proved a devoted friend to him through the trials that were approaching.

It appears probable, from manuscripts discovered during the last twenty years, that at no time was Galileo’s imprisonment severe, nor was torture ever actually employed, however much it may have been threatened. The favorite story of his exclaiming, as he rose from his knees after abjuring his heresies, “ Eppure si muove ! ” was long ago shown to be a fable, like many other “ historic sayings ” of great men. Had it been true, Galileo would never have quitted the Palace of the Inquisition, and his enemies would have been only too thankful. Nor is it necessary, I believe, to go to the other extreme, and to imagine that the threats of torture reduced Galileo to such a moral wreck that he was now ready to submit abjectly to any humiliation. His own account of the matter in a letter to Vincenzo Renieri, soon after his return to Florence, is simple enough : “ Finally, I was obliged to retract my opinions, as a good Catholic, and as a penalty my Dialogue was condemned.” There is not one word to show that he considered himself either a martyr or a reprobate for having done this. It is impossible for one trained in the freedom of Protestantism to appreciate the moral weight which the authority of the church carries with it to “a good Catholic,” even at the present day ; much less can we understand that state of mind which can separate belief entirely from the evidence of the senses and of the reason.

What seems to us dishonesty and cowardice is to a devoted child of the church only duty and submission. Witness the recent abjurations by Father Curci in regard to his books, though there is no Inquisition in these days, nor was even the weight of public opinion against him. Such abjurations are simply ceremonial, in order that the subject may not he shut out from the ordinances of the church in life and death ; and to be fairly judged, they must be looked at from the standpoint of those who make them. Galileo was in better health and spirits when he returned from the Palace of the Inquisition than when he entered it; and when he left Rome for Siena, where he was ordered to remain for the present, he went on foot for miles of the way, for his own pleasure.

Poor Maria Celeste, whose own health was failing, suffered terribly while her father’s fate was undecided. When he was finally out of prison, she wrote to him thus : “The joy that your last dear letter brought me, and the having to read it over and over again to the nuns, who made quite a jubilee on hearing its contents, put me into such an excited state that at last I got a seveRe headache. I give hearty thanks to God for the mercies you have hitherto received. You justly say that all our mercies come from him. And though you consider all these now received as an answer to my prayers, yet truly they count for little or nothing ; but God knows how dearly I love you, and so he hears me.” One of the penalties attached to Galileo’s sentence was that he should recite the Penitential Psalms once a week for three years. This his daughter took upon herself to do for him, “ in order to be of some slight use” to him. “ I wish,” she wrote on the 13th of July, 1633, “that I could describe the rejoicing of all the mothers and sisters on hearing of your arrival at Siena. On learning the news, Mother Abbess and many of the nuns ran to me, embracing me with joy and tenderness.” But although she knew her father to be in safety, and treated with every consideration by the good Archbishop of Siena, she felt that she could not be resigned to end her days without once more looking upon his face. Cold, austerities, and privations had done their fatal work upon her delicate frame, and she felt death approaching. Galileo, although an honored guest rather than a prisoner in the arehiepiscopal palace at Siena, longed to be near his beloved daughter. The magnificence of the old city, the beauty of the Duomo, ever before his eves, the congratulations of friends, were in vain to divert him from his impatient longing to be at home again. One sees to-day almost the same picture in the quiet old cathedral square upon which his weary eyes fell in those days of waiting: the stately church with its overwhelmingly rich facade, the blackrobed priests and brethren of the Misericordia flitting to and fro, the hospital at one side receiving its sad guests; or, on a fête day, a gayer scene, — all Siena trooping up to the cathedral, whence floated out through the open door the strains of music from the great organ.

Happily, the intercessions of friends prevailed to obtain for Galileo permission to return to his villa at Arcetri, on condition that he should not go into the city, nor receive more than two or three visitors at a time. “ Here,” he says, “ I lived on Very quietly, frequently paying visits to the neighboring convent, where I had two daughters who were nuns, and whom I loved dearly ; but the eldest in particular, who was a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me. She had suffered much from ill-health during my absence, but had not paid much attention to herself. At length dysentery came on, and she died after six days’ illness, leaving me in deep affliction.” She was only thirty-three.

The translations of Sister Maria Celeste’s and other letters which I have quoted are taken from that admirably prepared book The Private Life of Galileo, to which I am indebted for many a pleasant hour in connection with the places made sacred by Galileo’s habitation. Any improvement upon these translations would be impossible, and the whole book shows a careful and painstaking study which is too often wanting in works of this kind.

Galileo’s health declined so greatly under the affliction of his daughter’s death that he seemed about to follow her. But he revived, and went on with his studies ; perhaps they kept him alive. The fire of investigation was not quenched by all the terrors of the Inquisition. His sister-in-law and three children came to live with him, and the old villa resounded with merry voices ; but it was only for a short time. The plague carried them all off, and the old man was again left alone.

There is one more site in Florence which is associated with his life. In 1638, he was allowed to leave the villa for a short time, and occupy a house which he owned on the Costa San Giorgio, in order to be under closer medical attendance than was possible at Arcetri; but he was keenly watched, and was not even allowed to attend mass in the little church near by without special permission. This was the last church he ever entered. He soon returned to Arcetri, which he never left again.

Tt was in this year that Milton visited him. All that we know of the interview — for Galileo’s biographers do not mention it — is from a passage of the Areopagitica, where Milton says, “ I could recount what I have seen and heard in other countries where this kind of inquisition tyrannizes; where I have sat among these learned men, for that honor I had, and bin counted happy to be born in such a place of Philosophic freedom as they suppos’d England was, while themselvs did nothing but bemoan the servil condition into which lerning amongst them was brought; that this it was which had dampt the glory of Italian wits, that nothing had bin there writt’n now these many years but flattery and fustian. There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo grown old, a prisner to the Inquisition, for thinking in Astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licencers thought.”

Galileo’s son Vincenzo and his wife Sestilia Bocchineri lived with and took care of him in his last days; but the son retained the selfish and mercenary habits of his youth. Father Fanano, of Florence, who was charged with reporting Galileo’s condition and doings to the Inquisition, writes that Vincenzo may be trusted, as “ he is under great obligations for his father being allowed to be in Florence for medical treatment, and fears that the least transgression might cause the loss of this favor; for it is quite for his interest that his father should conduct himself well and live as long as possible, as with his death will cease the pension of one thousand scudi which the Grand Duke allows him.” Probably Galileo derived far more comfort from the society and assistance of his pupil Viviani, then a youth of eighteen, who was allowed by the Inquisition to spend the last two and a half years of the old man’s life in his house, and who acted as his amanuensis. To him Galileo dictated, after he became totally blind, his last work, a treatise on the Secondary Light of the Moon ; and in this manner he also corrected and enlarged his Dialogues on the New Sciences.

In September, 1641, foreseeing that the revered master could not be much longer with them, Castelli and Torricelli, two former pupils and friends of Galileo, came to II Gioiello, and did not leave it till he died, on the 8th of January, 1642. Their conversation soothed the long weeks of pain, and Galileo had also the consolation of receiving the last sacraments and the benediction of Urban VIII.

But the enmity of the Holy Office did not cease with the death of its victim. It was disputed whether a man under condemnation by the Inquisition had a right to burial in consecrated ground. As to Galileo’s testamentary desire to be laid in his ancestral vault in Santa Croce, and the wish of his friends to erect a monument to him, yielding to these was out of the question. There must be care taken also about the funeral sermon. With these restrictions he was finally allowed a place in a side chapel of Santa Croce, with no inscription to denote whose remains were there entombed. But Viviani remembered him, and as soon as the times would permit placed over the door of his own house, in the street of San Antonio, a bronze bust of his master, with a eulogistic inscription. He also bequeathed four thousand scudi for the purpose of erecting a monument to Galileo’s memory. It was not, however, till 1737 that his wishes were carried out. At that time Galileo’s remains were removed with all possible honors to the place where they now rest in the Florentine Pantheon.

E. D. R. Bianciardi.