The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History (California Studies in the History of Science)

California Studies in the History of Science

by Maurice A. Finocchiaro

In 1633 the Roman Inquisition concluded the trial of Galileo Galilei with a condemnation for heresy. The trial was itself the climax of a series of events which began two decades earlier (in 1613) and included another series of Inquisition proceedings in 1615-1616. Besides marking the end of the controversy that defines the original episode, the condemnation of 1633 also marks the beginning of another classic controversy-about the Galileo affair, its causes, its implications, and its lessons; about whether, for example, John Milton was right when in the Areopagitica he commented on his visit to Galileo in Florence by saying: "There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old a prisoner to the Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought." I happen to be extremely interested in this second story and second controversy, and a critical interpretation of the affair remains one of my ultimate goals. But that is not the subject of the present work, which is rather concerned with something more fundamental, namely with the documentation of the original episode. To be more exact, the aim of this book is to provide a documentary history of the series of developments which began in 1613 and culminated in 1633 with the trial and condemnation of Galileo. That is, it aims to provide a collection of the essential texts and documents containing information about both the key events and the key issues. The documents have been translated into English from the original languages, primarily Italian and partly Latin; they have been selected, are arranged, annotated, introduced, and otherwise edited with the following guiding principles in mind: to make the book as self-contained as possible and to minimize contentious interpretation and evaluation. The Galileo affair is such a controversial and important topic that one needs a sourcebook from which to learn firsthand about the events and the issues; since no adequate volume of the kind exists, this work attempts to fill the lacuna. The originals of the documents translated and collected here can all be found in printed sources. In fact, with one exception they are all contained in the twenty volumes of the National Edition of Galileo's works, edited by Antonio Favaro and first published in 1890-1909. The exception is the recently discovered "Anonymous Complaint About The Assayer," whose original was discovered and first published in 1983 by Pietro Redondi; this document is also contained in the critical edition of the Inquisition proceedings edited by Sergio M. Pagano and published in 1984 by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. My selection was affected partly by the criterion of importance insofar as I chose documents that I felt to be (more or less) essential. Since I was also influenced by the double focus of this documentary history on events and issues, I therefore included two types of documents: the first consists of relatively short documents which are mostly either Inquisition proceedings (Chapters V and IX) or letters (Chapters I, VII, and VIII) and which primarily (though not exclusively) record various occurrences; the second type consists of longer essays by Galileo (Chapters II, Ill, IV, and VI) which discuss many of the central scientific and philosophical issues and have intrinsic importance independent of the affair. Finally, my goal of maximizing the autonomy of this volume suggested another reason for including some of these longer informative essays on the scientific issues (Chapters IV and VI).

Genres: History, Science, History Of Science, Christian History

398 pages, Paperback

First published April 19, 1989

Reviews

[Mark Bowles · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE GALILEO AFFAIR; A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY
MAURICE A. FINOCCHIARO
Galileo was condemned, in 1633, by the Roman Catholic Inqui¬sition for holding, teaching, and defending the heliocentric and geokinetic views of the universe. Maurice A. Finocchiaro's The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History documented the events of this condemnation from 1613 to 1633. These documents were all primary references, translated by Finocchiaro from Latin and Italian. They provided information of key events and issues along with the religious, scientific, and epistemological arguments for and against Galileo's view. The intent of the book was to give the reader an unbiased account of the proceedings that dispelled the anti-Catholic and anti-Galilean myths with which the author was in disagreement.
The book was structured chronologically by chapter, with the chapters arranged by individual, such as Galileo's essays, or document type. The book began with an excellent introduction and overview of the documents. It served as a good background by discussing topics such as the science-religion controversy, the Copernican view and Galileo's reassessment of it, an outline of events, and a discussion of the success of Galileo after the trial.
The nine chapters of the book were well organized with chapters one through five discussing the period from 1613 to the first trial in 1616. The first chapter was about Galileo's corre¬spondence from 1613 to 1615 and was the background to the Inquisi¬tion's ire regarding Galileo. The second chapter discussed Gali¬leo's epistemological views in his essay on the Copernican opinion in 1615. The third chapter was another essay written by Galileo in 1615 which was to the Grand Duchess Christina and its content was the relationship between science and the Bible. The fourth chapter was Galileo's Discourse on the Tides, which was his argument for the motion of the earth as evidenced by the tides. The fifth chapter consisted of documents on the legal aspects of the first Inquisition proceedings from 1615 to 1616.
Chapters six through ten covered the periods from 1618 to the second trial in 1633. The sixth chapter was another essay by Galileo, this time written in 1624 as a critical response to Ingoli, who disagreed with geokinetic and heliocentric views. The seventh chapter provided miscellaneous documents between 1618 and 1633 which were mostly concerned with the publishing of Galileo's Dialogue. The eighth chapter gave an independent view of the affair with various diplomatic correspondence of the Tuscan ambassador to Rome from 1632 to 1633. The final chapter centered on the trial of 1633 containing Galileo's depositions, Inquisi¬tion reports on the dialogue, and his ultimate sentence.
The appendixes of the book were very helpful in understand¬ing the information contained in the documents. The Chronology of Events listed the key dates which related to the Galileo affair from 1453 to 1979. The Concordance to the Documents provided a reference from where the documents were found in their original, untranslated form. A Biographical Glossary was also given which was immensely useful in understanding the key names of those who appeared in the documents. The notes were also very complete which was exemplified by an outline of Galileo's essay to Ingoli.
I found this book to be immensely interesting and timely with its legal nature corresponding to the Judge Thomas confirma¬tion hearings. One of the most fascinating facts was the irony, alluded to in the introduction, of the church finally forbidding Galileo to teach, hold, or defend the Copernican views. This irony was, of course, that his study of motion would eventually lead to a more effective proof of the very geokinetic and helio¬centric theories that the church forbade him from discussing. The fact that Galileo took up this study at the age of seventy, after the trials and disappointment he must have felt at having his book prohibited, is a great story of inspiration.
I was surprised to read that Koestler was described as anti-Galilean. I did not sense that when I read The Sleepwalkers, he felt that Galileo deserved his condemnation because of his viola¬tion of scientific methodology and ecclesiastical norms as Finoc¬chiaro had said. My view is that just because Galileo's theory of the tides was incorrect, as were his methods of reaching such a conclusion, one cannot believe he can be justly condemned by an Inquisition. If that were the case, Aristotle himself, along with all the other antiquity inquirers, would be deserving of the charge. Either I need to reread Koestler or Finocchiaro is being too harsh.
I also fail to understand how the church could allow some¬thing to be argued hypothetically to save the appearances if it believed that it was heretical to hold the belief as true. I personally do not understand the distinction; and it seems like the church was opening itself to a large, gray area of opinion. I would think that anyone convicted of heresy would just claim that he was hypothetically speaking against God, or hypothetically saying that He did not exist.
Overall, I think that this book dispelled all myths on the subject of the Galileo controversy. Before the reading, I was inclined to be on the anti-Catholic side; but now, I feel that the church was fair in considering Galileo's age and not sentenc¬ing him to any real punishment. Other than revising its policy to a more enlightened state, the church had no other recourse than to prohibit his dialogue. The entire affair gave good testimony to the evils of censorship and the problems of commingling the evolutionary tendency of science with the resistance of theology.

[Kevin Larsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exemplary collection of documents translated into English covering the entire affair. They are very well selected to cover the entire drama and both, because there were two, Inquisitions with which Galileo was involved.

[Michal Paszkiewicz · Rating 5 out of 5]

An immensely valuable collection of documents that gives a much better account of the whole situation than any commonly suggested summary of what happened. The translation is very readable and so can be read by anyone.

[Martha Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding contribution to the literature on seventeenth-century science. Much has been written about Galileo's trail. But it is only now that we can steep ourselves in the atmosphere of the incident and read the very words of the main protagonists, often from their own secret correspondence or from private Inquisition papers. For the first time, all the relevant documents are made available in Englsih in Maureice Finocchiaro's marvellous translation. This book should be required reading for everyone who values freedom and fears censorship.

[Rachell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to love and appreciate Galileo for his courage, and ultimately, for his devotion to his faith. Granted, his faith challenged and pursued him til the end, but I admire what he accomplished in the face of extreme opposition. This book also corrected a lot of my misunderstandings about Galileo and his relationship with the Catholic church.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The original documents, including many personal letters, that framed the Galileo controversy. Will completely change how you look at the events in question, no matter where you currently find yourself on the issue.

[Miguel Iglesias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesante para aprende algo más sobre un gran personaje de la historia de la humanidad.