From the sound of the thing, Galileo had tried to weasel out of the charge. That was a joke, if one cared to laugh. After decades of sneering at everyone who dared to contradict him, of publishing viperous sallies against his opponents, he had finally stumbled against the one tribunal that could call him to account. Years of being the biggest bully in Italian natural philosophy had come to a halt when the bigger bullies of the Inquisition summoned him to Rome.
They had been gentle with him, though. They had told him to rest and get well before traveling, seen to it that he had an escort and a litter to ride in, bid him choose his own lodgings and requested, not ordered, that he not make public appearances while awaiting his trial. When they examined him—Antonio read between the lines, here, not having been present as Sinceri and da Maculano had been—Galileo had tried to pretend that the whole point of his book had been to refute the Copernican hypothesis, not to hold, defend or teach it. Had he not written Simplicius in as a character? Aristotle’s great interpreter, who gave the philosopher’s view and gave it ably and well? Surely, Galileo had asked, the Holy Office could see that he had defended Aristotle against Pythagoras?
The truth was, no one could see any such thing, which was why Inchofer had had to read the whole of the damned turgid book and write a review of it. Antonio felt sure that Inchofer had been more bothered by the tone of the text than anything it might say about the motion of the heavenly spheres. What was the phrase? He slights as mental dwarfs all who are not Copernican or Pythagorean. As well he might, in some cases, since the mental dwarfdom of some of his opponents was not wholly beyond doubt.
Which thought led Antonio, somewhat unfairly, across the room to the other three members of the Inquisi—not the Inquisition, Antonio reminded himself, never to call it that—the Commission of Inquiry.
Scheiner, whose presence was inexplicable since he was the prime complainant. Or, at least, had provoked all the complaints about Galileo—so rumor had it, with some evidence on its side—out of nothing more than desire for vengeance. Perhaps that was one of Uncle Maffeo’s little jokes: to make the man who least wanted to be impartial, swear before God that he would judge without partiality. Scheiner would do it, too, out of his fourth vow as a Jesuit if nothing else. But it would take monstrous prejudice in Galileo’s favor to acquit him.
Grassi was also an agitator against Galileo, and he again had had good personal reason. Over the years, Galileo had called him about seven sorts of idiot. Including, at one point, for advancing evidence in favor of the Copernican hypothesis that Galileo didn’t agree with—which was some measure of the defendant in this trial. Grassi’s presence was, if it was to be explained at all, part of the same game that had put his fellow Jesuit on the trial panel. Even if he, too, was scrupulously fair, the only question was Galileo’s penalty.
Finally, Cardinal Gaspar Borja y Velasco. Probably not even the direct intervention of God Himself would cause him to vote in Galileo’s favor. Too many of the people around the pope, people who opposed the Spanish party in Rome, were Galileo partisans as well. The Spanish Inquisitor would not be in the least partial to Galileo, even if he had come before the Inquisition looking more Catholic than the pope.
The fact that His Holiness Urban VIII had violated every canon of Inquisition procedure with this Commission of Inquiry had almost certainly caused the Spaniards to smell a rat. Six of the regular Inquisition cardinals had been asked to step aside, and been replaced with a third Barberini—Antonio himself, whom nobody including Antonio thought was in the least bit qualified to judge such a matter—and five assorted lawyers, theologians and scientists. And yet His Holiness had not explicitly said that he wished to see an acquittal. The message seemed to be that the committee was to deal as gently with Galileo as it could. It would all be much easier if Uncle Maffeo and Father-General Vitelleschi would let anyone else see the papers that had come from Grantville. Then perhaps the game they were playing might be more obvious to the less exalted members of the hierarchy.