The Trial of Galileo: Essential Documents trans. and ed. by Maurice A. Finocchiaro (review)

In his acclaimed The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History, published in1989, Maurice A. Finocchiaro collected, translated, and edited the most important documents pertaining to the trial and condemnation of Galileo. The eighty documents that he presented, together with the critical apparatus and notes, make up a book of about four hundred pages. He has now selected the most important documents, those that can be called crucial and essential to an understanding of the most dramatic episode in the history of the relations between science and religion. His new book opens with an excellent introduction and a useful glossary of terms and names. He has also taken the opportunity to correct a few minor oversights in the earlier collection, and he has incorporated some items from his Retrying Galileo, 1633–1992, which appeared in 2005.

An essential aspect of the trial of Galileo concerns the legality of the proceedings, and Finocchiaro rightly stresses that what is legally pertinent in the twentyfirst century cannot be assumed to have been relevant in seventeenth-century Italy. The weight played by ecclesiastic or canon law will not be familiar to the modern reader, but it was decisive. An interesting case is the legal opinion solicited by the government of the Republic of Venice and written by the Friar Paolo Sarpi, an important figure in his own right. This document outlines a procedure to render legally valid in Venice the decree of the Roman Congregation of the Index condemning Copernicus. From the evidence available, it would seem that the decree of the Index never became legally valid in Venice, and that the situation was analogous in France.

Although the legal side of Galileo’s trial is of considerable importance, the trial itself was not primarily or exclusively a matter of jurisprudence, as some authors have been inclined to see it. At issue was also the theological problem of the validity of scriptural arguments against scientific hypotheses. This question was fraught with epistemological difficulties that were intertwined with social, bureaucratic, and political commitments, which were not always recognized. The documents make it clear, however, that Galileo was not challenging the magisterium of the Church. He considered himself a staunch Catholic and was convinced that his defencs of Copernicanism was in the interest of the Faith. The Roman inquisitors took a harsher line and found him “vehemently suspected of heresy,” a specific category of religious crime intermediate in seriousness between formal heresy and slight suspicion of heresy. In effect, Galileo was being convicted of the second most serious offense handled by the Inquisition. He was condemned to imprisonment but this was immediately commuted to house arrest. He was made comfortable enough to resume his work on the nature of motion and write the book that would become the Discourses on Two New Sciences on which his fame as a physicist rests.

The Trial of Galileo: Essential Documents is a useful collection of material related to the trial, and it can be warmly recommended not only to scholars and students but to the general public.