Chapter I: Front Matter

GALILEO GALILEI.

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_2 vols. Demy 8vo. Cloth, 32s._

THE RENAISSANCE OF ART IN FRANCE. By Mrs. MARK PATTISON. With Nineteen Steel Engravings.

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_2 vols. Demy 8vo. Cloth, 24s._

THE CIVILIZATION OF THE PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY. By JACOB BURCKHARDT. Authorized Translation by S. G. C. MIDDLEMORE.

“The whole of the first part of Dr Burckhardt’s work deals
with what may be called the Political Preparation for the
Renaissance. It is impossible here to do more than express a
high opinion of the compact way in which the facts are put
before the reader.... The second volume of Dr. Burckhardt’s
work is, we think, more full and complete in itself, more rich
in original thought, than the first. His account of the causes
which prevented the rise of a great Italian drama is very clear
and satisfying.”—_Saturday Review._

LONDON: C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE.

GALILEO GALILEI
_AND THE ROMAN CURIA_.

_FROM AUTHENTIC SOURCES._

BY
KARL VON GEBLER.

_TRANSLATED, WITH THE SANCTION OF THE AUTHOR, BY
MRS. GEORGE STURGE._

LONDON:
C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
1879.

LETTER TO THE TRANSLATOR.

MADAM,—

It is the desire of every author, every prosecutor of research, that the products of his labours, the results of his studies, should be widely circulated. This desire arises, especially in the case of one who has devoted himself to research, not only from a certain egotism which clings to us all, but from the wish that the laborious researches of years, often believed to refute old and generally-received errors, should become the common property of as many as possible.

The author of the present work is no exception to these general rules; and it therefore gives him great pleasure, and fills him with gratitude, that you, Madam, should have taken the trouble to translate the small results of his studies into the language of Newton, and thus have rendered them more accessible to the English nation.

But little more than two years have elapsed since the book first appeared in Germany, but this period has been a most important one for researches into the literature relating to Galileo.

In the year 1869 Professor Domenico Berti obtained permission to inspect and turn to account the Acts of Galileo’s Trial carefully preserved in the Vatican, and in 1876 he published a portion of these important documents, which essentially tended to complete the very partial publication of them by Henri de L’Epinois, in 1867. In 1877 M. de L’Epinois and the present writer were permitted to resuscitate the famous volume, which again lay buried among the secret papal archives; that is, to inspect it at leisure and to publish the contents in full. It was, however, not only of the greatest importance to become acquainted with the Vatican MS. as a whole, and by an exact publication of it to make it the common property of historical research; it was at least of equal moment to make a most careful examination of the material form and external appearance of the Acts. For the threefold system of paging had led some historians to make the boldest conjectures, and respecting one document in particular,—the famous note of 26th February, 1616,—there was an apparently well-founded suspicion that there had been a later falsification of the papers.

While, on the one hand, the knowledge gained of the entire contents of the Vatican MS., for the purpose of my own publication of it,[1] only confirmed, in many respects, my previous opinions on the memorable trial; on the other hand, a minute and repeated examination of the material evidence afforded by the suspicious document, which, up to that time, had been considered by myself and many other authors to be a forgery of a later date, convinced me, contrary to all expectation, that it indisputably originated in 1616.

This newly acquired experience, and the appearance of many valuable critical writings on the trial of Galileo since the year 1876, rendered therefore a partial revision and correction of the German edition of this work, for the English and an Italian translation, absolutely necessary. All the needful emendations have accordingly been made, with constant reference to the literature relating to the subject published between the spring of 1876 and the spring of 1878. I have also consulted several older works which had escaped my attention when the book was first written.

May the work then, in its to some extent new form, make its way in the British Isles, and meet with as friendly a reception there as the German edition has met with in Austria and Germany.

To you, Madam, I offer my warm thanks for the care with which you have executed the difficult and laborious task of translation.

Accept, Madam, the assurance of my sincere esteem.

KARL VON GEBLER.[2]

MERAN, _1st April, 1878_.

NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR.

The Vatican Manuscript alluded to in the foregoing letter, and constantly referred to in the text, was published by the author in the autumn of 1877, under the title of “Die Acten des Gallileischen Processes, nach der Vaticanischen Handschrift, von Karl von Gebler.” Cotta, Stuttgard. This, with some introductory chapters, was intended to supersede the Appendix to the original work, and to form a second volume, when a new German edition should be called for. It did not, however, appear to me that any purpose would be served by reprinting all the Latin and Italian documents of the Vatican MS. in this country, as students who wish to consult them can easily procure them as published in the original languages in Germany, and I hope for a wider circle of readers than that composed exclusively of students. I therefore proposed to Herr von Gebler to give the History, Description, and Estimate of the Vat. MS., etc., in an Appendix, together with a few of the more important documents; to this, with some suggestions, as for instance, that some of the shorter documents should be given as notes to the text, he fully agreed, with the remark that I must know best what would suit my countrymen. The Appendix, therefore, differs somewhat both from the original Appendix and from the introductory portions of the new volume, for these also were revised for the Translation.

The translations from Latin and Italian documents have been made from the originals by a competent scholar, and all the more important letters and extracts from letters of Galileo have been compared with the Italian. The Table of Contents, headings to and titles of the chapters, and Index, none of which exist in the original, have been added by myself.

JANE STURGE.

SYDENHAM, _November, 1878_.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR.

ABRIDGED FROM THE “AUGSBURGER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG” OF 6TH DECEMBER, 1878.

The author of this work died at Gratz on the 7th of September, 1878. In devoting a few lines to his memory we have not a long and distinguished career to describe, for a brief span of life was all that was granted him, but to the last moment he sought to turn it to the best account.

The present work has enjoyed a wide circulation in Germany, but few of its readers could have known anything of the author but his name. The protracted studies which form the basis of it, the skilful handling of documentary material which seemed to betray the practised historian, must have suggested a man of ripe years, whose life had been passed in study, as the author; no one certainly would have sought him among the young officers of a cavalry regiment, whose tastes generally lie in any direction rather than that of historical research.

Karl von Gebler was the son of Field-marshal Wilhelm von Gebler, and was born at Vienna in 1850. Although early destined for the military career, he laid the foundations of a superior education in the grammar schools. Having passed through the gymnasium, in 1869 he joined the 7th regiment of the line as a private, and before long attained the rank of lieutenant in the 4th regiment of Dragoons. Being an excellent draftsman and skilled in military surveying, he was often employed on the general’s staff in drawing maps. In addition to his extensive knowledge of military affairs, he had many of the accomplishments befitting his calling; he was an excellent shot and a bold rider. But the duties of a cavalry officer were soon too limited for his active mind and intellectual tastes, and he sought also to win his spurs on the fields of literature. He occupied his leisure in translating the work of a French staff officer, “Success in War,” to which he made some additions. He also published “The True Portrait of a Royal Hero of the 18th Century,” in a newspaper; and finally, “Historic Sayings.”

A night ride, undertaken in the performance of his official duties, from which he returned at daybreak to exercise at the riding school, brought on severe hemorrhage and inflammation of the lungs. The two physicians who attended him gave him up; in a consultation at his bedside, prudently held in Latin, they gave him twenty-four hours to live. One of them having taken leave, the other returned to the patient, who, with quiet humour, greeted him with the classic words, “Morituri te salutant!” The worthy doctor found, to his horror, that the patient had understood all that had passed, and had no easy task to persuade him that his case was not so bad after all. He had, however, in consequence of some local circumstances, already ordered the coffin.

Gebler’s constitution surmounted the danger; by the spring he was able to join his parents at Gratz. But his health had sustained so severe a shock that he was compelled to abandon the military career. His parents removed to Gries, near Botzen, for the sake of a milder climate on his account. Here he revived wonderfully; he seemed to have taken a new lease of life, and devoted himself altogether to literary pursuits. The critical studies before mentioned of the assumed historic sayings of great men, and among them of Galileo’s famous dictum, “E pur si muove,” brought him into closer acquaintance with this hero of science. He accumulated so large a material for a biographical sketch of the great Italian, that the limits of an essay seemed too narrow, and he resolved to undertake a more comprehensive work on the subject, which he thought would fill up a gap in German literature. In the autumn of 1875 the work, which had occupied him four years, was completed. It was not a little gratifying to the young author that one of the first publishers in Germany, Cotta, of Stuttgard, undertook the publication on very favourable terms, and brought it out in 1876. It met with great approval, and brought him into association with many eminent literary men in Italy and Germany. Galileo’s own country was foremost in recognition of his services. The academies of Padua and Pisa, and the Accadémia dei Lincei sent him special acknowledgments, and King Victor Emmanuel rewarded him with the order of the Crown of Italy.

Before this work was finished he had removed with his father, having in the meanwhile lost his mother, to Meran, and during the first year of his residence there his health improved so much that he was able to take part in social life, and to enlarge the sphere of his labours and influence. Society in this little town owed much in many ways to the intellectual and amiable young officer. Whenever a good and noble cause required support, his co-operation might be reckoned on. In common with many other lovers of art and antiquity, he took a lively interest in the preservation and restoration of the Maultasch-Burg, which promises to be one of the chief sights of Meran. Unhappily he did not live to see the completion of the work.

With increase of health his zest for work increased also, and he addressed himself to a great historical task. The subject he selected was the Maid of Orleans. The preliminary studies were difficult in a place destitute of all aids to learning. His researches were not confined to the collection of all the printed material; in 1876 he had planned to search out the documentary sources wherever they were to be found, but before this he made close studies in the field of psychology and mental pathology. The work of Ruf on the subject, the learned chaplain of a lunatic asylum, attracted his attention, and he entered into communication with the author. Ruf’s great experience and philosophical acquirements were of great service to Gebler in his preliminary studies on Joan of Arc. But the project was not to be carried out. Just as he was about to write the second chapter, an essay of Berti’s at Rome occasioned him to enter on fresh studies on Galileo.

Domenico Berti, who had examined the original Acts of Galileo’s trial, though, as his work shows, very superficially, spoke contemptuously of the German _savans_, comparing them with blind men judging of colours, as none of them had seen the original Acts in the Vatican. This had special reference to the document of 26th February, 1616, which the German writers on the subject, and Gebler among them, declared to be a forgery. Being a man of the strictest love of truth, this reproach induced him, in spite of his health, which had again failed, in May, 1877, to go to Rome, where he obtained access to the Vatican. For ten weeks, in spite of the oppressive heat, he daily spent fourteen hours in the Papal Archives, studying and copying with diplomatic precision the original Acts of Galileo’s trial. As the result of his labours, he felt constrained to declare the document in question to be genuine. Actuated only by the desire that truth should prevail, in the second part of his work, written at Rome, he without hesitation withdrew the opinion he had previously advocated as an error.

His first work had made a flattering commotion in the literary world, but the additional publication called forth a still more animated discussion of the whole question, which the readers of this journal will not have forgotten. Gebler took part in it himself, and, then suffering from illness, wrote his reply from a sick bed.

His sojourn in Rome had sadly pulled him down. On his return home, in July, 1877, he had lost his voice and was greatly reduced. But in October of the same year he once more roused himself for a journey to Italy. The object of the previous one was to follow his hero in yellow and faded historic papers, but this time the task he had set himself was to pursue the tracks of Galileo in all the cities and places in any way connected with his memory. The result of these travels was an article in the _Deutsche Rundschau_, No. 7, 1878, “On the Tracks of Galileo.” In this paper Gebler again dispels some clouds in which Galileo’s previous biographers had enveloped him. We in these less romantic days are quite willing to dispense with the shudder at the stories of the dungeon, etc., and are glad to know that Galileo was permitted to enjoy a degree of comfort during his detention not often granted to those who come into collision with the world.

“On the Tracks of Galileo” was Gebler’s last literary work. His strength of will and mental powers at length succumbed to his incurable malady. The mineral waters of Gleichenberg, which he had been recommended to try, did him more harm than good. He wrote thence to a friend, “I am in a pitiable condition, and have given up all hope of improvement.” Unfortunately he was right. He had overtasked his strength. His zeal for science had hastened his end, and he may well be called one of her victims.

His last days were spent at Gratz, where his boyhood had been passed, and he rests beside his only brother. Both were the pride and joy of their father, now left alone.

In appearance Karl von Gebler was distinguished and attractive looking. No one could escape the charm of the freshness and originality of his mind, in spite of constant ill health. The refined young student, with the manners of a man of the world, was a phenomenon to his fellow-workers in the learned world. We have heard some of them say that they could not understand how Gebler could have acquired the historian’s craft, the technical art of prosecuting research, without having had any special critical schooling.

The writer of these lines will never forget the hours spent with this amiable and, in spite of his success, truly modest young man in his snug study. The walls lined with books, or adorned with weapons, betrayed at a glance the character and tastes of the occupant, while a pendulum clock dating from the time of Galileo recalled his work on the first observer of the vibrations of the pendulum to mind. He always liked to wind up the venerable timepiece himself, and took a pleasure in its sonorous tones. When I once more entered the study after his death, the clock had run down, the pendulum had ceased to vibrate, it told the hour no more.