CHAPTER 5
1
Reply to Cardinal Bellarmine (161sr
§5.1 Cardinal Bellarmine's Letter to Foscarini 3
(171] To the Very R everend Father Paolo Antonio Foscarini, Provincial of the Carmelites in the Province of Calabria:
M y Very Reverend Father,
I have read with interest the letter in Italian and the essay in Latin
which Your Paternity sent me; I thank you for the one and for the
other and confess that they are all full of intelligence and erudition.
You ask for my opinion, and so I shall give it to you, but very briefly,
since now you have little time for reading and I for writing.
First, I say that it seems to me that Your Paternity and Mr. Galilee
are proceeding prudently by limiting yourselves to speaking suppositionally and not absolutely, as I have always believed that Copernicus
spoke. For there is no danger in saying that, by assuming the earth
moves and the sun stands still, one saves all the appearances better than
by postulating eccentrics and epicycles; and that is sufficient for the
mathematician. However, it is different to want to affirm that in reality the sun is at the center of the world and only turns on itself without moving from east to west, and the earth is in the third heaven 4
and revolves with great speed around the sun; this is a very dangerous thing, likely not only to irritate all scholastic philosophers and
theologians, but also to harm the Holy Faith by rendering Holy
Scripture false. For Your Paternity has well shown many ways of
interpreting Holy Scripture, but has not applied them to particular
cases; without a doubt you would have encountered very great
1. Reprinted from: Maurice A. Finocchiaro, trans. and ed., The Galileo Af
fair: A Documentary History, © 1989 by the Regents of the University of California. Published by the University of California Press.
2. For the historical background, see the Introduction, especially §0.7.
3. Galilei 189G-1909, 12: 171-72; translated by Finocchiaro (1989, 67-69).
4. "In the third heaven" just means in the third orbit around the sun.
§5.1 Cardinal Bellarmine's Letter to Foscarini
147
difficulties if you had wanted to interpret all those passages you
yourself cited.
(172] Second, I say that, as you know, the Council5 prohibits interpreting Scripture against the common consensus of the Holy Fathers;
and if Your Paternity wants to read not only the Holy Fathers, but
also the modern commentaries on Genesis, the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, - -and Joshua, you will find all agreeing in the literal interpretation that
the sun is in heaven and turns around the earth with great speed, and
that the earth is very far from heaven and sits motionless at the center of the world. Consider now, with your sense of prudence,
whether the Church can tolerate giving Scripture a meaning contrary
to the Holy Fathers and to all the Greek and Latin commentators.
Nor can one answer that this is not a matter of faith, since if it is not
a matter of faith "as regards the topic," it is a matter of faith "as regards the speaker"; and so it would be heretical to say that Abraham
did not have two children and Jacob twelve, as well as to say that
Christ was not born of a virgin, because both are said by the Holy
Spirit through the mouth of the prophets and the apostles.
Third, I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun is
at the center of the world and the earth in the third heaven, and that
the sun does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun, then
one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary, and say rather that we do not understand
them than that what is demonstrated is false. But I will not believe
that there is such a demonstration, until it is shown me. Nor is it the
·same to demonstrate that by assuming the sun to be at the center and
the earth in heaven one can save the appearances, and to demonstrate
that in truth the sun is at the center and the earth in heaven; for I believe the first demonstration may be available, but I have very great
doubts about the second, and in case of doubt one must not abandon
the Holy Scripture as interpreted by the Holy F.,athers. I add that the
one who wrote, "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and
hasteth to his place where he arose," 6 was Solomon, who not only
spoke inspired by God, but was a man above all others wise and
learned in the human sciences and in the knowledge of created things;
he received all this wisdom from God; therefore it is not likely that
he was affirming something that was contrary to truth already
5. The Council of Trent (1545-63).
6. Ecclesiastes 1:5 (KingJames Version).
J
148
Reply to Cardinal Bellarmine (1615)
demonstrated or capable of being demonstrated. Now, suppose you
say that Solomon speaks in accordance with appearances, since it
seems to us that the sun moves (while the earth does so) , just as to
someone w ho moves away from the seashore on a ship it looks like
the shore is m oving. I shall answer that when someone moves away
from the shore, although it appears to him that the shore is moving
away from him, nevertheless he knows that this is an error and corrects it, seeing clearly that the ship moves and not the shore; but in
regard to the sun and the earth, no scientist has any need to correct
the error, since he clearly experiences that the earth stands still and
that the eye is not in error w hen it judges that the sun moves, as it
also is not in error w hen it judges that the moon and the stars move.
And this is enough for now.
With this I greet dearly Your Paternity, and I pray to God to grant
you all your wishes.
At home, 12 April 1615.
To Your Reverend Paternity.
As a Brother,
C ardinal Bellarmine.
t Galileo's Considerations on the
Copernican Opinion, Part 17
"'
t
remove (as much as the blessed God allows me) the
:e from the most correct judgment about the reso.ng controversy, I shall try to do away with two
not" ns w hich I believe some are attempting to
n.inds o those persons who are charged with the
l, if I am n mistaken, they are concepts far from
The first is that no one has any
might be scandalous; for the earth's st~ity and sun's motion are so
well dem onstrated in philosophy that we
be sure and indubitably
certain about them ; on the other hand, the co trary position is such
an immense paradox and obvious foolishness tha o one can doubt
in any way that it cannot be demonstrated now or ev '-or indeed that
it can never find a place in the mind of sensible persods. The other
a
) vi\
./
~ -t1.)
7. Galilei 1890-1909, 5: 351-63; translated by Finocchiaro (1989, 7
§5.2 Galilee's Considerations on the Copernican Opinion, Part I
149
idea which they try to spread is the following: although that contrary
a~umption has been used by Copernicus and other astronomers, they
did ·s in a suppositional manner and insofar as it can account more
conve ·ently for the appearances of celestial motions and facilitate astronorru al calculations and computations, and it is not the case that
the same ~
sons who assumed it believed it to be true de facto and
in nature; s the conclusion is that one can safely proceed to condemning it. ': \wever, if I am not mistaken, these ideas are fallacious
and far from th truth, as I can show with the following considerations. These will
y be general and suitable to be understood without much effort an abor even by someone who is not well versed in
the natural and astron • mical sciences. For if there were the opportunity to treat these [352 oints with those who are very experienced
in these studies, or at least w ho have the time to do the work required
by the difficulty of the subj \ t, then I should propose nothing but the
reading of Copernicus' own b ook; from it and from the strength of
\
his demonstrations one could d e,arly see how true or false are the r;wo
ideas we are discussing.
T~ it is not to be di~?~raged"as ridiculous is, therefore, cl~~rly
shown by the quality of tli~ IE-e_I?._,._.ot · ~9<::.!~~-~~.-E..n, who Ii~ve
held and do hold it. No one can regar it as ridiculous unless he con::.
siders ridiculous and foolish Pythagoras \ jth all his school, Philolaus
(teacher of Plato), Plato himself (as Aristo~ testifies in his book On
8
the H eavens), Heraclides of Pontus, Ecphantus~
Aristarchus of Samos,
Hicetas, and Seleucus the mathematician. Se eca himself not only
does not ridicule it, but he makes fun of those w o do, writing in his
book On Comets: "It is also important to study ese questions in
order to learn w hether the universe goes around the'motionless earth,
or the earth rotates but the universe does not. For som have said that
we are naturally unaware of motion, that sunrise and s set are not
due to the motion of the heavens, but that it is we. ourselv who rise
and set. The matter deserves consideration, so that we may ow the
conditions of our existence, whether we stand still or move v ry fast,
whotl>ec God ddvO< mcything ' mund " ' oc dcivO< rn.''' Ro~
8. Ecphantus was an ancient Greek who lived in Syracuse at the beginning
of the fifth century B.C.
9. Galilee gives no exact reference for this passage, which he leaves in Latin;
it is here translated directly from his quotation. C£ Seneca, Quaestiones naturales, book vii, chapter 2.
b