Galileo's Dream

  No one at Bellosguardo was pleased. Arcetri, where San Matteo was located, was a village in the hills west of the city. It was not as easy to get to Florence from there as it was from Bellosguardo. And Bellosguardo was such a big place that any villa in Arcetri would be smaller, and so would not require as large a staff.

  Still, this became a new project for Galileo. The Dialogo was nearing completion, so he could give the matter some attention, when he was not working on the problem of publication. Then also Maria Celeste was happy to help organize a house hunt in Arcetri. Indeed she was so good at it, so industrious and resourceful, that Galileo began to wish aloud that she could arrange for his book’s publication as well. And then Vincenzio and his sweet wife Sestilia returned to Bellos-guardo, and the hunt for a new house became something they all did together, a kind of family outing, a pleasure for all.

  Things might have gone equally well in regard to publishing the Dialogo, except Federico Cesi died. Another great young Roman Galilean dead in his meridian, long before his time; it was a pattern of bad luck that almost looked providential, or diabolical, and some of us worried about that.

  This time it was a disaster for Galileo beyond what he realized. Cesi was the only patron who might have been powerful enough to publish the Dialogo without trouble. And with him gone, his Lyncean Academy immediately collapsed too. Only now did it become obvious that it had been his private club all along.

  His loss meant Galileo had to seek a publisher in Florence, which meant obtaining formal approval from the censor there as well as from Father Monster in Rome. And in Florence, the likely prospect that publication would cause political trouble was upsetting the Medicis. Young Ferdinando had by now come into full possession of his crown, and he was concerned to consolidate his power. The last thing he wanted was for his father’s old court astronomer to be causing trouble with the Inquisition. So there were Florentine factions to add to the Roman ones opposed to publication. Indeed, with the single faction that had been in favor of it now defunct, only an irregular band of Galileans scattered all over Italy were left to hope for its success.

  BY 1629, THE BOOK’S SITUATION had become so complicated that Galileo decided another trip to Rome was in order, to make sure his permission to publish was secure. He went in 1630, at great trouble and expense, and against the will of the Medicis.

  As with all his previous trips to Rome, everything there seemed to have changed. It was as if each time he visited it was the Rome of a slightly different universe.

  This time Urban agreed to meet with him only once, and that only after a great diplomatic effort by Ambassador Niccolini, who made this effort on his own, apparently because of his liking for Galileo.

  And so once again Galileo woke in the Medici’s Roman embassy, and carefully dressed in his threadbare finest, remembering all the times this had happened before. He was conveyed down to the Vatican in an embassy litter, mentally rehearsing his points, and so intensely curious as to what he would find that he saw nothing of the narrow alleys and broad strada of the endless hilly city.

  This time Urban was calmly formal. Lacking an invitation to rise, Galileo remained on his knees and spoke from there.

  Urban’s carapace of power was now reinforced by a solid layer of flesh. He was more voluble than before. He spoke of his garden, his Florentine relatives, the poor state of the roads. He made it clear that he did not want the subject of astronomy to arise—not yet, anyway. He left it unclear if he were ever going to want it to arise. Galileo felt his knees begin to splinter under him as he made his part of the conversation; from this perspective he saw a different man. It was not just that Barberini’s face had thickened, his jaw gone more massive, his small eyes smaller, his skin more coarse and pale; it was not even that his goatee had been colored a brown that did not quite match the hair on his head. He looked down at Galileo as if from an enormous distance, of course, but also as if he knew things about Galileo that he thought Galileo should know but didn’t. As was indeed the case, because of the secret denunciation of Il Saggiatore. Spies had recently passed along word that Urban had had the charge investigated, but no one had heard the result. Occasionally there were times when the Vatican was like a black box with no lid, and this was one of them.

  The silence on that topic made it seem possible that Urban had set the matter aside, at least for now. And there were developing aspects of the larger situation in Europe that oddly protected Galileo from Urban. Prosecuting his previously favored scientist for heresy would not help Urban in his struggles with the Spanish, but merely be taken by them as a sign of weakness, a baring of the throat. Urban did not want that at all.

  His look now suggested that he had not forgotten the denunciation, that he knew he could use it if he wanted to. But Galileo did not know enough to read the look. He had his eye on one thing only, and seizing the thorny opportunity, he felt a quiet moment come on them and asked, “Your Holiness, I wonder if you will bless me with your opinion of my book on the world systems, which I have continued to write, and am ready to submit to Fra Riccardi for approval?”

  Urban’s brow furrowed and his look darkened. “If our commissioner is to approve it, why do you ask us? Do you think we would countermand our own appointment to the Holy Office of the Congregation?”

  “Not at all, Your Holiness. It’s just that your word is all in all to me.”

  “You have made it clear in your book that God can do anything He pleases, correct?”

  “Very much so, Holiness. That is the book’s point.”

  At the back of the Vatican garden, Cartophilus trembled to hear this. It was impossible to tell from the look on Galileo’s face whether he knew he was lying or not.

  For a long time Urban too regarded him closely. The kneeling old astronomer looked like a dressed barrel topped by an upraised head, his bearded red face open and sincere. Finally the pope nodded, a single slow, deep nod—a blessing in itself. “You may proceed with our blessing, Signor Galileo Galilei.”

  These words surprised several of the people who heard it. The sound of the sentence hung in the air. Hope itself seemed to hoist Galileo back to his feet, as if he were a much younger man than the one who had knelt.

  Francesco Niccolini provided him a room in Ferdinando’s Roman embassy, so that for the next two months Galileo could be comfortable as he went out every day to do his best to align the rest of the forces in Rome in the way Cesi would have. Urban’s private approval had been given, but clearly there was more diplomatic work to be done to secure the project. And yet Galileo had never been a great diplomat. All his life he had flattered his superiors excessively while also presuming to know much more than they did. This was not a good combination, and worse yet, he was still quick with the cutting sarcastic rejoinder if anyone disagreed with him. Thus it was no coincidence that after five visits he had more enemies in Rome than friends. And with rumors of his purpose in the capital widespread, there were many now out to subvert him if they could.

  They were effective. At the end of the two months he had managed only to secure a partial permission to publish from Riccardi, conditional on Riccardi’s approval of the full text, which would come only after revision of any areas deemed problematic.

  In truth, given the overall situation, he could have expected little more. The words of Urban were the ones he had wanted to hear most, anyway.

  So he returned to Florence. He was beginning to hate these trips to Rome, and yet of course they had all been spring picnics compared to the one left to come.

  While he was gone, Maria Celeste had found a suitable villa for rent in Arcetri, called Il Gioièllo, the Jewel. The rent was only thirty-five scudi a year—much less than Bellosguardo’s hundred, because it was so much smaller, and in a less convenient location. But Galileo declared that despite the diminution in size he would keep the entire staff, so everyone was happy. They left Bellosguardo, where they had lived together for fourteen years, without a backward glance.

  Galileo was
particularly happy with the new house. From his bedroom window on the second floor he could look down the lane and see the corner of the convent of San Matteo. He could visit every day, and he did. The house rules there had relaxed to the point where he was free to enter the central hall, and to help the women with their domestic repairs. He did carpentry, he fixed their clock. He wrote them little plays to perform, and even music to sing. Once he intertwined all his favorites of his father’s melodies into one polyphonic chorus, which brought tears to his eyes to hear. He played the lute for them.

  Maria Celeste was in her own personal paradise. Arcangela, on the other hand, still would not speak to him. In fact she had stopped speaking entirely; also bathing and combing her hair. She had the look of a madwoman, which was only appropriate; she was a madwoman. They had to keep her away from the wine cellar, even the kitchen. Maria Celeste fed her by hand. If she hadn’t, her sister would have starved. But on they went.

  His household still included his sister’s family, his brother’s family, Vincenzio and Sestilia and child, the servants, and a number of artisans, including Mazzoleni and his family, now jammed into a shed off the larger shed they had converted into the new workshop. Despite La Piera’s best efforts in the kitchen, it was chaos every day. Galileo ignored all that and persisted in getting the Dialogo published, now by a new publisher in Florence, which meant he could work directly with the printers in their shop. It proceeded very slowly, but eventually it was time to submit it to Riccardi and get his approval, if he could.

  At this point Galileo had obtained permission to publish from the Medicis’ bishop’s vicar, from the Florentine Inquisitor, and from the grand duke’s censor. Riccardi had read some chapters and discussed their contents with Urban, he said, but now he told Galileo that he would need to read the whole manuscript in its final form. That was bad enough, but also the plague had again forced a quarantine on everything moving up and down the peninsula, and a bulky manuscript was unlikely to make it through the whole way. Galileo offered to send the preface and conclusion, which was where the potential problems were dealt with, he said, while the main text of the book could be reviewed and reported on by someone in Florence chosen by Riccardi. Riccardi agreed to this, and his designated reviewer, Fra Giacinto Stefani, read the main text with minute attention to detail, and was won over to the book’s views in the process.

  Meanwhile, Riccardi was slow at getting to the preface and conclusion. When he finally did, he changed nothing to speak of, but merely ordered that Galileo add a last paragraph, like a chord at the end of a coda, or an amen, which would make it clear that the book’s speculations were not physical arguments about the real world but mathematical concepts used to help predictions and the like. The angelica dottrina would be thereby affirmed.

  Galileo wrote it out thusly, as the final argument of the book, which he put into the mouth of Simplicio:

  I admit that your thoughts seem to me more ingenious than many others I have heard. I do not therefore consider them true and conclusive; indeed, keeping always before my mind’s eye a most solid doctrine that I once heard from a most eminent and learned person, and before which one must fall silent, I know that if asked whether God in His infinite power and wisdom could have conferred upon the watery element its observed reciprocating motion using some other means than moving its containing vessels, both of you would reply that He could have, and He would have known how to do this in many ways which are unthinkable to our minds. From this I conclude that, this being so, it would be excessive boldness for anyone to limit and restrict the Divine power and wisdom to some particular fancy of his own.

  To which Galileo had Salviati reply:

  An admirable and angelic doctrine, and well in accord with another one, also Divine, which, while it grants to us the right to argue about the constitution of the universe (perhaps in order that the working of the human mind shall not be curtailed or made lazy), adds that we cannot discover the work of His Hands. Let us, then, exercise these activities permitted to us and ordained by God, that we may recognize and thereby so much the more admire His greatness.

  Which was very nicely expressed, Galileo thought—both to affirm Urban’s angelica dottrina and at the same time assert the freedom Galileo had been given to discuss things ex suppositione.

  Riccardi approved the book without having read the whole of the finished version. With an endless number of small problems and delays, the publisher in Florence began the work of printing a thousand copies.

  WITH THE DIALOGO FINISHED AND IN PUBLICATION, Galileo was happy to see an invitation to a banquet come from the Grand Duchess Christina. She had not been sending these to him as often as before, and when they had come Galileo had been too harried to be pleased. Now he was happy to accept and attend.

  In the antechamber to the great dining salon of the Medici palazzo, Galileo made his way through the crowd of courtiers to the drinks table and was given a tall gold goblet filled with new wine. He greeted Picchena and all the rest of his acquaintances at the court, and was circulating and talking with them when the Grand Duchess Christina, as distinguished and regal as ever, called him over to the open French doors leading out to the terrace and formal garden. “Signor Galileo, please come here. I want you to meet a new friend of mine.”

  The friend was Hera of Io, from Jupiter.

  Galileo clapped both hands to his chest; hopefully this resembled his usual flamboyant court mannerisms enough that it did not look too bizarre, because he was helpless to stop himself—he simply had to press down on his pounding heart, to keep it from breaking his ribs and flying free. It was definitely her, right out of his dreams: a woman quite tall but otherwise ordinary enough, fair-haired, fine featured, well dressed in the style of the court, a bit stout in such raiment. She had the same intelligent look in her eye as always, now curious to see his reaction to her presence, both concerned and amused—a very familiar look.

  “Well met, my lady,” he managed to croak as he took up and kissed her offered hand. It felt chill.

  “It’s my honor,” she said. “I read your Sidereus Nuncius when I was young, and thought it very interesting.”

  Here in Italy she called herself Countess Alessandra Bocchineri Buonamici. She was Sestilia Galilei’s long-lost older sister, she said, and the diplomat Giovanfrancesco Buonamici’s wife. Here she spoke Tuscan with all the fluency of a Florentine, her voice richer and more vibrant than the internal translator’s had been. Galileo mouthed some typical phrases of courtly small talk, feeling Christina’s eye on them. Knowing his confusion, Alessandra did most of the talking. He learned that she spoke French and Latin, and played the spinet, and wrote poems, and corresponded with her friends in Paris and London. Count Buonamici was her third husband, she informed him; the first two had died when she was quite a bit younger. He could only nod. It was a common story; the plague in the last decade had killed half the people of Milan, and almost as many everywhere else. People died here. But not on Jupiter—

  “I will seat you two next to each other at the banquet,” Christina declared, happy to see them hitting it off.

  “Many thanks, Your Beautiful Highness,” Galileo said, and bowed.

  When Christina had left them alone in the doorway, Galileo swallowed hard and said, “You remind me of someone?”

  Her oak-colored eyes crinkled at the corners. “I should think so,” she said. “Perhaps you can escort me out to the terrace. I would like to take the air before we eat.”

  “Of course.” Galileo felt a strange kind of pleasure growing in him, fearful but romantic, uncanny but familiar. To know she was real—it made him shudder.

  Out on the terrace there were some other couples, and the two of them talked in distracted semicoherence about Florence and Venice, Tasso and Ariosto. He spoke for Ariosto’s warmth while she defended Tasso’s depth, and neither were surprised to find they came down on opposite sides of the question. Her husband had just been assigned to a posting in Germany, she said; she would have
to leave quite soon.

  “I understand,” he said uncertainly.

  She asked about his work, and Galileo described the problems he was having with the publication of his book.

  “Perhaps you could delay publication?” she asked. “Just by a year or two, until things calm down?”

  “No,” Galileo said. “The printing has already begun. And I have to publish. The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve already waited fourteen years, or even forty.”

  “Yes,” she said. “And yet.”

  A crease appeared between her eyebrows as she considered him. She took his hand and led him around a corner of the palazzo, to a long bench against the wall in the dark. She asked him to sit down, and then reached out and touched him.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Look

  I do not wish, Your Excellency, to engulf myself inadvertently in a boundless sea from which I might never get back to port, nor in trying to solve one difficulty do I wish to give rise to a hundred more, as I fear may have already happened in sailing but this little way from shore.

  —GALILEO, Il SAGGIATORE

  HE STOOD ON THE FRACTURED ICE, under the livid gas giant. Hera stood beside him, looking uncharacteristically abashed. “Sorry to intrude like that,” she said, “but you went away without warning.”

  “Cartophilus took me away. He said it looked like I was in distress.”

  “We all were,” she said. “We still are.” She gestured up at writhing Jupiter. “I need your help.”

  “Good,” he said. “Because I need yours.”

  The gas giant was still roiling in the sky, great red spots all over it, many of them swirling into each other and casting off convoluted squiggling ribbons.