Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany
Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion & Science
https://inters.org/Galilei-Madame-Christina-Lorraine
The text given is the one printed in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, 1957.
The footnote states there was a marginal note by Galileo attributing it to Baronius.
Now, here is the actual passage with the quote and the footnote:
I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree: “That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.” (8)
(8) A marginal note by Galileo assigns this epigram to Cardinal Baronius (1538-1607). Baronius visited Padua with Cardinal Bellarmine in 1598, and Galileo probably met him at that time.
Now, this connection to Cardinal Bellarmine may mean Baronius said so during the Giordano Bruno affair. Not the Galileo affair.
He was not one of the judges of Bruno, but as Bellarmine was, it could be about whether heliocentrism belonged among the otherwise already heavy charges. However, in this case it was Bellarmine who decided and was designated by the Church to do so, not Baronius.
Cojudging was a cardinal Camillo Borghese, the future Pope Paul V, under whom the first Galileo affair (involving Sidereus Nuntius, not himself, as suspect) was decided.
Now a certain Firpo* probably basing himself on a summary of the process** as given by wikipedians states that the final charges probably were:
- holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith and speaking against it and its ministers;
- holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and the Incarnation;
- holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith pertaining to Jesus as the Christ;
- holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus;
- holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about both Transubstantiation and the Mass;
- claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity;
- believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes;
- dealing in magics and divination.
The heliocentric part associated with Bruno relates to "plurality of worlds and their eternity" (classic atheist world view after Newton from Kant to just before the Big Bang theory), and an English translator of Copernicus had removed the sphere of the Fix Stars as an optical and logical illusion, a rotating universe can't have infinite extention, since infinitely above earth would need infinite speed = instantaneously, but if the rotation is Earth's, this inhibition of an infinite universe disappears, and the view of it as an inner side of a shell also becomes secondary to "Earth's movement" ...
That in turn relates to how God moves "each universe" (as in planet system around a star), where the Thomistic view favoured a direct act of an external or quasi externa agent, Bruno would have a much more immenentistic view of how each planets in each solar system (or world) is moved, making stars quasi-incarnations of the Son and the movement a manifestation of the Third Person acting as "world soul" ...
This is how Prima Via*** goes wrong when Heliocentrics tend to it. At its worst.
Now, it seems this letter was not a private letter, though I have not seen any cover of a print earlier than Trier, M DC XXXVI, 1636, that cover being on the above link as an illustration, and by then he would have already been a prisoner, and I have seen a handwritten form on the related page.°
I was told in a mail that the marginal note was in Galileo's example of the printed edition, but these pages do not allow per se the conclusion that he actually had one.
It could have been a marginal note on the handwritten letter, and if so, there is a possibility that Galileo gave a false trail. Barberini was his friend, but demanded discretion. And if he had started writing "Barberini" and got as far as "Bar" he may have changed his mind to "Baronius" to cover up the actual man.
But what remains absolutely certain is, Baronius cannot have said it in the Galileo controversy, even if Galileo cited him then, because he had already died.
It may be noted that Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion & Science is cofunded by Pontificia Università della Santa Croce and, of all things, the Templeton World Charity Foundation. Notorious for promoting anti-Fundamentalist positions, including to Roman Catholic clergy.°° The Pontificia Università della Santa Croce is taking grants from a Liberal Theologian Calvinist. Will I be able to get confirmed that Galileo actually ever had a printed copy? When, where, in what circumstances? Was the marginal note perhaps to the 1636 edition in order to cover up for Urban VIII? I don't know. I very much would like to know, also, what was the first edition which included any foot- or marginal note about Galileo making a marginal note.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Agapitus
18.VIII.2026
Praeneste natalis sancti Agapiti Martyris, qui cum esset annorum quindecim, et amore Christi ferveret, jussu Aureliani Imperatoris tentus, ac primo nervis crudis diutissime caesus, deinde sub Antiocho Praefecto graviora supplicia passus; exinde cum ex praecepto Imperatoris leonibus objiceretur, et minime laesus esset, gladio ministrorum coronandus percutitur.
PS, forgot the author of the book:
Source publishing.
Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, edited by Stillman Drake (New York: Anchor-Doubleday, 1957), pp. 173-216. Original Italian text published in Opere di Galileo Galilei, Edizione Nazionale edited by Antonio Favaro (Firenze: Giunti-Barbera, 1968), vol. V, pp. 309-348. Translation and footnotes by Stillman Drake, and confronted with the original Italian source Lettera a Cristina di Lorena, in Opere di Galileo Galilei
PPS, I'm not impressed by other content in the Letter, but that can wait to some other time./HGL
* Firpo, Luigi (1993). Il processo di Giordano Bruno (in Italian). Salerno. ISBN 978-88-8402-135-9.
** "II Sommario del Processo di Giordano Bruno, con appendice di Documenti sull'eresia e l'inquisizione a Modena nel secolo XVI", edited by Angelo Mercati, in Studi e Testi, vol. 101.
*** The five ways or Quinque Viae are St. Thomas' proofs that God exists. First part of the Summa, Q 2, A 3. The "first way" is the one from movement.
° Galileo Galilei’s Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine: a reading-guide
Luca Arcangeli, Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion & Science
https://inters.org/galilei-letter-Christina-lorraine-reading-guide
°° Follow the money … from the Templeton Foundation
By Rev. Jim Witteveen | Published 20 Jul, 2017
https://creation.com/en/articles/follow-the-money
