Galileo affair

12 April 1633, at the Palace of the Holy Office

On 12 April 1633 Galileo appeared in Rome before Commissary General Vincenzo Maculano and the prosecutor Carlo Sinceri, and formally swore to tell the truth.

He said the Florentine inquisitor had ordered him to Rome and that he believed the summons concerned his recently printed Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. He told the tribunal he had made the journey in a litter.

The book on the table

Shown a Florence 1632 copy of the Dialogue, Galileo identified it and acknowledged that its entire contents had been written by him.

He put the writing at seven or eight years, not continuously, beginning ten or twelve years before the hearing.

What did not happen that day

Questioned about the 1616 injunction, Galileo recalled Cardinal Bellarmine ordering him not to hold or defend Copernicanism, but said he did not remember the broader wording 'teach' or 'in any way whatever.'

At the deposition's end he was confined to a room in the officials' dormitory 'in lieu of prison,' forbidden to leave without permission, and sworn to silence.

No conviction was delivered on 12 April. The sentence and abjuration came on 22 June, and its formula was that Galileo was 'vehemently suspected of heresy' — not that he was a convicted heretic.