Galileo's Daughter (42 page)

Satisfaction, the third act of the sacrament of penance, consisted in performing three classes of good works, namely prayer, fasting, and the giving of alms. The recitation of the penitential psalms, in partial fulfillment of the prayer obligation, would have taken Galileo approximately one-quarter of an hour per week, on his knees.

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and
in whose spirit there is no guile. [32:1, 2]

September saw the end of the plague epidemic that had menaced life in Tuscany for two whole years. Grand Duke Ferdinando attributed the respite to the May procession of the Miraculous Madonna of Impruneta. He and his grandmother, Grand Duchess Cristina, ordered their finest craftsmen to create ornate tokens of appreciation—including a cross in carved rock crystal with gold decorative bands, fifteen silver votive vases, and a silver reliquary containing the skull of Saint Sixtus—which the Medici family sent in a grateful outpouring to the small church that housed the Virgin’s holy image.

I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid.
I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou
forgavest the iniquity of my sin. [32:5]

At the Convent of San Matteo in Arcetri, the disappearance of the plague coincided with another remarkable stroke of good fortune: Through a series of deaths attributed to old age, the late brother of Suor Clarice Burci bequeathed the nuns a farm at Ambrogiana valued at more than five thousand
scudi.
In reporting this event to Galileo, Suor Maria Celeste estimated the coming year’s harvest to yield 290 bushels of wheat, 50 barrels of wine, and 70 sacks of millet and other grains, “so that my convent will be greatly relieved.” She anticipated that Galileo, too, would be relieved of constant requests for money, given the sisters’ sudden affluence.

Their benefactor, well knowing the nuns could not leave the convent to tend crops and feed animals, had thoughtfully willed them a full complement of field hands and caretakers to remain on the property. Along with this largesse, the Poor Clares of San Matteo inherited the responsibility of celebrating mass every day for four hundred years to pray for the immortal soul of Suor Clarice’s brother. They also stood obliged to perform the Office for the Dead in his honor three times per year for the next two centuries.

To these requisite prayers, Suor Maria Celeste voluntarily added the psalms for her father’s penance.

Forsake me not, O Lord: O my God, be not far from me. Make
haste to help me, O Lord my salvation. [38:21, 22]

  MOST BELOVED LORD FATHER

SATURDAY I WROTE TO YOU, Sire, and Sunday, thanks to Signor [Niccolo] Gherardini [a young admirer, and later biographer, of Galileo, who was related to Suor Elisabetta], your letter was delivered to me, through which, learning of the hope you hold out for your return, I am consoled, as every hour seems a thousand years to me while I await that promised day when I shall see you again; and hearing that you continue to enjoy your well-being only doubles my desire to experience the manifold happiness and satisfaction that will come from watching you return to your own home and moreover in good health.

I would surely not want you to doubt my devotion, for at no time do I ever leave off commending you with all my soul to blessed God, because you fill my heart, Sire, and nothing matters more to me than your spiritual and physical well-being. And to give you some tangible proof of this concern, I tell you that I succeeded in obtaining permission to view your sentence, the reading of which, though on the one hand it grieved me wretchedly, on the other hand it thrilled me to have seen it and found in it a means of being able to do you good, Sire, in some very small way; that is by taking upon myself the obligation you have to recite one time each week the seven psalms, and I have already begun to fulfill this requirement and to do so with great zest, first because I believe that prayer accompanied by the claim of obedience to Holy Church is effective, and then, too, to relieve you of this care. Therefore had I been able to substitute myself in the rest of your punishment, most willingly would I elect a prison even straiter than this one in which I dwell, if by so doing I could set you at liberty. Now we have come this far, and the many favors we have already received give us hope of having still others bestowed on us, provided that our faith is accompanied by good works, for, as you know better than I, Sire,
fides sine
operibus mortua est
[faith without works is lifeless].

My dear Suor Luisa continues to fare badly, and because of the pains and spasm that afflict her right side, from the shoulder to the hip, she can hardly bear to stay in bed, but sits up on a chair day and night: the doctor told me the last time he came to visit her that he suspected she had an ulcer in her kidney, and that if this were her problem it would be incurable; the worst thing of all for me is to see her suffer without being able to help her at all, because my remedies bring her no relief.

Yesterday they put the funnels in the six barrels of rose wine, and all that remains now is to refill the cask. Signor Rondinelli was there, just as he also attended the harvesting of the grapes, and told me that the must was fermenting vigorously so that he hoped it would turn out well, though there is not a lot of it; I do not yet know exactly how much. This is all that for now in great haste I am able to tell you. I send you loving regards on behalf of our usual friends, and pray the Lord to bless you.

FROM SAN MATTEO, THE 3RD DAY OF OCTOBER 1633-

Most affectionate daughter,

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness:
according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my
transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my
sin.

For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
[51:1,
2,3]

It is not known whether Galileo himself recited the prayers of his penance, either before or after Suor Maria Celeste assumed the burden, for this was a duty performed in private. In public, Galileo remained ever consistent in his conviction that he had committed no crime.

“I have two sources of perpetual comfort,” he wrote retrospectively to his French supporter Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, "first, that in my writings there cannot be found the faintest shadow of irreverence towards the Holy Church; and second, the testimony of my own conscience, which only I and God in Heaven thoroughly know. And He knows that in this cause for which I suffer, though many might have spoken with more learning, none, not even the ancient Fathers, have spoken with more piety or with greater zeal for the Church than I.”

Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee.

Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens
are the work of thy hands.

They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax
old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they
shall be changed:

But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end. [102:1, 25, 26, 27]

[XXIX]

The book of life,

or,

A prophet accepted in

his own land

During this episode of anticipated healing at Siena, Galileo sank periodically into despondency. In October he confided to his daughter that he felt as though his name had been stricken from the roll call of the living. The condemnation by the Holy Office, so far exceeding the contumely he had come to expect in reaction to his work, branded him an outcast in his own eyes. At his worst moments, he despaired of ever reestablishing his reputation, of ever bringing the rest of his work to light. All his life he had attracted jealousy and criticism, sustaining blows dealt in such number and with such vehemence that he esteemed himself a magnet for malignity.

“May it please Blessed God that the final decree regarding your return does not postpone it longer than we hope,” Suor Maria Celeste wrote right back brightly on October 15.

But meanwhile I take endless pleasure in hearing how ardently Monsignor Archbishop perseveres in loving you and favoring you. Nor do I suspect in the slightest that you are crossed out, as you say,
de libro viventiutn
*
certainly not throughout most of the world, and not even in your own country: on the contrary it seems to me from what I hear that while you may have been eclipsed or erased very briefly, now you are restored and renewed, which is a thing that stupefies me, because I am well aware that ordinarily:
Nemo
Propheta acceptus in patria sua
*
(I fear that my wanting to use the Latin phrase has perhaps made me utter some barbarism). And surely, Sire, here at the convent you are also beloved and esteemed more than ever; for all this may the Lord God be praised, as He is the principal source of these graces, which I consider my own reward, and thus I have no other desire but to show gratitude for them, so that His Divine Majesty may continue to concede other graces to you, Sire, and to us as well, but above all your health and eternal blessing.

Everything Suor Maria Celeste intimated about Galileo’s standing in the wide arena of the world was true. His former pupils still revered him, and elsewhere in Europe they spoke out against the injustice of his condemnation. His supporters included Rene Descartes in Holland, astronomer Pierre Gassendi and mathematicians Marin Mersenne and Pierre de Fermat in France. The French ambassador to Rome, Francois de Noailles, who had studied under Galileo at Padua, campaigned for his pardon, marching into Rome in 1633 in lavish display, at the head of a cavalcade of silver-shod horses attended by liverymen in gold-embroidered coats.
*

Churchmen, too, let it be known that Galileo had been wronged, though few protested as boldly as the archbishop of Siena. In Venice, for example, Galileo could still rely on the loyalty of Fra Fulgenzio Micanzio, theologian to the Venetian republic, whom he had met during his years in Padua. Micanzio had weathered previous papal storms, as in 1606, when Pope Paul V imposed the interdict against Venice, virtually suspending the celebration of Catholic life in that territory for a full year as a punishment for the republic’s flouting of his authority. Micanzio had stood by his former superior, Galileo’s good friend Fra Paolo Sarpi, throughout that ordeal and until Sarpi’s death in 1623, when he succeeded him. Similarly, Micanzio would stand by Galileo now.

The truly noteworthy attentions of Archbishop Piccolomini, meanwhile, reached well beyond the palace where Galileo remained his charge, all the way to Galileo’s daughters at the Convent of San Matteo in Arcetri. The monsignor sent them frequent gifts, including his most excellent wine, which was shared among all the nuns, either by the glass or in their soup. Thanks to the archbishop, Galileo could proffer Suor Maria Celeste treats she had never seen or imagined, such as the creamy white egg-shaped lumps of mozzarella cheese made from water buffalo’s milk.

“Lord Father, I must inform you that I am a blockhead,” she admitted in response to this promised gift, “indeed the biggest one in this part of Italy, because seeing how you wrote of sending me seven ‘Buffalo eggs,’ I believed them truly to be eggs, and planned to fry a huge omelette, convinced that such eggs would be very grand indeed, and in so doing I made a merry time for Suor Luisa, who laughed long and hard at my foolishness.”