Free Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel

“breakfast was over. I left, but I had hardly come out of the palace when I was overtaken by the porter of Madama Cristina, who had recalled me. But before I tell you what followed, you must first know that while we were at table Doctor Boscaglia had had Madama’s ear for a while, and while conceding as real all the things you have discovered in the sky, he said that only the motion of the Earth had in it something of the incredible, and could not occur, especially because the Holy Scripture was obviously contrary to that view.”
    Friends of the court all knew Madama Cristina to be a devout Catholic who leant her ear most frequently to her confessor, other priests, cardinals, and of course the pope, even when His Holiness’s opinions ran counter to the best interests of the Medici dynasty or the Tuscan government. She had read her Bible and could quote from the Book of Joshua—wherein the Sun is ordered to stand still, presumably because it had been moving—as well as the Psalms:
O Lord my God, Thou art great indeed. . . . Thou fixed the Earth upon its foundation, not to be moved forever. [103:1, 5]
    “Now, getting back to my story,” Castelli went on,
I entered into the chambers of her Highness, and there I found the Grand Duke, Madama Cristina and the Archduchess, Don Antonio [de’ Medici], Don Paolo Giordano [Orsini], and Doctor Boscaglia. Madama began, after some questions about myself, to argue the Holy Scripture against me. Thereupon, after having made suitable disclaimers, I commenced to play the theologian with such assurance and dignity that it would have done you good to hear me. Don Antonio assisted me, giving me such heart that instead of being dismayed by the majesty of their Highnesses I carried things off like a paladin. I quite won over the Grand Duke and his Archduchess, while Don Paolo came to my assistance with a very apt quotation from the Scripture. Only Madama remained against me, but from her manner I judged that she did this only to hear my replies. Professor Boscaglia said never a word.
    The troubling news of Madama Cristina’s displeasure inspired an immediate response from Galileo. Even more than he regretted her opposition, he dreaded the drawing of battle lines between science and Scripture. Personally, he saw no conflict between the two. In the long letter he wrote back to Castelli on December 21, 1613, he probed the relationship of discovered truth in Nature to revealed truth in the Bible.
    “As to the first general question of Madama Cristina, it seems to me that it was most prudently propounded to you by her, and conceded and established by you, that Holy Scripture cannot err and the decrees therein contained are absolutely true and inviolable. I should only have added that, though Scripture cannot err, its expounders and interpreters are liable to err in many ways . . . when they would base themselves always on the literal meaning of the words. For in this wise not only many contradictions would be apparent, but even grave heresies and blasphemies, since then it would be necessary to give God hands and feet and eyes, and human and bodily emotions such as anger, regret, hatred, and sometimes forgetfulness of things past, and ignorance of the future.”

    Grand Duchess Cristina of Lorraine
    These literary devices had been inserted into the Bible for the sake of the masses, Galileo insisted, to aid their understanding of matters pertaining to their salvation. In the same way, biblical language had also simplified certain physical effects in Nature, to conform to common experience. “Holy Scripture and Nature,” Galileo declared, “are both emanations from the divine word: the former dictated by the Holy Spirit, the latter the observant executrix of God’s commands.”
    Thus no truth discovered in Nature could contradict the deep truth of Holy Writ. Even Madama Cristina’s objection regarding the Book of Joshua could be put to rest in terms of the Sun-centered universe; indeed,