Advantage, Bellarmine
by Paul Levinson
Roberto Francesco Romolo Bellarmine—consultor of the Holy Office, head of the Roman College, Cardinal, former Archbishop of Capua—turned to his guest with a weary smile. “So, Maffeo, any words of wisdom about Galileo? He’ll be in Rome next week, and we have arranged a visit.”
Maffeo Barberini, scion of one of the wealthiest, most powerful families in Italy, a Cardinal too—one day to be Pope, Bellarmine was sure—removed a grape pit from his tongue. “Only what you already know—he is right.”
“Pity more of our people cannot grasp that,” Bellarmine said. “The nonsense that has been produced in our own College—that the Moon is really pure, perfect, sublimely spherical as Aristotle held, and the mountains and craters seen through Galileo’s telescope are but imperfections far below that heavenly invisible surface—you would think it was 615 not 1615, and Rome had just been sacked of all common sense, all reason!”
“Ah, yes.” Barberini chuckled. “And, as I recall, Galileo had a good answer to that one: if we accept that heavenly surfaces are invisible, then we could just as easily agree that the real surface of the Moon, constructed of that same magical substance, actually rises in towering mountains ten times higher than his telescope has seen.”
“He is clever,” Bellarmine said, unsmiling. “And that is what makes him dangerous. I have tried to convey to him the thought, the path, that his mathematics, his observations, may be right—that we may welcome them, rejoice in them, as an improvement over Ptolemy’s epicycles—but that the underlying, everlasting truth is just as it ever was.”
“And what truth is that?” Barberini asked.
“That is no doubt the question that troubles Galileo,” Bellarmine replied, “and why he sometimes gives the appearance of accepting our arguments, yet in his truest soul rejects them. It is because we ourselves are unsure of just what the underlying, everlasting truth really is.”
“As we have good reason to be,” Barberini said. “But that is our burden—not the world’s. And part of our burden is to keep the world—not only the physical world, but the souls of its people—stable.”
“Which brings us back to the problem of Galileo,” Bellarmine said, sadly. “His theories, his publications, presented to the world without our mediation, cannot help but sow confusion in the common soul.”
“Have you implied to him anything at all of the Instruments?” Barberini asked, as delicately as he could manage.
“No! I have not! Therein lies the road that was taken with Giordano Bruno. And it did no good—it did worse than no good. In the end…” Bellarmine could not bring himself to finish.
“In the end, our Holy Church had to kill him,” Barberini said. “Still, the result need not be the same with Galileo. He is a different kind of man—more practical, more of a scientist than a mystic like Bruno. He may see a different kind of lesson in the Instruments.”
“No,” Bellarmine insisted. “I will not have it.”
Barberini permitted himself the slightest of smiles.
“You are a stubborn man,” Bellarmine said to Galileo.
“Stubbornness has nothing to do with this, Your Eminence,” Galileo replied. “Truth is what this is about. I can say ‘the Earth does not move,’ as easily as the next man. But if, in truth, the Earth does move, then it matters not what I say. For in time others will make the same observations as I, and they will say that the Earth does move. And where will our Holy Church be then?”
“You are stubborn because you assume that future telescopes, perhaps with power far greater than yours, will see the same things in the heavens as your device,” Bellarmine answered. “How can you be sure of that?”
“I am not sure of that,” Galileo said. “Devices change, and so then does the knowledge they produce.”
“Precisely,” Bellarmine said. “The only thing constant in this world is the Lord’s word, and the only constant path towards that is the Church’s teaching.”
“Yes, but if device A contradicts the Church’s teaching, then even though it may be improved upon at some future time by device B, then ought we not at least consider the evidence of device A at this time?”
Bellarmine looked away. “Devices,” he said at last. “Believe me, there are more devices in this Universe than you, with or without your telescope, have ever dreamed of.”
Galileo squirmed. “Are you referring to the Instruments? Do you seek to intimidate me by intimations of your Instruments of Torture?”
Bellarmine said nothing.
“I am a weak vessel,” Galileo continued. ‘I might well sooner lie about what I know to be true than be subjected to your torture. But what would that gain you in the end? Do you suppose you can torture the whole world—impose your will on every human eye that looks at the heavens through a lens?”
“I was hoping you might be persuaded—not by torture, but by reason itself—to see the dangers in the way you proselytize your theories,” Bellarmine replied. “I was hoping that once so convinced, we might even enlist you to help in our cause—explain to the world that, although science always progresses, always changes, the soul and its place in the Universe remains constant, remains forever, and our Holy Church is the only reliable guide to that.”
“Forgive me, Eminence—but I fear it’s the Church that is treading on the domain of science here, not vice versa, in your insistence that the Earth is the unmoving center of the Universe. And you have no evidence that the Copernican theory, which my telescopic observations support, is wrong.”
Bellarmine sighed. “Suppose I showed you evidence.”
Galileo scoffed. “What, in the Holy Bible?”
“No,” Bellarmine said very quietly. “In Instruments perhaps not ultimately unlike your telescope—Instruments of vision. Dangerous Instruments—far more dangerous than your telescopes.” He wrung his hands. “I had hoped not to have to speak to you of this. But I see there is no other way.”
Galileo shuddered. “You are speaking to me again of torture? Of burning out my eyes?”
“No, not of torture—at least, not of physical torture, I assure you,” Bellarmine replied. “Please, come with me.”
“We think they are a kind of illuminated manuscript,” Bellarmine said. “Except, the words can be changed upon them.”
Galileo stared at one of the devices, in rapt attention. “The writing appears to be Italian.”
“Latin editions are also available,” Bellarmine advised. “Many in vulgate as well. A few are familiar to us, most not.”
“Each of these—manuscript Instruments—contains a different edition?” Galileo asked. They were three in the room.
“No,” Bellarmine said. “Each Instrument contains many different editions—just as each tree contains many different leaves. But each of these Instruments appears to contain the same different editions.”
“Ah,” Galileo mused. “Such as three libraries, perhaps, each of which contains the same editions?”
Bellarmine nodded. “Yes. Perhaps.”
Galileo studied the words on the glass—they were a treatise, of some sort, about Copernican theory.
“This essay talks of planets,” he said. “Do these manuscripts have pictures, engravings lit from within, like the illumined Books of Hours?”
“Yes,” Bellarmine replied. “Except these Instruments truly display a passage of time—they show pictures of things I think no man, truly, has ever seen.”
Galileo’s eyes lit up brighter than the manuscript. “Prester John’s Speculum, come to life!”
Bellarmine made a sarcastic sound. “Prester John is an old wives’ tale, designed to give hope to children. These Instruments, as you can see, are plainly real.”