Sky's Dark Labyrinth

by Stuart Clark

  ‘And that is why we have to act decisively. I believe that my enemies have introduced errors into the copies, designed to incriminate me. I have written a fuller account, more detailed, which includes a discussion of the tides. This proves the Earth moves through space. If it could be shown to His Holiness, I believe the matter could be brought to a swift conclusion.’

  The cardinal swallowed. ‘You wish me to show something to His Holiness?’

  ‘We must act now before these ideas are banned by those who would block progress. It is people like you who will have to live with the injustice if the closed minds win.’

  Orsini tugged his ear nervously. ‘I shouldn’t even be talking with you.’

  ‘I wish only to clear my name. You say you have not long been in Rome – do you know the Campo dei Fiori?’

  ‘The piazza, yes.’

  ‘And you know the name Giordano Bruno.’

  ‘The heretic.’

  ‘Then you know what happened to him in the piazza.’

  ‘Burned alive,’ Orsini whispered.

  ‘Do I deserve that same fate?’

  Orsini looked at Galileo, eyes wide.

  ‘It is a matter of life and death, cardinal.’

  Orsini was breathing deeply. ‘If I show this to His Holiness …’

  ‘You will be doing the Catholic world a great service, Alexander.’

  ‘It’s Alessandro, signor.’

  ‘A name that will doubtless be remembered for its part in bringing God’s truth to the wider Catholic world. This will make your name in Rome. Will you do it?’

  The young man thought long and hard. He swallowed again and looked up. ‘Yes, in the name of truth, I will.’

  Galileo turned his back to the footman at the villa and slid the manuscript from his sleeve.

  There was a harsh rap on Bellarmine’s office door. The Swiss Guards burst in before he could answer. The quartet’s leader informed him that he was summoned at once to see Paul V and they marched him off, sandwiched between their striped uniforms. He felt as though he himself were under arrest.

  The sun shafted through the windows in horizontal beams of orange light. Often at this time of day, Bellarmine would watch the view and glory in the softness of the colour. He would allow the beauty of Rome to warm him. Today he could pay it scant attention. His knees throbbed.

  ‘Gentlemen, may we travel a little more slowly? I am an old man.’

  The soldiers displayed no emotion but reduced their pace.

  The Pope’s chamber was similarly wreathed in orange. A young cardinal stood to one side with his head cast down, flanked by guards. He clutched a sheaf of papers. Bellarmine struggled to recall his name. Orsini? Yes, that was it, Alessandro Orsini.

  The Pontiff barely waited for Bellarmine to kiss the papal ring. ‘Cardinal Bellarmine …’

  ‘Your Holiness, I came as soon as I could.’

  ‘Our gullible young friend here has a new document from Galileo …’

  Bellarmine felt his stomach drop away.

  ‘… My patience with our Florentine astronomer is growing thin. The first I heard of him was that he had discovered a few twinkling lights. Now all I hear is that he wants to rewrite our beliefs to incorporate the work of some fellow called Copernicus – and he sends my own cardinals to me. I want an end to this nonsense.’ He snapped his wrist in a beckoning motion to Orsini. The young man scuttled over, holding out the manuscript. The Pope flicked his head towards Bellarmine, making Orsini proffer the papers to the old cardinal.

  Bellarmine accepted them with a peculiar sense of inevitability. Thinking back to Galileo’s first visit to the Vatican, he realised that something had told him this day would come. For all his charisma, Galileo was as naive as a schoolboy about the workings of power and influence inside the Vatican. Bellarmine had spent his whole life navigating these choppy waters and was still not certain he always understood the way the wind blew.

  Of course, years of pious work could build trust that gradually transformed into respect, so how an astronomer from Padua thought he could simply jump in and set the agenda was beyond belief. Galileo had been granted an audience with the Pope and received his praise. That should have been enough for any man. Had Galileo really thought that it gave him the right to appeal directly to the Pope’s supreme authority and demand a rewriting of the Bible over a few twinkling lights?

  The Pope addressed Bellarmine: ‘Convene a tribunal at once. I want to know – and I want to know quickly – are Copernicus and Galileo heretics?’

  Bellarmine suppressed a sigh. He looked from the manuscript to the Pope. Galileo had destroyed himself.

  26

  A complaint to the Holy Office of the Inquisition usually arrived as a rumour, sometimes as a suspicious letter forwarded anonymously. It then became a piece of gossip that passed from inquisitor to inquisitor. Most of the scandals quickly fizzled out; only a few would catch fire and exercise the clerics.

  Gossip was a way of sorting the wheat from the chaff, and, in so doing, cases were shaped long before reports needed to be written. It also meant that the inquisitors could spend most of their time going about the more important work of supplying anti-Protestant literature to the Catholic lands.

  Bellarmine had been working on such a manuscript when this irritating business with Galileo had erupted, robbing him of the time to hone his arguments to counter Lutheran propaganda. That was the important work, to spread the Truth. Every day he spent investigating Galileo made him resent astronomers – all of them and their petty nit-picking – a little more.

  Now, thankfully, the investigation was nearly at an end. At the Pope’s request, he had appointed eleven pre-eminent philosophers and theologians to review the case. Their decisions would form the basis of a papal edict on Copernicus. After weeks of consideration, they had reported back. The eleven reports sat in front of him, fanned out on his desk: eleven assessments, eleven condemnations.

  He lifted his eyes from the reports to Grienberger, sitting in the chair opposite. ‘I asked the inquisitors to judge the work of Copernicus on two counts. Firstly, that the Sun is the centre of the universe and therefore immobile. On this they answered in one voice: that this thinking is in direct contradiction to the Holy Word and should therefore be considered not only formally heretical in a religious sense but absurd and foolish in a philosophical one.’

  Grienberger remained silent.

  ‘Secondly, that the Earth is not the centre of the universe, nor is it immobile, but it moves as a whole and also rotates to give us night and day. On this they also judged the evidence false. I am to draft a papal edict to reflect these views.’

  Grienberger pressed his palms together. ‘I urge you to be cautious. Although we have no observations that prove Earth is moving, we know that Venus circles the Sun. For that reason alone, we have to find an alternative to Aristotle.’

  ‘So not Copernicus, yet neither Aristotle. We cannot allow this confusion to continue.’

  ‘Neither can we allow an edict that blocks the progress of knowledge.’

  ‘A strong Church with strong leadership is what I believe in. The Jesuits have always stood for that too.’

  A desperate look entered Grienberger’s eyes. ‘Tycho Brahe developed a system in which all the planets orbit the Sun, yet the Sun moves around the Earth. Thus we maintain our place in the centre of things, satisfying the new observations and the theologians. Given the political considerations, we should move towards this interpretation. I do not think that these are in conflict with your edict.’

  ‘Maybe not, yet I have eleven judgements of heresy to contend with.’ Bellarmine indicated the papers on his desk, ‘There will be those who view any tinkering with astronomy as suspicious. And I believe that you are at heart a Copernican, which could soon make you a heretic, along with Galileo.’

  Grienberger spoke quickly. ‘The way forward is this: in Copernicus’s book is a preface that makes the distinction between talking in mathematical hypo
theses and asserting truth. It states that the ideas Copernicus discussed were only to be taken as a hypothetical way of understanding the motion of the planets, not as truth. So, the only thing that you must keep from the edict is the word heresy. If you soften the language, then we can at least proceed with gathering the measurements. But if you stop us, the Lutherans will forge ahead. They will make us look like simpletons.’

  The thought struck home with Bellarmine. Why could this not be simple? He took some time to consider the suggestion then nodded wearily. ‘Very well, I will see what I can do.’

  ‘And what of Galileo?’

  ‘He must be made to stop. I will summon him myself.’

  Grienberger stifled a yawn as he opened the tripod of the telescope and shuffled it into the lee of the Roman College’s bell tower. He pointed the leather-bound tube towards the east and waited. From up here on the college roof, he had a clear view to the horizon, and this early in the morning the city’s silhouette was just beginning to fill with colour.

  The black of the sky was giving way to dark blue, but the stars still shone from directly overhead. Grienberger ignored them, determined not to be distracted and miss the vital observation. This morning, he was here to see Mercury. He had to convince himself whether it showed phases like Venus. If it did, perhaps he could persuade Bellarmine to soften the edict’s language even further, to acknowledge that reinterpretation was needed. The cardinal meant well but he did not have sufficient knowledge to take these sweeping decisions.

  Elusive Mercury never strayed far from the Sun and so could only be glimpsed in the twilight sky before sunrise or just after sunset, but never in the dead of night. Now that Grienberger thought about it, that fact alone should be enough to persuade anyone that the planet orbited the Sun. If it had been freewheeling about the Earth, it should appear throughout the night sky totally disconnected from the Sun; sometimes far from it, sometimes close by. Yet it hugged the luminous orb as if afraid to venture into the dark; exactly the behaviour to be expected if it were orbiting the Sun.

  He waited patiently, scanning the horizon, until …

  There!

  A clear spot of light had just risen above the dawn horizon. Now he had to move fast because the Sun was close behind. He aligned the telescope, having now grown quite expert, and stooped to peer through the tube.

  Yes, it is Mercury.

  Perceptibly larger than a star, the telescope showed it to be bobbing in the soupy atmosphere. Grienberger’s eye chased the tiny blur around the field of view. Several times it jumped out of sight as it rose into the sky, so he patiently lined it all up again. He could see the planet was extended in size, but it was too blurred to make out a shape. He kept staring.

  Some moments later, the atmosphere went stock still, as if God had looked down and frozen it solid with a mighty breath. The stillness lasted just a split second, but it was enough. Grienberger saw Mercury was a crescent; its rounded back held downward to the horizon, to where the Sun was about to rise.

  In that instant, Grienberger knew that the planet orbited the Sun. He could see the arrangement in his head as clearly as his shadow on the bell tower. A wave of elation flared inside him. He felt his eyes creasing as a smile spread itself across his face, and his arms lifted in triumph. He had a sudden urge to laugh out loud and send his joy echoing across the rooftops. He whirled to face the city and looked straight at a gaunt figure, silhouetted against the blush of sunrise.

  A stab of fear mingled with embarrassment inside Grienberger. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head. ‘Father General.’

  Praepositus Generalis Claudio Acquaviva did not move or say anything immediately. He just contemplated Grienberger before eventually opening his mouth. ‘And what makes you happy enough to dance this morning, Father Grienberger?’

  ‘I have seen Mercury for the first time.’ The words sounded hollow.

  Again there was a long silence. ‘I have been speaking with Cardinal Bellarmine. He is concerned about you.’

  ‘There is nothing to be concerned about. I seek only God’s natural knowledge.’

  There was no pause this time. Acquaviva’s throaty voice rose in volume. ‘Father Grienberger, this has gone on long enough. When you joined the Society of Jesus, you swore obedience above everything. That includes natural knowledge. You are the Professor of Mathematics now and you are expected to uphold the highest traditions of the Roman Church. We subscribe to the teachings of Aristotle and we are pledged to defend it to our dying breath. You are pledged to defend it to your dying breath. Banish all thoughts of rearranging astronomy from your mind and cut yourself free of all those who might drag you down with them. Do I make myself clear?’

  Grienberger clasped his hands together and stared at the floor. ‘Yes, Father General.’

  ‘I expect to see you at matins today. Afterwards, I think you have quite a lot to confess.’

  ‘Yes, Father General.’

  After making the painful journey to the entrance of the Inquisition’s Palace, Bellarmine removed his biretta and waited for Galileo. He hoped the stubborn Florentine would recognise both gestures as marks of respect. Although why he should favour the astronomer so was beyond him.

  As the carriage approached, Bellarmine felt some pangs of sympathy. He was about to deprive Galileo of the right to speak on a subject the astronomer obviously believed.

  Bellarmine tried to picture what it would be like if the situation were reversed. What if his belief system were outlawed? For instance, if the Lutherans were to gain control. His mouth dried at the prospect.

  What was he thinking, comparing true religion to mathematical jiggery-pokery? The two were in no way the same.

  The carriage door swung open. Galileo stepped to the ground before the vehicle had come to a complete stop. He looked around imperiously.

  ‘Galileo, so good of you to come.’

  ‘Good of you to see me in person.’ Galileo’s voice was tight.

  ‘Shall we choose a bench in the cloisters? On a day such as this, I would usually love to walk but I’m afraid my bones won’t allow it any more.’ He held a hand to indicate the way. Galileo strode on, oblivious to Bellarmine’s struggle to keep up.

  The cloisters were blackened by shadows. Galileo listened as Bellarmine told him the news, scowling at times, looking away at others, seemingly more interested in the strangers walking across the quadrangle. In the end, he regarded Bellarmine with an expression that a father might bestow upon a child caught in a moment of naivety rather than naughtiness. ‘You don’t appear to understand what’s at stake here. While we cover this up, Kepler leaps ahead. We risk this revelation being claimed by the Lutherans, who will cast us as a Church of dullards with no place in the modern world.’

  ‘Wheels are turning to make sure that doesn’t happen.’

  ‘The Jesuits.’ Galileo said their name derisively.

  ‘They are the arbiters of natural knowledge. They have the real influence and know how to proceed.’

  ‘I have already shown how to proceed.’

  ‘You have no overwhelming evidence for Copernicus and you are no theologian. It is as Solomon wrote, “The Sun riseth and the Sun goeth down, and doth hasten to his place where he arose.” Your actions have already set back the Jesuit efforts.’

  ‘But when one is on a boat moving away from the harbour, one can equally imagine that it is the shore receding rather than the boat advancing …’

  ‘I reject that argument. I can feel the motion of a boat, I know it is moving,’ said Bellarmine.

  ‘You are being fooled by the rocking of the water.’

  ‘I am being fooled by nothing. I see the movement of the boat. My eyes see no movement of the Earth. My body feels no movement of the Earth. Yet I see the movement of the Sun.’

  Galileo frowned but said nothing.

  ‘There are those in the Vatican who wanted your thinking to be branded heretical. Had they been successful, you would now be under arrest, and I need ha
rdly remind you of the price for heresy. Is it truly your love of the Catholic Church that urges you to push these ideas, or is it your desire for a place in history? God will judge the worth of your work and whether you shall be remembered. But from now on you are forbidden to hold, defend or teach the Copernican doctrine.’

  Galileo rose and walked to the nearby archway. He leaned against the stone pillar, gazing at the brightness on the far side of the courtyard. ‘I am gagged and bound.’

  ‘If only you had spoken of the Earth’s movement as a hypothesis, not as truth. If you had claimed that it was a mathematical shortcut, then all would have been well. Even Copernicus included a preface to this effect.’

  Galileo looked over his shoulder at Bellarmine. ‘That preface was inserted without Copernicus’s knowledge. He would never have agreed to it.’

  ‘Then it’s ironic indeed, for that passage is the only thing that has kept it from being banned altogether. I have placed the book on the suspended list, pending correction. Only after the phrases that talk of the Sun being factually located in the centre of the universe are identified and removed, will the book be allowed back in circulation.’

  Galileo blew through his lips.

  The action hardened Bellarmine’s resolve. ‘Attempt any more claims that Copernicus’s scheme is the true arrangement of Heaven, Galileo, and you will be prosecuted.’

  ‘I understand.’

  After Galileo stalked away, Bellarmine rested against the cloister wall. His chest ached. He took a number of steady breaths. The air did not seem to reach as far down into his lungs as it once did. It took some minutes before he felt well enough to continue the rest of his day. He made his way back to his office with a feeling of despondency, wondering how long it would be before Galileo’s name crossed his desk again. As he tried to settle that night, he found himself thinking about someone he had not brought to mind for years: Giordano Bruno.

  Don’t be a fool, Galileo, he thought. Don’t be a fool.