The Secret of the Glass (10 page)

The eight men within the sumptuous room flinched. On more than one face, fear soured their expressions. At the sight of Pasquale da Fuligna, tight shoulders and muscles relaxed, sighs heaved.

“No need for formalities, Pasquale, make yourself at home,” Andrea Morosini called but laughed to his new guest, his derision no more than a mere jest.

Pasquale smiled with a hint of embarrassment, closing the door behind him, happily entering this bastion of male intellectual pursuits. Here, among others of his ilk and within these walls of larchwood, Pasquale felt most at home. He stepped onto the mosaic tile floor covered by richly colored tapestries and felt immediately at ease.

Andrea Morosini was a historian of great renown, the latest descendant of one of the most celebrated of all Venetian families. His home, and in particular this room, strewn with books and papers, had become a meeting place, a sort of scientific academy, for many of the radical-thinking men of the land, a haven where the most controversial issues of the day were discussed without fear of reprisal or recrimination. What had begun during his university days in Padua had become an integral part of the intellectual’s life and his door remained perpetually open to the progressive thinkers of this customarily forward-thinking state. The ideas, theories, and postulations from around the world were as welcome here as any who were willing to discuss them with an open mind.

Morosini crossed to one side of the vast room where four men sat in the overstuffed chairs spread out arbitrarily before the large but cold marble fireplace. The resonance of deep voices rumbled in spirited conversation as they nodded their heads toward Pasquale in greeting. Among their number was Sir Henry Wotton, the English Ambassador to Venice, smoking his curious tobacco device. All the rage in England for more than two decades, these smoking pipes were still not often seen in Venice. The oddly sweet yet acidic aroma of the long dried leaves Wotton received in packages from his friend, Sir Walter Raleigh, wound through the room on snake-like tendrils of smoke.

On the other side of the rectangular chamber, three men gathered around a table, one unrolling large scrolls of parchment. These three men were the ones Pasquale most longed to find, they were the very reason he rushed here, caring little if he would incur more of his father’s wrath. They had met at a bookstore or perhaps one of the
trattorias
where the intellectuals gathered on hot afternoons, debating and arguing over glasses of
anisette
while others, less synaptically active, took their afternoon rests. He joined these men with enthusiastic anticipation.

“Da Fuligna.” The youngest of the men gave the newcomer a bob of his raven-haired head, stepping back to allow Pasquale into their circle.

“Sagredo,” Pasquale nodded in return and for a moment cast an envious eye upon the debonair figure Sagredo cut; the doublet of embroidered silk, the breeches with jewel-buckled cuffs, and the white shirt of what must be Persian cotton. His perusal continued to the dashing cavalier’s swarthy good looks, the shoulder-length waves of flowing black hair, the fringed eyes, and full mouth. Gianfrancesco Sagredo had lived better and more fully in his twenty years than Pasquale had in almost twice that and though he respected and admired the intellectual and discerning young man, there were many times when his jealousy outweighed his esteem.

Da Fuligna dismissed his negative thoughts and acknowledged the other two men. “Signore Galileo, fra Sarpi. What have I missed?” He repeated his inquiry, obliging these older, learned men with a more formal greeting.

“We have just arrived ourselves,” Father Sarpi answered, his quiet demeanor as unassuming as his appearance in his earthy brown monk’s robes and sandals. Short, almost bald, with a meticulously groomed thin beard, there was nothing remarkable in this man’s bearing save the fiery intellect that burned from his dark eyes and finely-featured face. “Galileo is going to show us the idea for his new invention.”

Pasquale felt a lurch of adrenaline; there were few things that ignited his interest as much as science, at least not many that could be discussed in public. Galileo spread his sheaves, shuffling them about, arranging them in a particular order known only to him, but Pasquale had no wish to rush him. The professor nodded his head in greeting, continuing on as before.

“Where are you in the case, my friend?” This question Galileo directed back to Paolo Sarpi.

The reserved man raised his thin shoulders.

“What can I say, it is the Vatican against Venice, and it grows more poisonous every day. The first thing the new Pope did was to issue his edict of excommunication and I must formulate a reply, not knowing whom I can and cannot trust. There are spies everywhere…Rome has her spies here, we have ours there. Meanwhile the senate grows more divided and antagonistic every day. If I thought Rome would deal with these…these degenerates forthrightly, I would send them to His Holiness happily, but I cannot allow a rapist and a molesting murderer to go unpunished, clerics or no.”

The Servite friar, and one-time court theologian, had served as Official Counselor to the Venetian senate for many years, but the case of the two clerics, and the debate concerning who had jurisdiction over them, the church or the state, had plunged him into a vortex of espionage and evil he had never known or imagined.

“We are behind you, as we will be at the gates of Hell.” Sagredo laughed smoothly at his own acerbic wit.

“Rome wants them so they can do nothing, hide it under their opulent rugs. To them sexual molestation by a man of the church isn’t a crime, it is a right, merely one kept behind closed doors. The men who proclaim themselves as the keepers of God’s word consider themselves above the law.” Pasquale’s voice quivered with his conviction.

“Don’t let your father hear you talk this way,” Sarpi told Pasquale with raised, thin brows.

Father and son were both part of the Grand Council, the largest governing body in Venice; they stood firmly and clearly on opposite sides of this contentious issue.

Pasquale sniffed cynically. “There is little my father could hear me say that would make him dislike me more than he already does.”

Sarpi nodded sagaciously, a respectful glint in his eyes for this man who showed no fear in the face of such condemnation.

The monk waved a hand in the air as if to dispel an aggravating insect.

“Enough of this talk, of this case, I live and breathe it every hour of every day. I come here to be distracted…distract me, Galileo. How are Marina and the children?”

Galileo Galilei rubbed his stubby salt-and-pepper hair, creating more chaos than before. The short wiry threads stuck out from his temples and up from his high forehead.

“She is home with the children. The girls are wonderful, little young ladies. Vincenzio is a handful, a typical troublesome toddler. He keeps Marina quite busy.”

The scientist did not refer to the mother of his children as his wife; she was not. Why she was not served as fodder for great speculation among the gossiping circles all through the peninsula.

Pasquale wanted to hear nothing of women and children.

“What are we looking at, professore?”

All four men turned their attention to the papers fanned out before them. Galileo’s small mouth stretched into a wide grin.

“It is a device for seeing far into the distance. A German-born Dutchman, Lipperhey…no,
mi scusi,
Lippershey, a spectacle maker, has made a crude one but has not seen its potential. I have. His construction is miraculous, but crude, and can be improved upon. Thanks to my friend Sarpi and his astute suggestion, I believe the answer lies in the strength of the adverse polarity of the lenses and their sizes relative to each other.” He glanced up from the complicated drawings and notes. “With this…I will see the stars and planets and will, once and for all, prove Copernicus correct.”

Sarpi and Sagredo said nothing, but an occupied, meaningful look passed between them.

Pasquale didn’t see it, being far too intrigued with the topic at hand.

“Who was Copernicus? What is he correct about?”

“He was a genius, a man far ahead of his time, though gone now for over sixty years.” Galileo warmed to his subject and his captive audience and he became the animated and energetic lecturer who had become famous in the classrooms of the University of Padua. “His theories, unlike Aristotle’s theories, which the church has based its teachings on, postulate that the Earth is not the center of the planets. Rather, the sun is.”

“‘O Lord my God…Thou fixed the Earth upon its foundation, that it shall not be moved forever,’” Father Sarpi intoned. “Psalm 104.”

Sarpi directed this last to Sagredo in answer to the man’s quizzically raised brows.

“Precisely, that is their defense. But think of it this way.” Galileo grabbed parchment and quill, drawing more scribbled lines upon its surface. “Yes, the planets’ orbits are circles, one inside the other, hoop after hoop, but it is the immense energy of the sun, the enormous sphere of golden fire which serves as the focal point of the vast and deep universe, drawing the other planets in as the fire lures in the moth.”

“But haven’t Aristotle’s theories comprised all teachings on the matter for hundreds of years?”

“Only because no one has offered them the truth, a truth based on fact, not philosophy.”

Galileo banged his fist upon the table, incensed. He had complained to his friends about philosophers for years, labeling them as men who simply followed what they had been taught and therefore gave confident, but incorrect, answers to any probing questions of life and its origins.

“Aristotle was nothing more than a philosopher. His theories were a crutch that all the supposed great thinkers used to lean on. What is it about some men’s egos that forces them to say anything when they should say nothing at all?”

Father Sarpi saw the color rise on his old friend’s face, saw the agitation in Galileo’s choppy hand motions and led him over to a grouping of chairs and forced him to sit in one. Murmuring voices and the gurgling of liquid as men filled their glasses carried over from the other side of the room. The monk filled a large pewter tankard with deep puce wine and shoved it into his friend’s hand. Galileo took a gulp, wiped a drip off the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, and continued his tirade seamlessly to the men who took seats around him.

“It was the lecture notes from one of my University of Pisa professors, Moletti was his name, which led to my first questions. I felt torn myself by my own beliefs, those of science juxtaposed with those of my faith. The science appeared blasphemous. At first I believed in Aristotle’s theories. To do otherwise was to deny belief in God, as the church has fervently insisted his theories are those of God and Heaven. But I wondered why science and faith could not co-exist. Why the words of the Bible might not be symbolic of the science they represent and not be taken with the literal maturity of a two-year-old child.”

“That was a long time ago,” Pasquale said, taking the seat beside Galileo, sitting on its edge, and leaning toward the learned man with the eagerness of a small boy about to open gifts. “Why did your studies not continue?”

Galileo shrugged; the wide white shirt collar that hovered above his black academic robes rose toward his gray, beard-covered jaw line.

“My father forced me to discontinue my studies at Pisa. He could no longer afford my tuition.” He laughed cynically. “Of course, having me home was not to his liking either. We argued constantly over my experimentations and though I worked many hours in his drapery, apparently I did not perform to his expectations. He fired me after four weeks.”

“Fired you?” a deep voice guffawed from behind Pasquale. A few of the younger men had joined their conversation, drawn by the controversy of the topic and the power of Galileo’s delivery. The tall young man elbowed his fair-haired friend beside him playfully. “Your own father fired you?”

Everyone laughed now—with Galileo, not at him—and the other men in the room joined the spirited group, wrangling their chairs close to the circle, bringing their own vessels of wine and ale with them. The heavy wooden furniture legs bumped noisily against the hard tile floor as each man found a place within the lively assembly.

“
Sì,
Gradenigo, it’s true. From then on, I had to hide to study, steal to drink. It took a while for me to afford my indulgent research.” Galileo’s gaze wandered away for the moment, staring past the men in the room, past the room itself as if to another place and time. He returned with a shake of his head and a finger pointing to his designs. “With this device I will see it all. I will prove the Sun is the center of the universe conclusively.”

Father Sarpi’s thin mouth frowned as he stared down into his cup.

“Rome will not like this…it stinks of heresy.”

“Nonsense,” Galileo fired back, the warmth of annoyance splotching his apple-cheeked face. “I am a devout Catholic. I love God, but who is to say where his genius begins? Why can I not marvel at the heavens and their miraculous workings and love the God who created them at the same time? Was it not a cardinal, Cesare Baronio, if I’m not mistaken, who said that the Bible is a book about how to make it to heaven, not how heaven is made?”

“You are sweetly naïve, my friend,” Sarpi said with a warm chuckle. “Consider Bruno—surely he thought the same as you do.”

Giordano Bruno, an Italian philosopher and cosmologist, was convicted of heresy and burned at the stake after serving seven years in prison in the Castel Sant’ Angelo, the Vatican jail. He was taken to the Campo de’ Fiori, gagged, lashed to a pole naked, and set afire. His screams echoed far down the cobbled lanes of the Roman square; some say they echo there still.

“But Bruno was not convicted for his beliefs in the Copernican theory but for his theological errors. What would you expect when a man proclaims Christ was not God but no more than a skillful magician or that the devil himself will one day be saved?” Galileo thrust his hairy chin forward. “My theology remains true to the teachings of the Church.”