The Sleepwalkers (205 page)

I
shall
take
up
the
thread
of
Galileo's
life
at
the
point
where
his
name
suddenly
burst
into
world
fame
through
his
discovery
of
the
Jupiter
planets.
The
Star
Messenger
was
published
in
March
1610;
in
September,
he
took
up
his
new
post
as
"Chief
Mathematician
and
Philosopher"
to
the
Medicis
in
Florence;
the
following
spring
he
spent
in
Rome.

The
visit
was
a
triumph.
Cardinal
del
Monte
wrote
in
a
letter:
"If
we
were
still
living
under
the
ancient
Republic
of
Rome,
I
verily
believe
that
there
would
have
been
a
column
on
the
Capitol
erected
in
Galileo's
honour."
¹
The
select
Accadèmia
dei
Lincei
(the
lynx-eyed),
presided
by
Prince
Federico
Cesi,
elected
him
a
member
and
gave
him
a
banquet;
it
was
at
this
banquet
that
the
word
"telescope"
was
for
the
first
time
applied
to
the
new
invention.
²
Pope
Paul
V
received
him
in
friendly
audience,
and
the
Jesuit
Roman
College
honoured
him
with
various
ceremonies
which
lasted
a
whole
day.
The
chief
mathematician
and
astronomer
of
the
College,
the
venerable
Father
Clavius,
principal
author
of
the
Gregorian
Calendar
reform,
who
at
first
had
laughed
at
the
Star
Messenger
,
was
now
entirely
converted;
so
were
the
other
astronomers
at
the
College,
Fathers
Grienberger,
van
Maelcote
and
Lembo.
They
not
only
accepted
Galileo's
discoveries,
but
improved
on
his
observations,
particularly
of
Saturn
and
the
phases
of
Venus.
When
the
head
of
the
College,
the
Lord
Cardinal
Bellarmine,
asked
for
their
official
opinion
on
the
new
discoveries,
they
unanimously
confirmed
them.

This
was
of
utmost
importance.
The
phases
of
Venus,
confirmed
by
the
doyen
of
Jesuit
astronomers,
were
incontrovertible
proof
that
at
least
that
planet
revolved
round
the
sun,
that
the
Ptolemaic
system
had
become
untenable,
and
that
the
choice
now
lay
between
Copernicus
and
Brahe.
The
Jesuit
Order
was
the
intellectual
spearhead
of
the
Catholic
Church.
Jesuit
astronomers
everywhere
in
Europe
–
particularly
Scheiner
in
Ingoldstadt,
Lanz
in
Munich,
Kepler's
friend
Guldin
in
Vienna,
and
the
Roman
College
in
a
body
–
began
to
support
the
Tychonic
system
as
a
half-way
house
to
the
Copernican.
The
Copernican
system
itself
could
be
freely
discussed
and
advocated
as
a
working
hypothesis,
but
it
was
unfavourably
viewed
to
present
it
as
established
truth,
because
it
seemed
contrary
to
current
interpretation
of
scripture
–
unless
and
until
definite
proof
could
be
adduced
in
its
favour.
We
shall
have
to
return
more
than
once
to
this
crucial
point.

Within
a
brief
period,
Jesuit
astronomers
also
confirmed
the
"earthly"
nature
of
the
moon,
the
existence
of
sunspots,
and
the
fact
that
comets
moved
in
outer
space,
beyond
the
moon.
This
meant
the
abandonment
of
the
Aristotelian
doctrine
of
the
perfect
and
unchangeable
nature
of
the
celestial
spheres.
Thus
the
intellectually
most
influential
order
within
the
Catholic
Church
was
at
that
time
in
full
retreat
from
Aristotle
and
Ptolemy,
and
had
taken
up
an
intermediary
position
regarding
Copernicus.
They
praised
and
fêted
Galileo,
whom
they
knew
to
be
a
Copernican,
and
they
kept
Kepler,
the
foremost
exponent
of
Copernicanism,
under
their
protection
throughout
his
life.

But
there
existed
a
powerful
body
of
men
whose
hostility
to
Galileo
never
abated:
the
Aristotelians
at
the
universities.
The
inertia
of
the
human
mind
and
its
resistance
to
innovation
are
most
clearly
demonstrated
not,
as
one
might
expect,
by
the
ignorant
mass
–
which
is
easily
swayed
once
its
imagination
is
caught
–
but
by
professionals
with
a
vested
interest
in
tradition
and
in
the
monopoly
of
learning.
Innovation
is
a
twofold
threat
to
academic
mediocrities:
it
endangers
their
oracular
authority,
and
it
evokes
the
deeper
fear
that
their
whole,
laboriously
constructed
intellectual
edifice
might
collapse.
The
academic
backwoodsmen
have
been
the
curse
of
genius
from
Aristarchus
to
Darwin
and
Freud;
they
stretch,
a
solid
and
hostile
phalanx
of
pedantic
mediocrities,
across
the
centuries.
It
was
this
threat
–
not
Bishop
Dantiscus
or
Pope
Paul
III
–
which
had
cowed
Canon
Koppernigk
into
lifelong
silence.
In
Galileo's
case,
the
phalanx
resembled
more
a
rearguard
–
but
a
rearguard
still
firmly
entrenched
in
academic
chairs
and
preachers'
pulpits.