have served his purposes well and because there were good reasons for worry, including Lorini’s continued efforts. Galileo found himself in early January forced to combat a bruit in Rome that he had been disgraced at home.151 In a city that worked as much by rumor as by reality, there was plenty of danger reflected in a report sent about the same time by one of his friends from Paduan days, Antonio Querenghi, and mirrored back to Galileo by his Venetian intimate Giovanni Sagredo.152 Querenghi was considered cardinal material a bit earlier in Paul’s reign, so he would have had a pretty good idea what was going on or rumored to be going on in Rome. He wrote his employer that Galileo had not come to Rome voluntarily and would be called to account for his notions “completely contrary to holy scripture.” Galileo did not see fit to keep his head down, instead making the rounds of Roman salons arguing the truth of Copernicus’s ideas, as Querenghi regularly reported. Galileo called it breaking lances, as if he were one of the knights in his beloved Orlando Furioso.153 Among those he disputed was Francesco Ingoli, a client of Cardinal Caetani, one of Galileo’s potentially most important backers, another well-placed and wealthy Roman.154 The debate took place before Cardinal Barberini’s right-hand man.155 Annoying Ingoli in that context did not represent a victory.156
Yet, as January wore on, the worrying rumors began to die down. Almost as soon as he arrived, Galileo heard that his stay might be cut short on the strength of “a few words” that could be taken as orders to return and asked for reassurance that he had not been recalled. No, no, everything is fine, replied the secretary of state.157 On some days it was. Querenghi made light of Galileo’s facility with words and gradually sent more and more cheerful (and funny) reports of his derring-do, taking on fifteen or twenty opponents and making monkeys of all of them.158 But he still failed to convince them. By the end of the month even Querenghi was half-persuaded, enough so to pass on Galileo’s offer to come to Modena to prove his propositions.159
Despite his gallivanting around Rome unhorsing his opponents, Galileo knew the battle would be won in back rooms where he had to go carefully. It frustrated him both that he was forced to put his case in “dead writings” instead of in “live voice” and also that he could not deal directly with the people he needed to see because that would embarrass an unnamed friend and those people in turn could not approach him without “incurring the most severe censures.”160 In order to reach the right people, he had to work through third parties who tried to bring his case up casually, as if the decision makers had thought of it themselves. He meant men at least close to if not in the Inquisition. Despite setbacks, he remained certain that he could convince “those on whom the decision depends” not least because God was on his side. But did Galileo really think Ingoli and others who dealt with those very men (and their God) on a daily basis could not and did not talk to them more easily and with more authority than he did? What friend could trump them? The supporters Galileo had collected in 1611 in Rome were mostly still there, including Maraffi at the Minerva and Cardinal Bandini, but neither was in quite the right position to help.
The man Galileo did single out to represent him in the papal court seems an odd choice. This was Ciampoli’s original recruit, Alessandro Orsini, the almost ridiculously young, twenty-three-year-old, brand-new cardinal, just given the right to vote on 11 January 1616.161 Not that Orsini did not have a glittering lineage as a member of one of the oldest Roman baronial families, the son of the duke of Bracciano, the grand duke’s most southerly vassal, and a bulwark against the papal states.162 He was still a politically questionable choice for Galileo, since, after Alessandro’s father’s unexpected death in September 1615, his brother, the new duke, had broken with Florence and tried to strike an alliance with France.163 As a result, the grand duke almost withdrew Orsini’s nomination as cardinal. Possibly as a quid pro quo for saving it, the new duke promised his full protection to Galileo.164 That may have patched things up in Florence; it did nothing to defuse a tense situation in Rome. The Orsini, like many such families, were in difficult financial straits and had pulled off a marriage alliance with Paul V’s fabulously wealthy family.165 The Borghese were after a real noble title (not the ones Paul had invented for them) and were happy to part with some real estate to sweeten the deal. They were, however, considerably less than excited by the bride’s wish to become a nun. Cardinal Alessandro had the same problem, having to be talked out of entering the Jesuits once already and eventually succumbing to the temptation of the religious life.166 At this moment he temporarily behaved as a new cardinal should, making the rounds of banquets, including with Cardinal Caetani, going hunting, leading parades, and, oh yes, being seen at mass in St. Peter’s.167 A little less typically, he also became Galileo’s protégé, the addressee of his most dangerously Copernican work yet, “The Discourse on the Flux and Reflux of the Tides,” sent (or handed) to him on 8 January 1616; it allegedly arose from conversations in Rome between the two.168 By that act, Galileo anointed Orsini his official champion.
By the end of January Galileo had become so confident in his success that, in addition to dismissing Caccini as a continuing threat, he generously offered to intercede to protect his accuser from punishment for his denunciations.169 On 6 February, Galileo announced to Florence that the people in charge assured him “my business is completely wound up as far as my person is concerned,” since they had seen both his innocence and the “malignity” of his enemies. He could go home.170 This may sound like the end of a letter; in fact, it is only the first sentence. This is the second time we have seen Galileo’s “business” finished. It was not the first time in early 1615, nor was it now. Why not? Because Galileo had no idea how to leave well enough alone. He rushed on to demand not only that he be cleared but also that all other followers of Copernicus had to be, too, and heliocentrism accepted as true. Getting that job done was wearing him out, but, as “a zealous and Catholic Christian” pursuing a “just and religious end,” he was determined to overthrow those who for their own selfish reasons opposed the truth. It is typical of Galileo as a man of the seventeenth century to trivialize and personalize his opponents. Manifesting contempt for one’s opponents is never a compelling persuasive tactic, and it did not work well for Galileo, either, not if we consider that all this is the prologue to a report on a lengthy meeting with Caccini that Galileo was forced to admit left the Dominican completely unconvinced.
On 5 February, one month before Copernicus’s book would be suspended, Caccini came to visit Galileo.171 They began by spending half an hour alone. Caccini begged Galileo to believe that he had not “been the motor of that other noise here [in Rome, in addition to his reading in Florence].” Then five other people, most of them Florentines, showed up, two of them dependents of one of the Inquisitors to whom Galileo later claimed to have talked during this visit, Giovanni Battista Bonsi: his favored nephew Domenico Bonsi and his auditor Francesco Venturi.172 All three were lawyers. The Florentine Cardinal Bonsi had spent much of his career in France before coming to Rome in mid-1615 to represent French interests.173 He became an Inquisitor on 21 July 1615 and later served as deputy secretary, although there is little sign of his impact as such or as a representative of Florence. The appearance of two of Bonsi’s familiars in Galileo’s room was no accident. They had come to witness Caccini’s submission to Galileo in case evidence was needed in the future. Bonsi has to have been one of the men on whom Galileo relied. If so, he did not help much. It is a great irony that Galileo or his backers tried to give Caccini exactly the same treatment he would himself receive shortly. Caccini probably had the last laugh. It is likely that he was spying on Galileo and gleefully reported finding him as determined as ever to defend Copernicus.
Galileo closed his report with one of the most accurate things he said throughout this episode: “Now the discussion has become more open, considering it in a certain way a public matter, even if in respect to the other courts this one [the Inquisition], including in these actions, is very secretive.”174 Since things were going so well, Galileo had decided to present the grand duke’s recommendation to Cardinal Nephew Borghese on the following Tuesday, 9 February. He also decided to activate Orsini, first of all as his means of access to Borghese. Borghese effusively promised full support.175 Orsini was jumping up and down with excitement at the important job he had been given. Just in case, Galileo asked for another recommendation from the grand duke