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COSA ACCADDE DAVVERO A GALILEO? - RINO CAMMILLERI — Transcript

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0:01He was housed in the private apartments
0:03of the Archbishop of Siena in Rome with
0:08a full staff at his disposal. So, in
0:11case anyone says "the Inquisition cell,
0:13" it was actually a beautiful penthouse
0:16with a view of the Pincio. Oh well, and
0:24the story there, well, questions and
0:26cross-examinations, and so on. He gets
0:29flustered there, I mean, it becomes a
0:33...I mean, reading the records, you
0:36realize that Galileo realized, okay,
0:39that he had made a diplomatic blunder.
0:43Let me explain: had he acted
0:45differently, nothing would have
0:47happened, but by then the damage was
0:49done and they had to fix it. and he
0:55started claiming, okay, that proof of
0:58the Earth's rotation is provided by the
1:00tides overflowing. And that's where
1:05Kepler intervened, even though he was
1:06his friend. You know, Kepler is the one
1:10who discovered that the tides are due
1:13to lunar attraction, and he pointed out
1:16that he was making a huge mistake, and
1:19Galileo told him to get lost, with his
1:21usual tact. In short, it ended, okay,
1:26with Galileo eh to save face, they did
1:32this. Galileo was sentenced not to stop
1:36teaching the Copernican theory, but to
1:39teach it as a theory and not as a
1:41scientific fact. Let's keep in mind,
1:45okay, that the Earth's rotation would
1:48only be proven scientifically at the
1:51end of the 1800s with Foucault's
1:53pendulum. Dear friends of Cronache di
2:25Cielo e Terra, today we have with us
2:28Dr. Rino Camilleri, essayist, writer,
2:31and great journalist, whom I greet.
2:33Hello. Hello, Doctor.
2:35Hello to you.
2:37Today with Dr. Camilleri, we will
2:40discuss the topic of Galileo Galilei.
2:44There are many misconceptions about him
2:47nowadays. And so, Dr. Camilleri will
2:51explain to us today what the true
2:53history of Galileo really is. And,
2:57Doctor, starting right off, let's say,
3:01with the historical context in which
3:04Galileo lived, the socio-political
3:07situation of the era, because, as we
3:11rightly said earlier, it is a
3:13fundamental aspect for truly
3:16understanding the story of Galileo.
3:20Please. The political context of the
3:24time, international politics, was the
3:27ongoing Thirty Years 'War. The Thirty
3:32Years' War, very schematically between
3:35Catholics and Protestants, in reality,
3:37there were overlaps on both sides for
3:39money matters. For example, the Swiss
3:45Landsknechts were Lutheran, but they
3:48fought for Emperor Charles V who was
3:51Catholic, he was propagating, while the
3:56others were not. But beyond that, the
3:59Thirty Years 'War is practically passed
4:02off as a war of religion; in reality,
4:04it is a war between Protestant powers
4:07and Catholic powers, not for religion,
4:09but for what had been created, for the
4:12situation that had emerged after the
4:14great revolution of Luther. And that is
4:18to say that the Protestants—Lutherans
4:24first, then Calvinists, and then
4:27eventually an endless galaxy of
4:29denominations began almost immediately
4:33—obviously refused obedience to the
4:36Lord they had obeyed until that moment
4:39and so on, hence war. Eh, another
4:47example, eh, a lord or a prince who had
4:52taken advantage of Lutheranism to
4:57confiscate all the assets of the Church
5:02, as Henry had done. Something that the
5:08sovereigns of Denmark and Sweden did,
5:11for example, because Denmark and Sweden
5:13became Lutheran from the top down; that
5:16is to say, the king decided to become
5:18Lutheran, and therefore all his
5:20subjects had to become Lutheran. The
5:23famous principle of "cuius regio, eius
5:25religio," which was the only system at
5:28that point to put an end to the endless
5:30wars. Now, this lord, who had seized
5:38all the Church's assets and obviously
5:41sold or undersold them to the highest
5:44bidder to raise cash, had created, as
5:47Henry did in England, a class of rich,
5:50large landowners who, at that point,
5:53had no desire to return under a
5:56Catholic king because they would have
5:59had to return everything they had
6:02cashed in. Is the situation clear now,
6:06right? So, this is the context. This
6:10Thirty Years' War is the bloodiest that
6:13Europe had ever seen. 30 years, eh, pay
6:17attention, the most devastating, and
6:20above all, there wasn't another one
6:23like it in terms of intensity and
6:26devastation until the First World War.
6:30This was what was happening in Northern
6:32Europe. Southern Europe, Spain and
6:36Italy, thanks to the introduction of
6:39the Holy Office in Italy and the
6:42Inquisition in Spain, managed to stay
6:45out of what was happening in France.
6:49That is, in France, where there was no
6:52Inquisition, there were wars of
6:54religion between Huguenots, Calvinists,
6:57and French Catholics that lasted for
7:00decades, and it wasn't clear how one
7:03could get out of it, also because each
7:05side was being fueled by, eh, the You
7:10know The Three Musketeers? The three
7:12musketeers participate in the siege of
7:14La Rochelle. La Rochelle was the
7:18Calvinist Huguenot port which, facing
7:20the Atlantic, was being continuously
7:23resupplied by the English. Agreed? So
7:26there was no way to get to the bottom
7:29of this because, practically speaking,
7:33France had left an open door for its
7:36sworn enemies, with whom it had fought
7:39the Hundred Years 'War—the one with
7:42Joan of Arc, to be clear. So, this was
7:47the situation in Italy, and Spain was
7:50rather quiet, but the disaster had
7:53already occurred; that is, the Church
7:56had lost fully half of Europe. And it
8:02never regained it; therefore,
8:05Christendom was split and remained so
8:08forever. Among the accusations that the
8:13Protestants leveled against the Church,
8:15what were they? Here is another thing,
8:19a preamble that isn't often taken into
8:24account. I mean, what did Luther say?
8:30What is Luther's doctrine? Sola
8:33Scriptura, meaning scripture alone is
8:36enough to be saved. Well, there's no
8:40need for a church, sacraments, or popes
8:43; well, just scripture. And so he
8:47accused the Church of having
8:50manipulated the Scriptures, because, uh
8:53, another cornerstone of Lutheran
8:58thought was faith without works, right?
9:01Faith alone, faith is enough to be
9:03saved. Sola Fide; to those who pointed
9:07out that the Epistle of Saint James
9:09says, "Show me your faith by your works
9:14," he would reply that this letter is
9:16fake and the Church had snuck it in. So
9:20the Church was accused precisely of
9:22this: of lacking fidelity to the letter
9:25of scripture, and it was kept under
9:28close watch with a gun pointed at it
9:30regarding these issues, which it had
9:33cared little about before. I mean, what
9:37does "little" mean? The Old Testament
9:40for the Catholic Church is the prologue
9:43and preparation for the New, right?
9:46Which is what matters. Is that clear? I
9:50mean, what must a Christian do
9:52according to the Church? Follow the
9:55precepts of the Old Testament, or what
9:57Jesus says? What Jesus says. You say, "
10:01But in the Testaments there was
10:03circumcision," thank God, we now follow
10:06what Jesus says. Have I made myself
10:09clear? So, let's say the Church had
10:11always kept the Old Testament a bit in
10:13the background, as stuff for scholars.
10:16It was useless to give it to the people
10:19because there are so many complications
10:23within—just read it, which no one
10:26does, compared to the simple faith of
10:29the people—well, it would require a
10:32well-nourished group of, uh, detailed
10:36explainers, and the Church didn't have
10:39them. Do I make myself clear? I mean,
10:44let's keep in mind that Saint Dominic
10:46founded the Dominican Order precisely
10:48because there was a need for
10:50well-prepared people to go out and
10:52explain things. Well, that was the
10:55context. In this same context, it
11:00happened that Copernicus, who was a
11:03Catholic priest—a fact nobody ever
11:07remembers—dabbled in astronomy,
11:10though "dabbled" is really a 20
11:14th-century way of looking at it. In
11:18reality, they didn't just dabble; their
11:20study was practically all-encompassing.
11:24If you were a scholar, you knew
11:25everything, if I may explain. I mean,
11:29we are amazed today by the polymath
11:32nature of Leonardo da Vinci, but
11:34weren't they all like that? Only today
11:39do we have someone who knows
11:42astrophysics perfectly but knows
11:46absolutely nothing about biology or
11:50theology, whereas scholars of that time
11:54knew everything, right? Right. So,
11:59Copernicus, while studying the only
12:01astronomical system available at the
12:04time, the Ptolemaic one, realizes that
12:06something doesn't add up. So, how does
12:11he act? Since one of the many things
12:15that scholars studied back then was
12:17music. Hmm. I mean, he tries to put
12:30Ptolemy's system onto a musical staff,
12:32right? Clear. And from there, he starts
12:37to fix it. In the end, with his system,
12:40the harmony clicks, you see? I mean, it
12:43was enough to place the sun at the
12:45center of the cosmos rather than the
12:47earth. Who was it? This is the
12:49Copernican system, agreed? Galileo, who
12:54was a scientist on par with these
12:57others, in the sense that he dealt with
12:59everything; and since he never wanted
13:02to graduate because his father wanted
13:04him to be a doctor, but he loved
13:07mathematics, he didn't finish; yet he
13:09was a genius, hats off to him. So much
13:13so that—well, different times: today
13:15they wouldn't have given him a
13:16professorship without the piece of
13:18paper, but the Grand Duke of Florence
13:19gave it to him. Even though he wasn't a
13:23graduate, he gave him the chair of
13:24mathematics at the University of Pisa.
13:28This is stuff from the Middle Ages. Yes
13:32, if only. Anyway, since he had to
13:37support his family—and his family
13:39meant his sisters, because he was an
13:41orphan—supporting his sisters meant
13:44providing them with a dowry, and a
13:46significant one at that, otherwise...I
13:51mean, a substantial dowry was the
13:54alternative: marrying a bricklayer, for
13:57instance, or instead marrying a wealthy
14:00miller. This was—and Galileo needed
14:05money, also because later when he moved
14:08to Padua, he got the woman who washed
14:12his clothes pregnant, they had three
14:15children, two girls and a boy, and he
14:18had to support them too. Needing money,
14:24he did what everyone did, including
14:26Copernicus at the time, which was
14:28horoscopes, and Galileo's horoscopes
14:30were obviously the most beautiful and
14:32flowery for the Grand Duke, his patron
14:35and benefactor. Well, if you read
14:38Galileo's horoscope for the Grand Duke,
14:41it sounds like another Jesus, another
14:43Messiah was born, so it’s
14:45understandable considering, well, that
14:47he was on his payroll and owed him
14:50everything. Therefore, since there
14:54wasn't really this great difference
14:57between astrology and astronomy in the
15:00modern sense, and being, I repeat, a
15:03mathematical genius, he realizes that
15:05Copernicus is right and starts telling
15:08people. But what is the problem at this
15:13point? Well, taking into account the
15:17fact that the Grand Inquisitor was
15:20Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, Saint
15:22Robert Bellarmine, who happened to be a
15:25Jesuit and had previously taught
15:27astronomy at Louvain, so he understood
15:30it. Bellarmine complimented him, showed
15:37the work to the Pope, and the Pope
15:40showered him with compliments. In short
15:43, the Jesuits practically confirmed it
15:46because the Vatican Observatory existed
15:49, so the Jesuit astronomers confirmed
15:52Galileo's discoveries regarding the
15:56satellites of Jupiter and other things.
16:01They defended him from the envious,
16:03because Galileo's problem was also the
16:06envious people, namely his lay
16:08colleagues at the University of Pisa.
16:11They reproached him because they
16:13couldn't stand that he was teaching at
16:15the university even though he didn't
16:17have a degree, while they did. This was
16:21aggravated by the fact of, aggravated
16:24by the fact of Galileo's personal
16:26character. I mean, Galileo was
16:29certainly not an easygoing guy; he was
16:32someone who, if contradicted, would
16:33tell people to go to hell with harsh
16:35words, and you can see this in all his
16:37writings. I mean, anyone who didn't see
16:40things his way was an imbecile; he
16:42wouldn't waste time arguing. Obviously,
16:46if you act like that, the number of
16:47enemies increases instead of decreasing
16:49. So those enemies, at that point,
16:54pulled the rug out from under him; they
16:58circulated some of his private letters
17:02to the Grand Duchess, in which she
17:05asked him, more or less: "But then, if
17:12if the earth orbits the sun, is the
17:14passage in the Bible where Joshua stops
17:17the sun wrong?" Hmm. And Galileo
17:23replies privately. I mean, yes, I think
17:26so. Eh, so in my opinion the Church
17:28should say that the passage is
17:30allegorical. Right, also because
17:33justifiably 1000 years before Christ,
17:382000, whatever it was; I mean, it had
17:41to be explained in the Bible to
17:43shepherds wandering through Asia, you
17:45get it? who was it that was revolving
17:49around the earth. So, there, in fact,
17:51the Bible is not a scientific book, it
17:53is a book for it is a religious book.
17:57Except that these letters sent out, uh,
18:00on purpose to trick him, provoked what
18:03they wanted to provoke. I mean, some
18:07Franciscans especially and some
18:09Dominicans started preaching from the
18:11pulpit against this thing, right? Ah,
18:15here and there, and you get it? How
18:18dare this layman say what the Church
18:20should do? Anyway, a quarrel arose, in
18:24the end, dragged in by the hair,
18:26Bellarmine, the Holy Office, and they
18:29call Galileo and tell him: "Listen, uh,
18:32let's do something nice and to end this
18:36story, I mean, you have to say, you can
18:39teach the Copernican theory, but you
18:42must say it is a theory that is not
18:44scientifically proven." When it is
18:48scientifically proven, then the Church,
18:50if necessary, fine, will revisit the
18:53passage of Joshua. Galileo accepts and
18:56the matter ends up being swept under
18:58the rug, I mean, in the sense that the
19:01Pope gives him a nice annual pension,
19:03uh, organizes a big reception for him
19:07and yet, what was the Church's
19:10difficulty? As we said, because I spent
19:13time at the beginning explaining what
19:15the climate was. I mean, the Church had
19:19a gun pointed at it by the Lutherans,
19:21uh, who accused it of betraying the
19:23literal word of scripture. And, if it
19:29had started saying, "Fine, we'll change
19:31, we'll adjust here and explain it
19:34differently because Galileo said so,"
19:37and Luther, fine, who loathed
19:39Copernicus and called him every name in
19:42the book, would have obviously taken
19:44advantage of it to stir up more trouble
19:47. So there, I mean, the Church was
19:51basically, was in grave difficulty. The
19:57matter exploded when at a certain point
20:00, after 10 years I think, or 20, no, I
20:04don't have the figures at hand right
20:07now. Galileo, still with his telescope.
20:14Galileo didn't invent the telescope, I
20:16mean, the Dutch were already using it,
20:18but they used it for sailing at sea.
20:22Galileo has the intuition to point it
20:25toward the sky. Let's keep in mind that
20:30Galileo's telescope is not a Mount
20:32Palomar telescope like the ones today,
20:33uh, I mean, you get it? a telescope
20:36like Galileo's you buy at the
20:38optician's. Uh, let me explain. So,
20:40compared to that of today, little more
20:43than a toy, I mean, still better than
20:46nothing, but oh well, At a certain
20:51point, he discovers Jupiter's moons
20:53with this. Mm. So, he follows this line
20:58of reasoning. If Jupiter's moons
21:00revolve around Jupiter, then it's not
21:02true that everything revolves around
21:04the Earth. Mm, so Copernicus is right.
21:11And so he sets off, uh, he sets off and
21:16writes the Dialogue Concerning the Two
21:18Chief World Systems, which is a
21:20dialogue. There are three people
21:22talking. One is Sagredo, Salviati, and
21:25Simplicio, where one plays the
21:27Copernican, one the Ptolemaic, and one
21:30acts the fool. Simplicio, the one who
21:33asks stupid questions. The whole thing
21:36is stuffed with Galileo's usual
21:38rhetoric, meaning at this point, the
21:40Copernican theory is proven and that's
21:43it, let's end it. Anyone who thinks
21:47otherwise is an idiot, an imbecile—
21:50really, just go and read it. Moreover,
21:54uh, in Simplicio's mouth he puts an
21:56argument that had been given to him by
21:58the priest, or rather, by the Pope
22:00himself. Urban, clearly. So, Urban VIII
22:07, who liked Galileo, used to have the
22:09book read to him at the table while he
22:11ate lunch. When he reached the passage
22:14where he recognized what he himself had
22:17said, put into the mouth of Simplicio,
22:19well, he was slightly offended, to put
22:22it mildly, not to say worse. And on top
22:26of that, all the other usual enemies of
22:28Galileo were back on the attack. At
22:31this point, the accusation could also
22:34have been, well, that he hadn't
22:36respected the agreement with the
22:38Inquisition from 20 years earlier, in
22:41which he had said that he would teach
22:43it, yes, but only as a theory, alright?
22:47And not as an established fact, so he
22:51is summoned to Rome by the Inquisition
22:55and he must have realized he had made a
22:58misstep because he starts stalling,
23:02sends medical certificates, anyway, it
23:05took a long time and finally he goes,
23:09uh, he is housed in private apartments
23:14in Rome. Belonging to the Archbishop of
23:17Siena. With plenty of servants at his
23:21disposal. So, in case anyone mentions
23:24an Inquisition cell, well, it was a
23:27beautiful accommodation. Eh, well, uh,
23:36the story there, well, questions and
23:38counter-questions, etc., he gets
23:41flustered, in short, it becomes a, well
23:44, reading the records you realize that
23:47Galileo realized, alright, that he had
23:50done something foolish from a
23:52diplomatic standpoint, I explain. I
23:56mean, had he acted differently, nothing
23:57would have happened, but by that point,
23:59the damage was done. And now they had
24:02to fix it. Uh, he started to claim,
24:07well, that the proof of the Earth's
24:10rotation is provided by the tides
24:12overflowing. Well, Kepler intervened
24:17there, even though he was his friend.
24:20You know, Kepler is the one who
24:22discovered that tides are caused by
24:25lunar attraction, and he pointed out
24:27that he was making a big mistake based
24:29on his own work, and he told him to get
24:32lost—fine—with his usual tact.
24:35Anyway, it ended, all right, with
24:38Galileo, uh...to have his cake and eat
24:43it too, they did this. Galileo was not
24:47sentenced to stop teaching the
24:49Copernican theory, but to teach it as a
24:52theory and not as a scientific fact. We
24:56must keep in mind, all right, that the
24:59Earth's rotation would only be
25:01scientifically proven at the end of the
25:0319th century with Foucault's pendulum.
25:08Foucault's pendulum, the one that, by
25:09rotating, that is, it knocked down
25:14sandbags, fine, as the Earth turned;
25:17this Foucault pendulum placed under the
25:20Pantheon, hanging from the roof of the
25:24Pantheon in Paris, uh, set in motion,
25:27and on the ground it moved across a
25:30circle of sandbags: in 24 hours it
25:33knocked them all down, so the Earth was
25:36rotating. This is the scientific proof
25:40of the Earth's rotation, but 200 and
25:42some years later. Uh, the proof for the
25:45heliocentric theory, that is, that the
25:48Earth rotates and not the Sun, only
25:51came in the 1900s, with the parallax,
25:54which now I don't know, uh, I'm not
25:57able, all right, to describe—what
26:00matters is that there were no proofs at
26:03the time, all right? And so the Church
26:07was right, something even Agamben
26:10pointed out, the philosopher cited by
26:13Pope Ratzinger and which caused his—
26:17the Pope's—exclusion, obviously, from
26:20Sapienza University of Rome, by, all
26:23right, a clique of free thinkers; and
26:27Sapienza University of Rome, despite
26:30being, and still being, a university
26:34founded by a pope. Oh well. Uh, so
26:41Galileo, the famous phrase "and yet it
26:44moves." That is nonsense invented by a
26:48journalist a century or so later, I
26:54don't remember the name, in London. Uh,
27:00in a Protestant house, a schismatic
27:05house, to embellish the myth. Galileo
27:11was sentenced to do what I said, that
27:15is, not to teach the Copernican theory
27:18as scientifically proven, but only as a
27:22theory. Then, for the rest, for three
27:27years he had to recite the penitential
27:30psalms once a week, which was pardoned
27:33almost immediately because his nun
27:35daughter recited them for him, and he
27:42was under house arrest in his villa in
27:44Arcetri which was called "The Jewel,"
27:49so it wasn't exactly a shack. So, apart
27:53from the fact that Galileo was already
27:56old and half-blind by then, from the
27:59nights spent, you know, staring into
28:02the dark with a telescope, he continued
28:05to do exactly what he did before and to
28:08receive his disciples, other scientists
28:10from Europe, and so on. He died a good
28:15Catholic, complete with the apostolic
28:17blessing from the Pope. And so, this is
28:21the reality of Galileo. The myth of
28:24Galileo is to know, you see, the
28:30creation of the Galileo myth, one would
28:33have to ask the Freemasons. Yeah,
28:37that's all.
28:40Doctor. That was a wonderful
28:42explanation, very, very compelling, I
28:44must say. Um, certainly, the fact of
28:48historically framing the the context,
28:54you know, in which Galileo lived is
28:57more than essential to understand his,
28:59well, history and. And then, as is also
29:03evident from, well, your account, there
29:07are often behind these, well, these
29:09very controversial stories, human
29:12relationships; in fact, it is almost
29:15always the case and, as you rightly
29:18pointed out, well, the Church was also
29:21under pressure from the Lutherans. Now,
29:25these are things one might tend to
29:27forget, but which in reality carried
29:29more than great weight within decisions
29:31made by men. I mean, why must one turn,
29:35as you were saying, to the Freemasons
29:37for the myth of Galileo? I mean the, to
29:42conclude this story: in the 1920s, the
29:48Archbishop of Pisa, Cardinal Maffi,
29:51offered to pay the city for a monument
29:54to Galileo, because Pisa, not everyone
29:57knows this, does not have a monument to
30:01Galileo. And the municipality refused,
30:06they were all Freemasons, because
30:08heaven forbid, you know, that the
30:10Church should always be the one that is
30:13the persecutor of free thinkers and so
30:16on. Moral of the story. Pisa, the city
30:18of Galileo, still does not have a
30:20monument to Galileo today.
30:23Thank you very much. So,
30:25you have been truly very kind. See you
30:28soon. M.

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