When Descartes and others attempted to raise the same
point, they were treated with contempt. Father Castelli, who had
devoted himself to Galileo, and knew to his cost just what the
condemnation meant and who made it, takes it for granted, in his
letter to the papal authorities, that it was made by the Church.
Cardinal Querenghi, in his letters; the ambassador Guicciardini, in
his dispatches; Polacco, in his refutation; the historian Viviani,
in his biography of Galileo--all writing under Church inspection
and approval at the time, took the view that the Pope and the
Church condemned Galileo, and this was never denied at Rome. The
Inquisition itself, backed by the greatest theologian of the time
(Bellarmin), took the same view. Not only does he declare that he
makes the condemnation "in the name of His Holiness the Pope," but
we have the Roman _Index_, containing the condemnation for nearly two
hundred years, prefaced by a solemn bull of the reigning Pope
binding this condemnation on the consciences of the whole Church,
and declaring year after year that "all books which affirm the
motion of the earth" are damnable.
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