Last Act

Galileo’s friends always vastly outnumbered his enemies. Now that he had been
defeated by his enemies, his friends came forward to repair the damage. Ambassador
Niccolini managed to have the sentence commuted to custody under the
Archbishop Ascanio Piccolomini of Siena. Galileo’s “prison” was the archbishop’s
palace in Siena, frequented by poets, scientists, and musicians, all of
whom arrived to honor Galileo. Gradually his mind returned to the problems of
science, to topics that were safe from theological entanglements. He planned a
dialogue on “two new sciences,” which would summarize his work on natural
motion (one science) and also address problems related to the strengths of materials
(the other science). His three interlocutors would again be named Salviati,
Sagredo, and Simplicio, but now they would represent three ages of the author:
Salviati, the wise Galileo in old age; Sagredo, the Galileo of the middle years in
Padua; and Simplicio, a youthful Galileo.
But Galileo could not remain in Siena. Letters from his daughter Virginia, now
Sister Maria Celeste in the convent of St. Matthew in the town of Arcetri, near
Florence, stirred deep memories. Earlier he had taken a villa in Arcetri to be nearVirginia and his other daughter, Livia, also a sister at the convent. He now appealed
to the pope for permission to return to Arcetri. Eventually the request was
granted, but only after word had come that Maria Celeste was seriously ill, and
more important, after the pope’s agents had reported that the heretic’s comfortable
“punishment” in Siena did not fit the crime. The pope’s edict directed that
Galileo return to his villa and remain guarded there under house arrest.
Galileo took up residence in Arcetri in late 1633, and for several months attended
Virginia in her illness. She did not recover, and in the spring of 1634,
she died. For Galileo this was almost the final blow. But once again work was
his restorative. For three years he concentrated on his Discourses on Two New
Sciences. That work, his final masterpiece, was completed in 1637, and in 1638
it was published (in Holland, after the manuscript was smuggled out of Italy).
By this time Galileo had gone blind. Only grudgingly did Urban permit Galileo
to travel the short distance to Florence for medical treatment.
But after all he had endured, Galileo never lost his faith. “Galileo’s own conscience
was clear, both as Catholic and as scientist,” Stillman Drake, a contemporary
science historian, writes. “On one occasion he wrote, almost in despair,
that he felt like burning all his work in science; but he never so much as thought
of turning his back on his faith. The Church turned its back on Galileo, and has
suffered not a little for having done so; Galileo blamed only some wrong-headed
individuals in the Church for that.”