Character of Galileo—Miscellaneous details—his Death—Conclusion.

The remaining years of Galileo's life were spent at Arcetri, where indeed, even if the Inquisition had granted his liberty, his increasing age and infirmities would probably have detained him. The rigid caution with which he had been watched in Florence was in great measure relaxed, and he was permitted to see the friends who crowded round him to express their respect and sympathy. The Grand Duke visited him frequently, and many distinguished strangers, such as Gassendi and Deodati, came into Italy solely for the purpose of testifying their admiration of his character. Among other visitors the name of Milton will be read with interest: we may probably refer to the effects of this interview the allusions to Galileo's discoveries, so frequently introduced into his poem. Milton mentions in his 'Areopagitica,' that he saw Galileo whilst in Italy, but enters into no details of his visit.

Galileo was fond of society, and his cheerful and popular manners rendered him an universal favourite among those who were admitted to his intimacy. Among these, Viviani, who formed one of his family during the three last years of his life, deserves particular notice, on account of the strong attachment and almost filial veneration with which he ever regarded his master and benefactor. His long life, which was prolonged to the completion of his 81st year in 1703, enabled him to see the triumphant establishment of the truths on account of which Galileo had endured so many insults; and even in his old age, when in his turn he had acquired a claim to the reverence of a younger generation, our Royal Society, who invited him among them in 1696, felt that the complimentary language in which they addressed him as the first mathematician of the age would have been incomplete and unsatisfactory without an allusion to the friendship that gained him the cherished title of "The last pupil of Galileo."[170]

Torricelli, another of Galileo's most celebrated followers, became a member of his family in October, 1641: he first learned mathematics from Castelli, and occasionally lectured for him at Rome, in which manner he was employed when Galileo, who had seen his book 'On Motion,' and augured the greatest success from such a beginning, invited him to his house—an offer which Torricelli eagerly embraced, although he enjoyed the advantages of it but for a short time. He afterwards succeeded Galileo in his situation at the court of Florence,[171] but survived him only a few years.

It is from the accounts of Viviani and Gherardini that we principally draw the following particulars of Galileo's person and character:—Signor Galileo was of a cheerful and pleasant countenance, especially in his old age, square built, and well proportioned in stature, and rather above the middle size. His complexion was fair and sanguine, his eyes brilliant, and his hair of a reddish cast. His constitution was naturally strong, but worn out by fatigue of mind and body, so as frequently to be reduced to a state of the utmost weakness. He was subject to attacks of hypochondria, and often molested by severe and dangerous illnesses, occasioned in great measure by his sleepless nights, the whole of which he frequently spent in astronomical observations. During upwards of forty-eight years of his life, he was tormented with acute rheumatic pains, suffering particularly on any change of weather. He found himself most free from these pains whilst residing in the country, of which consequently he became very fond: besides, he used to say that in the country he had greater freedom to read the book of Nature, which lay there open before him. His library was very small, but well chosen, and open to the use of the friends whom he loved to see assembled round him, and whom he was accustomed to receive in the most hospitable manner. He ate sparingly himself; but was particularly choice in the selection of his wines, which in the latter part of his life were regularly supplied out of the Grand Duke's cellars. This taste gave an additional stimulus to his agricultural pursuits, and many of his leisure hours were spent in the cultivation and superintendence of his vineyards. It should seem that he was considered a good judge of wine; for Viviani has preserved one of his receipts in a collection of miscellaneous experiments. In it he strongly recommends that for wine of the first quality, that juice only should be employed, which is pressed out by the mere weight of the heaped grapes, which would probably be that of the ripest fruit. The following letter, written in his 74th year, is dated, "From my prison at Arcetri.—I am forced to avail myself of your assistance and favour, agreeably to your obliging offers, in consequence of the excessive chill of the weather, and of old age, and from having drained out my grand stock of a hundred bottles, which I laid in two years ago; not to mention some minor particulars during the last two months, which I received from my Serene Master, the Most Eminent Lord Cardinal, their Highnesses the Princes, and the Most Excellent Duke of Guise, besides cleaning out two barrels of the wine of this country. Now, I beg that with all due diligence and industry, and with consideration, and taking counsel with the most refined palates, you will provide me with two cases, that is to say, with forty flasks of different wines, the most exquisite that you can find: take no thought of the expense, because I stint myself so much in all other pleasures that I can afford to lay out something at the request of Bacchus, without giving offence to his two companions Ceres and Venus. You must be careful to leave out neither Scillo nor Carino (I believe they meant to call them Scylla and Charybdis), nor the country of my master, Archimedes of Syracuse, nor Greek wines, nor clarets, &c. &c. The expense I shall easily be able to satisfy, but not the infinite obligation."

In his expenditure Galileo observed a just mean between avarice and profusion: he spared no cost necessary for the success of his many and various experiments, and spent large sums in charity and hospitality, and in assisting those in whom he discovered excellence in any art or profession, many of whom he maintained in his own house. His temper was easily ruffled, but still more easily pacified. He seldom conversed on mathematical or philosophical topics except among his intimate friends; and when such subjects were abruptly brought before him, as was often the case by the numberless visitors he was in the habit of receiving, he showed great readiness in turning the conversation into more popular channels, in such manner however that he often contrived to introduce something to satisfy the curiosity of the inquirers. His memory was uncommonly tenacious, and stored with a vast variety of old songs and stories, which he was in the constant habit of quoting and alluding to. His favourite Italian authors were Ariosto, Petrarca, and Berni, great part of whose poems he was able to repeat. His excessive admiration of Ariosto determined the side which he took against Tasso in the virulent and unnecessary controversy which has divided Italy so long on the respective merits of these two great poets; and he was accustomed to say that reading Tasso after Ariosto was like tasting cucumbers after melons. When quite a youth, he wrote a great number of critical remarks on Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, which one of his friends borrowed, and forgot to return. For a long time it was thought that the manuscript had perished, till the AbbÉ Serassi discovered it, whilst collecting materials for his Life of Tasso, published at Rome in 1785. Serassi being a violent partizan of Tasso, but also unwilling to lose the credit of the discovery, copied the manuscript, but without any intention of publishing it, "till he could find leisure for replying properly to the sophistical and unfounded attacks of a critic so celebrated on other accounts." He announced his discovery as having been made "in one of the famous libraries at Rome," which vague indication he with some reason considered insufficient to lead to a second discovery. On Serassi's death his copy was found, containing a reference to the situation of the original; the criticisms were published, and form the greatest part of the last volume of the Milan edition of Galileo's works. The manuscript was imperfect at the time of this second discovery, several leaves having been torn out, it is not known by whom.

The opinion of the most judicious Italian critics appears to be, that it would have been more for Galileo's credit if these remarks had never been made public: they are written in a spirit of flippant violence, such as might not be extraordinary in a common juvenile critic, but which it is painful to notice from the pen of Galileo. Two or three sonnets are extant written by Galileo himself, and in two instances he has not scrupled to appropriate the conceits of the poet he affected to undervalue.[172] It should be mentioned that Galileo's matured taste rather receded from the violence of his early prejudices, for at a later period of his life he used to shun comparing the two; and when forced to give an opinion he said, "that Tasso's appeared the finer poem, but that Ariosto gave him the greater pleasure." Besides these sonnets, there is extant a short burlesque poem written by him, "In abuse of Gowns," when, on his first becoming Professor at Pisa, he found himself obliged by custom to wear his professional habit in every company. It is written not without humour, but does not bear comparison with Berni, whom he imitated.

There are several detached subjects treated of by Galileo, which may be noticed in this place. A letter by him containing the solution of a problem in Chances is probably the earliest notice extant of the application of mathematics to that interesting subject: the correspondence between Pascal and Fermat, with which its history is generally made to begin, not having taken place till at least twelve years later. There can be little doubt after the clear account of Carlo Dati, that Galileo was the first to examine the curve called the Cycloid, described by a point in the rim of a wheel rolling on a straight line, which he recommended as a graceful form for the arch of a bridge at Pisa. He even divined that the area contained between it and its base is exactly three times that of the generating circle. He seems to have been unable to verify this guess by strict geometrical reasoning, for Viviani tells an odd story, that in order to satisfy his doubts he cut out several large cycloids of pasteboard, but finding the weight in every trial to be rather less than three times that of the circle, he suspected the proportion to be irrational, and that there was some error in his estimation; the inquiry he abandoned was afterwards resumed with success by his pupil Torricelli.[173]

The account which Lagalla gives of an experiment shown in his presence by Galileo, carries the observation of the phosphorescence of the Bologna stone at least as far back as 1612.[174] Other writers mention the name of an alchymist, who according to them discovered it accidentally in 1603. Cesi, Lagalla, and one or two others, had passed the night at Galileo's house, with the intention of observing Venus and Saturn; but, the night being cloudy, the conversation turned on other matters, and especially on the nature of light, "on which Galileo took a small wooden box at daybreak before sunrise, and showed us some small stones in it, desiring us to observe that they were not in the least degree luminous. Having then exposed them for some time to the twilight, he shut the window again; and in the midst of the dark room showed us the stones, shining and glistening with a faint light, which we saw presently decay and become extinguished." In 1640, Liceti attempted to refer the effect of the earthshine upon the moon to a similar phosphorescent quality of that luminary, to which Galileo, then aged 76, replied by a long and able letter, enforcing the true explanation he had formerly given.

Although quite blind, and nearly deaf, the intellectual powers of Galileo remained to the end of his life; but he occasionally felt that he was overworking himself, and used to complain to his friend Micanzio that he found his head too busy for his body. "I cannot keep my restless brain from grinding on, although with great loss of time; for whatever idea comes into my head with respect to any novelty, drives out of it whatever I had been thinking of just before." He was busily engaged in considering the nature of the force of percussion, and Torricelli was employed in arranging his investigations for a continuation of the 'Dialogues on Motion,' when he was seized with an attack of fever and palpitation of the heart, which, after an illness of two months, put an end to his long, laborious, and useful life, on the 8th of January, 1642, just one year before his great successor Newton was born.

The malice of his enemies was scarcely allayed by his death. His right of making a will was disputed, as having died a prisoner to the Inquisition, as well as his right to burial in consecrated ground. These were at last conceded, but Urban anxiously interfered to prevent the design of erecting a monument to him in the church of Santa Croce, in Florence, for which a large sum had been subscribed. His body was accordingly buried in an obscure corner of the church, which for upwards of thirty years after his death was unmarked even by an inscription to his memory. It was not till a century later that the splendid monument was erected which now covers his and Viviani's remains. When their bodies were disinterred in 1737 for the purpose of being removed to their new resting-place, Capponi, the president of the Florentine Academy, in a spirit of spurious admiration, mutilated Galileo's body, by removing the thumb and forefinger of the right-hand, and one of the vertebrÆ of the back, which are still preserved in some of the Italian museums. The monument was put up at the expense of his biographer, Nelli, to whom Viviani's property descended, charged with the condition of erecting it. Nor was this the only public testimony which Viviani gave of his attachment. The medal which he struck in honour of Galileo has already been mentioned; he also, as soon as it was safe to do so, covered every side of the house in which he lived with laudatory inscriptions to the same effect. A bust of Galileo was placed over the door, and two bas-reliefs on each side representing some of his principal discoveries. Not less than five other medals were struck in honour of him during his residence at Padua and Florence, which are all engraved in Venturi's Memoirs.

There are several good portraits of Galileo extant, two of which, by Titi and Subtermanns, are engraved in Nelli's Life of Galileo. Another by Subtermanns is in the Florentine Gallery, and an engraving from a copy of this is given by Venturi. There is also a very fine engraving from the original picture. An engraving from another original picture is in the frontispiece of the Padua edition of his works. Salusbury seems in the following passage to describe a portrait of Galileo painted by himself: "He did not contemn the other inferior arts, for he had a good hand in sculpture and carving; but his particular care was to paint well. By the pencil he described what his telescope discovered; in one he exceeded art, in the other, nature. Osorius, the eloquent bishop of Sylva, esteems one piece of Mendoza the wise Spanish minister's felicity, to have been this, that he was contemporary to Titian, and that by his hand he was drawn in a fair tablet. And GalilÆus, lest he should want the same good fortune, made so great a progress in this curious art, that he became his own Buonarota; and because there was no other copy worthy of his pencil, drew himself." No other author makes the slightest allusion to such a painting; and it appears more likely that Salusbury should be mistaken than that so interesting a portrait should have been entirely lost sight of.

Galileo's house at Arcetri was standing in 1821, when Venturi visited it, and found it in the same state in which Galileo might be supposed to have left it. It is situated nearly a mile from Florence, on the south-eastern side, and about a gun-shot to the north-west of the convent of St. Matthew. Nelli placed a suitable inscription over the door of the house, which belonged in 1821 to a Signor Alimari.[175]

Although Nelli's Life of Galileo disappointed the expectations that had been formed of it, it is impossible for any admirer of Galileo not to feel the greatest degree of gratitude towards him, for the successful activity with which he rescued so many records of the illustrious philosopher from destruction. After Galileo's death, the principal part of his books, manuscripts, and instruments, were put into the charge of Viviani, who was himself at that time an object of great suspicion; most of them he thought it prudent to conceal, till the superstitious outcries against Galileo should be silenced. At Viviani's death, he left his library, containing a very complete collection of the works of all the mathematicians who had preceded him (and amongst them those of Galileo, Torricelli, and Castelli, all which were enriched with notes and additions by himself), to the hospital of St. Mary at Florence, where an extensive library already existed. The directors of the hospital sold this unique collection in 1781, when it became entirely dispersed. The manuscripts in Viviani's possession passed to his nephew, the AbbÉ Panzanini, together with the portraits of the chief personages of the Galilean school, Galileo's instruments, and, among other curiosities, the emerald ring which he wore as a member of the Lyncean Academy. A great number of these books and manuscripts were purchased at different times by Nelli, after the death of Panzanini, from his relations, who were ignorant or regardless of their value. One of his chief acquisitions was made by an extraordinary accident, related by Tozzetti with the following details, which we repeat, as they seem to authenticate the story:—"In the spring of 1739, the famous Doctor Lami went out according to his custom to breakfast with some of his friends at the inn of the Bridge, by the starting-place; and as he and Sig. Nelli were passing through the market, it occurred to them to buy some Bologna sausages from the pork-butcher, Cioci, who was supposed to excel in making them. They went into the shop, had their sausages cut off and rolled in paper, which Nelli put into his hat. On reaching the inn, and calling for a plate to put them in, Nelli observed that the paper in which they had been rolled was one of Galileo's letters. He cleaned it as well as he could with his napkin, and put it into his pocket without saying a word to Lami; and as soon as he returned into the city, and could get clear of him, he flew to the shop of Cioci, who told him that a servant whom he did not know brought him from time to time similar letters, which he bought by weight as waste paper. Nelli bought all that remained, and on the servant's next reappearance in a few days, he learned the quarter whence they came, and after some time succeeded at a small expense in getting into his own possession an old corn-chest, containing all that still remained of the precious treasures which Viviani had concealed in it ninety years before."[176]

The earliest biographical notice of Galileo is that in the Obituary of the Mercurio Italico, published at Venice in 1647, by Vittorio Siri. It is very short, but contains an exact enumeration of his principal works and discoveries. Rossi, who wrote under the name of Janus Nicius ErythrÆus, introduced an account of Galileo in his Pinacotheca Imaginum Illustrium, in which the story of his illegitimacy first made its appearance. In 1664, Salusbury published a life of Galileo in the second volume of his Mathematical Collections, the greater part of which is a translation of Galileo's principal works. Almost the whole edition of the second volume of Salusbury's book was burnt in the great fire of London. ChauffepiÉ says that only one copy is known to be extant in England: this is now in the well-known library of the Earl of Macclesfield, to whose kindness the author is much indebted for the use he has been allowed to make of this unique volume. A fragment of this second volume is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The translations in the preceding pages are mostly founded upon Salusbury's version. Salusbury's account, although that of an enthusiastic admirer of Galileo, is too prolix to be interesting: the general style of the performance may be guessed from the title of the first chapter—'Of Man in general, and how he excelleth all the other Animals.' After informing his readers that Galileo was born at Pisa, he proceeds:—"Italy is affirmed to have been the first that peopled the world after the universal deluge, being governed by Janus, Cameses, and Saturn, &c." His description of Galileo's childhood is somewhat quaint. "Before others had left making of dirt pyes, he was framing of diagrams; and whilst others were whipping of toppes, he was considering the cause of their motion." It is on the whole tolerably correct, especially if we take into account that Salusbury had not yet seen Viviani's Life, though composed some years earlier.

The Life of Galileo by Viviani was first written as an outline of an intended larger work, but this latter was never completed. This sketch was published in the Memoirs of the Florentine Academy, of which Galileo had been one of the annual presidents, and afterwards prefixed to the complete editions of Galileo's works; it is written in a very agreeable and flowing style, and has been the groundwork of most subsequent accounts. Another original memoir by NiccolÒ Gherardini, was published by Tozzetti. A great number of references to authors who have treated of Galileo is given by Sach in his Onomasticon. An approved Latin memoir by Brenna is in the first volume of Fabroni's VitÆ Italorum Illustrium; he has however fallen into several errors: this same work contains the lives of several of his principal followers.

The article in ChauffepiÉ's Continuation of Bayle's Dictionary does not contain anything which is not in the earlier accounts.

AndrÈs wrote an essay entitled 'Saggio sulla Filosofia del Galileo,' published at Mantua 1776; and Jagemann published his 'Geschichte des Leben des Galileo' at Leipzig, in 1787;[177] neither of these the author has been able to meet with. An analysis of the latter may be seen in KÄstner's 'Geschichte der Mathematik, GÖttingen, 1800,' from which it does not appear to contain any additional details. The 'Elogio del Galileo' by Paolo Frisi, first published at Leghorn in 1775, is, as its title expresses, rather in the nature of a panegyric than of a continuous biographical account. It is written with very great elegance and intimate knowledge of the subjects of which it treats. Nelli gave several curious particulars with respect to Galileo in his 'Saggio di Storia Letteraria Fiorentina, Lucca, 1759;' and in 1793 published his large work entitled 'Vita e Commercio Letterario di Galileo Galilei.' So uninteresting a book was probably never written from such excellent materials. Two thick quarto volumes are filled with repetitions of the accounts that were already in print, the bulky preparation of which compelled the author to forego the publication of the vast collection of original documents which his unwearied zeal and industry had collected. This defect has been in great measure supplied by Venturi in 1818 and 1821, who has not only incorporated in his work many of Nelli's manuscripts, but has brought together a number of scattered notices of Galileo and his writings from a variety of outlying sources—a service which the writer is able to appreciate from having gone through the greatest part of the same labour before he was fortunate enough to meet with Venturi's book. Still there are many letters cited by Nelli, which do not appear either in his book or Venturi's. Carlo Dati, in 1663, quotes "the registers of Galileo's correspondence arranged in alphabetical order, in ten large volumes."[178] The writer has no means of ascertaining what collection this may have been; it is difficult to suppose that one so arranged should have been lost sight of. It is understood that a life of Galileo is preparing at this moment in Florence, by desire of the present Grand Duke, which will probably throw much additional light on the character and merits of this great and useful philosopher.

The first editions of his various treatises, as mentioned by Nelli, are given below. Clement, in his 'BibliothÈque Curieuse,' has pointed out such among them, and the many others which have been printed, as have become rare.

The Florentine edition is the one used by the Academia della Crusca for their references; for which reason its paging is marked in the margin of the edition of Padua, which is much more complete, and is the one which has been on the present occasion principally consulted.

The latter contains the Dialogue on the System, which was not suffered to be printed in the former editions. The twelve first volumes of the last edition of Milan are a mere transcript of that of Padua: the thirteenth contains in addition the Letter to the Grand Duchess, the Commentary on Tasso, with some minor pieces. A complete edition is still wanted, embodying all the recently discovered documents, and omitting the verbose commentaries, which, however useful when they were written, now convey little information that cannot be more agreeably and more profitably learned in treatises of a later date. Such was the life, and such were the pursuits, of this extraordinary man. The numberless inventions of his acute industry; the use of the telescope, and the brilliant discoveries to which it led; the patient investigation of the laws of weight and motion; must all be looked upon as forming but a part of his real merits, as merely particular demonstrations of the spirit in which he everywhere withstood the despotism of ignorance, and appealed boldly from traditional opinions to the judgments of reason and common sense. He claimed and bequeathed to us the right of exercising our faculties in examining the beautiful creation which surrounds us. Idolized by his friends, he deserved their affection by numberless acts of kindness; by his good humour, his affability, and by the benevolent generosity with which he devoted himself and a great part of his limited income to advance their talents and fortunes. If an intense desire of being useful is everywhere worthy of honour; if its value is immeasurably increased, when united to genius of the highest order; if we feel for one who, notwithstanding such titles to regard, is harassed by cruel persecution,—then none deserve our sympathy, our admiration, and our gratitude, more than Galileo.

List of Galileo's Works.

The editions of his collected works (in which is contained much that was never published separately) are—

CORRECTIONS.

LIFE OF KEPLER.