of this century. Laonardo da Vinci, a most illustrious astronomer, mathematician, and mechanician, as well as painter, "in a treatise written about the year 1510, speaks of the earth's annual motion as the opinion of many philosophers of his age."* Celio Calcagnini, professor in the University of Ferrara, early in the sixteenth century published a work in support of it; but Copernicus, who, at the commencement of the century, was professor of astronomy at Rome, gave it celebrity, when, after the reflections and observations of thirty-six years, he published his work, under the auspices of Paul III., in 1543. The difficulties in which Galileo was involved in 1616 and 1633, show that his manner of maintaining it, rather than the theory itself, must have provoked the displeasure of the ecclesiastical tribunal, since the system had been advanced without censure, nearly two hundred years before, by a high dignitary of the Church, and had been expressly maintained, with the implied approbation of a most enlightened Pontiff, full ninety years before the sentence pronounced against the Florentine astronomer. Had he confined himself, as he was repeatedly warned, to scientific demonstrations, without meddling with Scripture, and proposed his system as probable, rather than as indubitable, he would have excited no opposition. To urge it absolutely, at a time when it was not supported by observations and calculations, was scarcely reconcilable with the respect due to the sacred text, whose literal meaning should not be easily abandoned. "Mankind," says Hallam, "can in general take these theories of the celestial movements only upon trust from philosophers; and in this instance it required a very general concurrence of competent judges to overcome the repugnance of what called itself common sense, and was in fact a prejudice as natural, as universal, and as irresistible as could influence human belief. With this was united another, derived from the language of Scripture; and though it might have been sufficient to answer, that phrases implying the rest of the earth and motion of the sun are merely popular, and such as those who are best convinced of the opposite doctrine must employ in ordinary language, this was neither satisfactory to the vulgar nor recognised by the Church."+"It must be confessed that the strongest presumptions in favor of the system of Copernicus were not discovered by himself." It may be added, that even Galileo did not furnish the most convincing proofs of the system, and that his chief reliance was on the flux and reflux of the tides, which no one at this day holds to be a satisfactory demonstration of the motion of the earth. Even long after his time eminent astronomers rejected his system. "In the middle of the seventeenth century, and long afterward," says Hallam, "there were mathematicians of no small reputation, who struggled staunchly for the immobility of the earth." In such circumstances it is not to be wondered that an ecclesiastical tribunal, fear History of Literature, vol. i. ch. iii. n. 115. Ibidem, vol. iv. ch. viii. n. 32. ful lest the authority of the sacred Scriptures should suffer in the minds of the multitude, by the bold and unqualified maintenance of a system in apparent opposition to them, enjoined on Galileo, in the year 1616, to observe silence, and when he had violated this order, required him, in 1633, to abjure the theory. It is certain that Urban VIII. did not consider the act of the Inquisition as a definitive decree; and that the theory was publicly taught at the time by two Jesuits in the Roman college. All that has been said concerning the persecution of the astronomer is a tale of fancy. His discoveries gained for him the highest honors from all classes, from the Pontiff to the humblest citizen, in 1615, when he first visited the Eternal city. In 1624 he was again received graciously by the Pope and cardinals; and in 1633, when his contemptuous violation of the injunction provoked their displeasure, his confinement was but nominal, in the apartments of the Fiscal, that is, prosecuting attorney, of the tribunal. No corporal punishment was inflicted-no dungeon was opened to receive him; but, in consideration of his scientific merits, his pride and contempt were visited with the slightest expression of displeasure."* The study of astronomy was always encouraged by the Popes, while its abuse, by the superstitions of astrology, was severely prohibited. A splendid evidence of the successful cultivation of astronomical science, under pontifical patronage, was afforded by the correction of the Calendar, by the authority of Gregory XIII. The ancient Calendar, in use since the time of Julius Cesar, and adopted by the Council of Nice, was formed on the supposition that the annual course of the sun is completed in 365 days and 6 hours, which in reality takes place in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 25 seconds: whence, in the lapse of so many ages, a difference of ten days existed in the designation of the vernal equinox; the astronomical being prior to the civil calculation. Even in the eighth century, in the comparatively low condition of the sciences, the error had been pointed out by Venerable Bede, and subsequently by others. In the decline of the fifteenth century it again awakened attention. Sixtus IV. called to Rome Muller, the greatest mathematician of his age, to devise a remedy; but the glory of the sublime task of reconciling the calculations of time with the precise motion of the heavenly bodies, was reserved to Gregory XIII. Luigi Lilio, a man of obscure origin in Calabria, proposed the subtraction of ten days from the month of October, 1582, and to prevent a recurrence of the error, the omission of the leap-year at the close of each century, with the exception of the four hundreth year, which should be bissextile or leap-year. His suggestions, communicated after his death by his brother, were graciously received by the Pontiff, and The letter of Galileo, published by Tiraboschi, shows that he was treated with extraordinary kindness, the Pope having changed the sentence of imprisonment into an order to remain, for a time, with the Archbishop of Sienna, his personal friend. submitted to the examination of a body of learned astronomers, among whom was the Jesuit Clavius. Being found just, they were recommended to the whole civilized world by Gregory, who, while acknowledging their, source, lost nothing of the glory which the correction imparted. Although the dominion of science belongs not to the Vicar of Christ, it was a sublime spectacle to see him regulating by its aid the calculations of time, and the great festivals of the Church; and when his authority in the things of salvation was proudly rejected by many, fixing a standard to which all nations would, sooner or later, conform. "The new calendar," says Hallam, "was immediately received in all countries acknowledging the Pope's supremacy; not so much on that account, though a discrepancy in the ecclesiastical reckoning would have been very inconvenient, as of its real superiority over the Julian. The Protestant countries came much more slowly into the alteration, truth being no longer truth, when promulgated by the Pope. It is now admitted that the Gregorian Calendar is very nearly perfect, at least as to the computation of the solar year."* To the learned institutions of Italy this and many other fruits of scientific observation may be fairly referred. I have not space to dwell on the many inventions and discoveries which were made by the professors of the various universities, or by those who had been introduced by them into the halls of science. Ignatius Danti, a Dominican, professor of mathematics in Bologna, left, as Tiraboschi remarks, an imperishable memorial of his astronomical knowledge, in the great meridian drawn by him in the temple of St. Petronius in that city, in the year 1576: which, however, was not as great, or as accurate, as that which the immortal Cassini drew in the following age. The Pontiffs in the seventeenth century were true to their character as patrons of science. During the reign of Paul V., "a Jesuit, Grassi, in a treatise (de Tribus Cometis,) Rome, 1618, had the honor of explaining what had baffled Galileo, and first held them to be planets moving in vast ellipses round the sun." The astronomer Cassini, in 1657, was called to Rome by Alexander VII.; and while there gained new fame by his observations on the two comets, which appeared in 1664 and 1665. His calculations, confirmed by the event, appeared like the predictions of an inspired man. They were followed by other discoveries, which seemed to mark him as one to whom the secrets of the skies were laid open. It was a glorious homage to science when the monarch of a great kingdom sought from Clement IX., as a special favor, that France should be permitted to profit by the extraordinary science of this illustrious astronomer, and the reluctant Pontiff consented to lend him for a time. After a few years, he pressingly called for his return, but Louis XIV. declined parting with a Hist. of Lit. vol. ii. ch. viii. n. 15. The Gregorian Calendar was finally adopted in Germany in 1777. England introduced the new style in 1752, and Sweden in 1753. Russia only retains the old style, which now differs 12 days from the new.-Encyclo. podia Americana, art. Calendar. treasure of so much value; and to bind him to the soil, and identify all his attachments and interests with France, granted him the rights of citi zenship. In this, and in many other instances, Italy had the glory of giving to other nations the luminaries of science. Castelli, a Benedictine monk, disciple and defender of Galileo, was called by Urban to Rome in 1625, to occupy the post of professor of mathematics in the Sapienza, when in 1628 he published his celebrated works on the measure of running waters, and its geometrical demonstrations, whereby he has acquired the title of creator of this part of hydraulics. Another disciple of Galileo, Cavalieri, of the order of Jeromites, who is generally reputed the father of the new geometry, was professor of Mathematics, about the same time, in Bologna, where he published in 1632 his treatise on continuous indivisibles. Benedict XIV. in the last century, followed in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessors, and distinguished himself as the patron of astronomical science. By his orders the obelisk, sixty-seven feet high, mentioned by Pliny,* on which was a dial to mark the sun's shadow, and ascertain the length of the day at various seasons, was dug up from the earth in 1748, and its precious fragments rendered accessible to the learned. Even to this day the Jesuit professors of the Roman College, under the fostering patronage of the Pope, continue to enrich astronomical science by their observations and discoveries. To the lamented De Vico and his illustrious assistant Sestini, who is now in our midst, we are indebted for the discovery of the satellites of Venus, and of the rotatory motion of this planet on her axis; while we owe to Secchi the very recent discovery of a new comet. Hist. Nat. ch. ix. x. xi. CHAPTER VI. The Arts. THE Popes have, at all times, well understood that art may be fostered without detriment to religion: nay, their enlightened zeal found means to make the arts tributary. "If there be a Church," says Saint Priest, "predestined to a social mission, which, far from throwing obstacles in the way of civilization, has developed and fostered its germs in the focus of ardent faith, the Roman Church must be recognized by these features. We shall see her during the first period of her existence, causing the education of the soul and of the mind to advance with equal pace; cursing in the name of faith the gods of paganism, and protecting their images in the name of art: afterwards, for the interest of both, which she always happily combined, opposing the force of her word to the blind fury of the Iconoclasts. . . . . Her true character was always to unite the maintenance of faith with the exercise of all the human faculties, to regulate them all without proscribing any of them, thus to devote them, in a purified state, to the service of God. Rome attached to the altars of Christ the imagination itself, the rebellious slave of reason."* The proofs of these enlarged views are found in the acts of the ancient Popes, who, as soon as the danger of idolatry had ceased, availed themselves of the labors of the artist for the decoration of the churches. Paintings, mosaics, and inlaid work of various kinds, were among their ordinary gifts. Paul I. built an oratory of the Blessed Virgin within the precincts of St. Peter's, having a silver statue of a hundred pounds' weight, richly gilded. Leo III. introduced the use of stained glass. Sergius II. raised a vestibule before St. John of Lateran, supported by columns and arches. Silver canopies for the altar, which were then called ciboria, were given by various Popes. These are a few instances of their zeal to adorn the house of God, that the facts of sacred history might be read on its walls, and the mysteries of faith constantly kept in view. The elegance of the execution varied according to the general condition of the times; but at all times art presented her best offerings on the altars of religion. Blind zeal against paganism would have destroyed the temples and statues of the gods, as so many monuments of idolatry: the Popes preserved them with care, wisely judging that the temples might be trans* Historia de la Royauté, vol. ii. l. v. p. 7. |