CHAPTER IX. THE SENTENCE AND RECANTATION. The Sentence in full.—Analysis of it.—The Copernican System had not been pronounced heretical by "Infallible" Authority.—The Special Prohibition assumed as Fact.—The Sentence illegal according to the Canon Law.—The Holy Office exceeded its powers in calling upon Galileo to recant.—The Sentence not unanimous.—This escaped notice for two hundred and thirty-one Years.—The Recantation.—Futile attempts to show that Galileo had really altered his Opinion.—After the Sentence, Imprisonment exchanged for Banishment to Trinita de' Monti.—Petition for leave to go to Florence.—Allowed to go to Siena. On Wednesday, 22nd June, 1633, in the forenoon, Galileo was conducted to the large hall used for melancholy proceedings of this kind, in the Dominican Convent of St. Maria sopra la Minerva, where, in the presence of his judges and a large assemblage of cardinals and prelates of the Holy Congregation, the following sentence was read to him:— We, Gasparo del titolo di S. Croce in Gierusalemme Borgia; Fra Felice Centino del titolo di S. Anastasia, detto d' Ascoli; Guido del titolo di S. Maria del Popolo Bentivoglio; Fra Desiderio Scaglia del titolo di S. Carlo detto di Cremona; Fra Antonio Barberino detto di S. Onofrio; Laudivio Zacchia del titolo di S. Pietro in Vincola detto di S. Sisto; Berlingero del titolo di S. Agostino, Gessi; Fabricio del titolo di S. Lorenzo in pane e perna, Verospi, chiamato Prete; Francesco di S. Lorenzo in Damaso Barberino, e Martio di S. Maria Nuova Ginetti Diaconi; by the grace of God, cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Inquisitors General, by the Holy Apostolic see specially deputed, against heretical depravity throughout the whole Christian Republic. Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were in the year 1615 denounced to this Holy Office for holding as true the false doctrine taught by many, that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; for having disciples to whom you taught the same doctrine; for holding correspondence with certain mathematicians of Germany concerning the same; for having printed certain letters, entitled "On the Solar Spots," wherein you developed the same doctrine as true; and for replying to the objections from the Holy Scriptures, which from time to time were urged against it, by glossing the said Scriptures according to your own meaning: and whereas there was thereupon produced the copy of a document in the form of a letter, purporting to be written by you to one formerly your disciple, and in this divers propositions are set forth, following the hypothesis of Copernicus, which are contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture: This Holy Tribunal being therefore desirous of proceeding against the disorder and mischief thence resulting, which went on increasing to the prejudice of the Holy Faith, by command of his Holiness and of the most eminent Lords Cardinals of this supreme and universal Inquisition, the two propositions of the stability of the sun and the motion of the earth were by the theological "Qualifiers" qualified as follows: The proposition that the sun is the centre of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to the Holy Scripture. The proposition that the earth is not the centre of the world and immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is equally absurd and false philosophically, and theologically considered, at least erroneous in faith.