He ought,
strictly, to have been placed in the dungeons of the Inquisition.
When the examination of the accused had actually commenced, Galileo
was confined, not, indeed, in the dungeons, but in comfortable rooms
at the Holy Office.
By the judicious and conciliatory language of submission which
Niccolini had urged Galileo to use before the Inquisitors, they were
so far satisfied that they interceded with the Pope for his release.
During the remainder of the trial Galileo was accordingly permitted
to go back to the ambassador's, where he was most heartily welcomed.
Sister Maria Celeste, evidently thinking this meant that the whole
case was at an end, thus expresses herself:--
"The joy that your last dear letter brought me, and the having to
read it over and over to the nuns, who made quite a jubilee on
hearing its contents, put me into such an excited state that at last
I got a severe attack of headache."
In his defence Galileo urged that he had already been acquitted in
1616 by Cardinal Bellarmine, when a charge of heresy was brought
against him, and he contended that anything he might now have done,
was no more than he had done on the preceding occasion, when the
orthodoxy of his doctrines received solemn confirmation.
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