thereof with my own hand have subscribed this present writing of my
abjuration, which I have recited word for word. At Rome, in the
Convent of Minerva, 22nd June, 1633. I, Galileo Galilei, have
abjured as above with my own hand."

Those who believe the story about his muttering to a friend, as he rose
from his knees, "e pur si muove," do not realize the scene.

1st. There was no friend in the place.

2nd. It would have been fatally dangerous to mutter anything before such
an assemblage.

3rd. He was by this time an utterly broken and disgraced old man;
wishful, of all things, to get away and hide himself and his miseries
from the public gaze; probably with his senses deadened and stupefied by
the mental sufferings he had undergone, and no longer able to think or
care about anything--except perhaps his daughter,--certainly not about
any motion of this wretched earth.

Far and wide the news of the recantation spread. Copies of the
abjuration were immediately sent to all Universities, with instructions
to the professors to read it publicly.

At Florence, his home, it was read out in the Cathedral church, all his
friends and adherents being specially summoned to hear it.

For a short time more he was imprisoned in Rome; but at length was
permitted to depart, never more of his own will to return.

He was allowed to go to Siena. Here his daughter wrote consolingly,
rejoicing at his escape, and saying how joyfully she already recited the
penitential psalms for him, and so relieved him of that part of his
sentence.

But the poor girl was herself, by this time, ill--thoroughly worn out
with anxiety and terror; she lay, in fact, on what proved to be her
death-bed. Her one wish was to see her dearest lord and father, so she
calls him, once more. The wish was granted. His prison was changed, by
orders from Rome, from Siena to Arcetri, and once more father and
daughter embraced. Six days after this she died.

The broken-hearted old man now asks for permission to go to live in
Florence, but is met with the stern answer that he is to stay at
Arcetri, is not to go out of the house, is not to receive visitors, and
that if he asks for more favours, or transgresses the commands laid upon
him, he is liable to be haled back to Rome and cast into a dungeon.
These harsh measures were dictated, not by cruelty, but by the fear of
his still spreading heresy by conversation, and so he was to be kept
isolated.

Idle