GALILEO GALILEI.
2 vols. Demy 8vo. Cloth, 32s.
THE RENAISSANCE OF ART IN FRANCE. ByMrs. Mark Pattison. With Nineteen Steel Engravings.
2 vols. Demy 8vo. Cloth, 24s.
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE PERIOD OF THERENAISSANCE IN ITALY. By Jacob Burckhardt. AuthorizedTranslation by S. G. C. Middlemore.
“The whole of the first part of Dr Burckhardt’s work deals with what may be calledthe Political Preparation for the Renaissance. It is impossible here to do more than expressa high opinion of the compact way in which the facts are put before the reader....The second volume of Dr. Burckhardt’s work is, we think, more full and completein itself, more rich in original thought, than the first. His account of the causeswhich prevented the rise of a great Italian drama is very clear and satisfying.”—SaturdayReview.
LONDON: C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
GALILEO GALILEI
AND THE ROMAN CURIA.
FROM AUTHENTIC SOURCES.
BY
KARL VON GEBLER.
TRANSLATED, WITH THE SANCTION OF THE AUTHOR, BY
MRS. GEORGE STURGE.
LONDON:
C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
1879.
LETTER TO THE TRANSLATOR.
Madam,—
It is the desire of every author, every prosecutorof research, that the products of his labours, the results ofhis studies, should be widely circulated. This desire arises,especially in the case of one who has devoted himself to research,not only from a certain egotism which clings to us all,but from the wish that the laborious researches of years, oftenbelieved to refute old and generally-received errors, shouldbecome the common property of as many as possible.
The author of the present work is no exception to thesegeneral rules; and it therefore gives him great pleasure, andfills him with gratitude, that you, Madam, should have takenthe trouble to translate the small results of his studies intothe language of Newton, and thus have rendered them moreaccessible to the English nation.
But little more than two years have elapsed since the bookfirst appeared in Germany, but this period has been a mostimportant one for researches into the literature relating toGalileo.
In the year 1869 Professor Domenico Berti obtained permissionto inspect and turn to account the Acts of Galileo’sTrial carefully preserved in the Vatican, and in 1876 hepublished a portion of these important documents, which[vi]essentially tended to complete the very partial publicationof them by Henri de L’Epinois, in 1867. In 1877 M. deL’Epinois and the present writer were permitted to resuscitatethe famous volume, which again lay buried among thesecret papal archives; that is, to inspect it at leisure and topublish the contents in full. It was, however, not only of thegreatest importance to become acquainted