Besides these unfortunate lapses, Berti's publication is very isappointing to the historian. Instead of giving the reader s good an idea as possible of this interesting MS., the ocuments are taken out of all connection, and given numbers and superscriptions of which there is not a trace n the original, and the marking of the folios is omitted. Improvement" of the orthography, punctuation, etc., is consistently carried out. One of the numberings is quite left out (the oldest, upper paging), and, following Epinois, he reads the second incorrectly. In the same year in which Berti's book appeared, Sante Pieralisi received an invitation from high quarters to inspect the volume. He accepted the flattering offer with no small satisfaction, but does not seem to have known how to turn it to account. He confined himself to comparing the most important documents in Epinois and Berti with the originals, and to giving a list, by no means complete, of their deviations from them.' In consequence of the controversy as to the genuineness of the document of 26th February, 1616, we resolved in the spring of 1877 to attempt to get a sight of the papers, our sole reason being the desire to see for ourselves whether external evidence was for or against falsification, or whether any certain conclusions could be drawn from it. We had then no idea whatever of publishing the Vatican MS. ourselves, as we at that time considered Berti's publication of it to be nearly complete. Through the good offices of the Austrian ambassador, we were promised that when we came to Rome, Cardinal Simeoni, Secretary of State, would permit us to see the documents. Two days afterwards we were on our way to Rome, and soon had the volume in our hands. As we 1 See "Correzioni al libro Urbano VIII. e Galileo Galilei proposte dall' autore Sante Pieralisi con osservazioni sopra il Processo Originale di Galileo Galilei publicato da Domenico Berti." Roma, 30 Settembre, 1876, pp. 9-16. turned over the pages with a curiosity easy to be imagined, and compared it with Berti's publication, we discovered, to our no small surprise, its many omissions and inaccuracies. The idea then occurred to us of making a copy of all the documents in the collection with the greatest possible precision. Not the least "improvement" should be made; the text should be reproduced exactly, with its peculiar orthography, accentuation, and punctuation, its abbreviations, errors, and special marks, so far as it was possible by means of typography. We made known our intention to the first prefect of the Vatican Library, Mgr. Martinuzzi, to whom Cardinal Simeoni had referred us; he not only made not the slightest objection, but showed great interest in our project. During our long daily tarriance in the Vatican afterwards, he was most obliging, and heaped attentions upon us which lightened the labour. We might have been engaged about three weeks in copying the MS., sending the pages copied during the day to Messrs. Cotta, at Stuttgard, to be printed, when we were surprised one morning by a visit in the Vatican from M. de L'Epinois. He told us that he had been two months at Rome, and had undertaken a correction of Berti's book from the original. We informed him of our enterprise, which he spoke of as "quite a different thing"; and when we returned his call, he again spoke of a correction of Berti, and regretted that he had not copied the whole MS. Of any intention of publishing it complete he said not a word. We therefore contentedly went on with our work; the copying was nearly finished and the printing in progress, when one afternoon on our return from the Vatican we found a letter from Epinois, in which he said that he had not had time to call on us again, and informed us of the speedy appearance of his complete publication of the Vatican MS., and that we should receive a copy in a few days. This announcement was most surprising. We went at once to seek M. de L'Epinois, but learnt that he had left Rome early that morning. Our work was too far advanced to be given up, and so we went on, in the hope that even now there might be some little place in the world for it. By the time Epinois's book reached us the copying was finished, and we were correcting the proofs by the originals. It was not without value, even for our enterprise, for we compared our proofs with it line by line and word by word, made notes of deviations, and then went to the Vatican to see which was right. We readily acknowledge that in this way we discovered and corrected many errors which had crept into our copy. The variations which still exist are all well known to us, and are left, either because Epinois is mistaken, or we consider our reading to be the best. This is not the place for a criticism of his work; we will only bear witness, after comparing it with the original, to its accuracy. II. DESCRIPTION OF THE VATICAN MANUSCRIPT. THE Acts of the two trials of Galileo, of 1615-16 and 1632-33, which are stitched together, and to which several other documents are added relating to the surveillance of Galileo until his death, and the erection of his monument, form a pretty thick quarto volume, twenty-two centimeters broad and thirty high. It is done up in a loose sheet of white paper, which can lay no claim to veneration from age, and is in an equally loose green pasteboard cover, which may boast of historic antiquity, as may also the faded and frail red strings by which the volume is fastened. The cover is too short and too narrow, so that the edges get mercilessly rubbed. In this way, unfortunately, many a letter, word and even signature in these precious papers have been lost, and it is high time to protect them from further injury. The documents are only slightly fastened together in places, and you can see from the outside how far the Acts of the first trial extend. This slight fastening also enables you to see that all the blank pages, of which there are 194, are partly reverse sides, partly second pages of documents, and it may easily be discovered to which document each blank page belongs. In some cases these second pages have been cut away, as appears from the broad piece left. The suspicion from this that important documents have been withdrawn seems inadmissible, for the pages cut out, as is seen from those left, which correspond with the rest, belonged to finished documents, and the abstraction of a document would certainly not have been betrayed by leaving a broad strip behind. The paging is in the greatest confusion. On the title page, in the right hand corner, are the figures 949, and under them 336. The historical introduction, by an unknown hand, prefixed to the papers, is numbered 337-340. The first document bears the double paging 951 950 341' the upper number being struck through. On folio a third paging 342 begins with I, on the right hand lower edge. The triple numbering goes on regularly to 350. After 383 the upper most and oldest paging is discontinued. Folios 384-386, blank pages of the Acts of the first trial, only bear the double paging, probably because, being blank, they were not paged until the papers of both trials were put together. The double paging may be thus explained. The old numbering comprises all the documents belonging to 1616; and as it is to be seen on the title page, as well as the words: "Ex archivo S. Offij," and Vol. 1181, it is clear that these documents were originally comprised in a volume of the Archives of the Holy Office numbered 1181. The Acts of the second trial, 1632-33, must have belonged to another volume, as appears from the paging, as the first document bears the number 387, but the number of the volume is not traceable. When the Acts of 1616 and 1632-33 were bound together, in order to form a continuous paging, the old numbers of the first trial were struck through, and the paging continued backwards, reckoning from the first folio of the second trial. The Introduction helps to determine the time when the two parts were united. It only extends to the mention of Galileo's defence; it is clear, therefore, that it was written after 10th May (the date of the defence), and before |