The Theologian’s Endgame. On the Recently Discovered Censorial Report on Galileo’s ‘Dialogue’ and Related Documents

After a century and a half of research and numerous excellent studies dedicated to Galileo’s trial, there are still many unanswered questions about this key episode in the birth of modern science and the history of free thought. Now a dossier found among the collections of the State Archive of Rome (ASR) allows us to shed new light upon one of the crucial moments in the events of 1633 – the censorial analysis of the "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" – as well as on the negotiations carried out by the House of Medici a few years after the scientist’s death in the attempt to obtain a new imprimatur for his prohibited work. In this paper, an annotated bilingual edition of these new documents will be presented, preceded by a brief introduction aimed at historically contextualising them and providing some hypotheses regarding their authorship and objectives. Particular attention will be focused on the first document in the dossier, a hitherto unknown censorial report ascribable to Pope Urban VIII’s personal theologian, Agostino Oreggi. More comprehensive results will be disclosed after further – and necessary now more than ever – archival research, currently hindered because of the ongoing pandemic.