[Footnote 257: In 1620 the Congregation issued the changes it required to have made in the _De Revolutionibus_. They are nine in all, and consist mainly in changing assertion of the earth's movement to hypothetical statement and in striking out a reference to the earth as a planet. Doc. in Favaro: 140-141. See illustration, p. 61.]
[Footnote 259: Galileo: _Dialogo_: To the Reader.]
[Illustration: A "CORRECTED" PAGE FROM THE _De Revolutionibus_.
A photographic facsimile (reduced) of a page from Mulier's edition (1617) of the _De Revolutionibus_ as "corrected" according to the _Monitum_ of the Congregations in 1620. The first writer underlined the passages to be deleted or altered with marginal notes indicating the changes ordered; the second writer scratched out these passages, and wrote out in full the changes the other had given in abbreviated form. The _Notæ_ are Mulier's own, and so were not affected by the order. The effect of the page is therefore somewhat contradictory!]
In 1630 he brought the completed manuscript to Riccardi, Master of the Sacred Palace, for permission to print it in Rome. After much reading and re-reading of it both by Riccardi and his associate, Father Visconti, permission was at length granted on condition that he insert a preface and a conclusion practically dictated by Riccardi, emphasizing its hypothetical character.[260] The Pope's own argument was to be used: "God is all-powerful; all things are therefore possible to Him; ergo, the tides cannot be adduced as a necessary proof of the double motion of the earth without limiting God's omnipotence--which is absurd."[261] Galileo returned to Florence in June with the permission to print his book in Rome. Meanwhile the plague broke out. He decided to print it in Florence instead, and on writing to Riccardi for that permission, the latter asked for the book to review it again. The times were too troublesome to risk sending it, so a compromise was finally effected: Galileo was to send the preface and conclusion to Rome and Riccardi agreed to instruct the Inquisitor at Florence as to his requirements and to authorize him to license the book.[262] The parts were not returned from Rome till July, 1631, and the book did not appear till February of the following year, when it was published at Florence with all these licenses, both the Roman and the Florentine ones.