was placed in arrest in the delicious palace of . . . the Ambassador of Tuscany. The next day I received the visit of P. Lancio, Commissary of the Holy Office, who took me with him in his carriage. On the way he questioned me, showing a great desire that I should repair the scandal I had raised throughout all Italy by maintaining the opinion of the motion of the earth. To all the mathematical reasons that I could bring forward he answered one thing only. Terra autem in æternum stabit, quia terra in æternum stat, as the Scripture saith. Thus discoursing, we arrived at the palace of the Holy Office. I was presented, by the commissary, to the assessor with whom I found two Dominican monks. They notified me, with civility, that I should be permitted to explain my reasons to the congregation, and that, subsequently, my excuses would be heard if I were judged culpable. The following Sunday I appeared, in fact, before the congregation and proceeded to set forth my proofs. To my ill-fortune they were not satisfying; no matter what pains I took I could not succeed in making myself understood. My arguments were interrupted by their zeal, they spoke only of the scandal I had caused, always bringing up the passage of Scripture referring to the miracle of Joshua, as the unanswerable portion of the matter. This reminded me of another passage in which the language of the Bible is entirely conformable to popular notions—(The heavens are solid and polished like a mirror of brass). This example seemed to me to be opposite to prove that the words of Joshua could be so interpreted and the conclusion seemed to me to be entirely just. But they gave it no weight and I was answered only by shrugging of shoulders.