Austrian-Hungarian Jesuit
Melchior Inchofer or Imhofer, in Hungarian: Inchofer Menyhért (c. 1584 – 28 September 1648) was an Austrian-Hungarian
trial of Galileo, by his arguments, later published in his
Tractatus Syllepticus, that Galileo was an advocate of the
Copernican system. His role in the Galileo affair is being reassessed in the light of fresh documentary evidence.
[1]Life
He was born at
Lutheran parents but was converted to Catholicism by Jesuit missionaries.
[4] In 1607 he entered the Society of Jesus in Rome, and after the completion of his novitiate went to
Messina, where he taught philosophy, mathematics, and theology.
In december 1632 the
Congregation of the Index an unsigned statement, in Inchofer's hand, reviewing the anonymous denunciation of Galileo following the publication of
The Assayer, which was undertaken by the panel in 1633.
[4]: 307 All three theologians agreed that in publishing the
Dialogue, Galileo had both taught and defended Copernican beliefs, as he had committed himself not to do in 1616. On the question of whether Galileo actually held these proscribed views himself, neither Oreggi nor Pasqualigo could be sure; only Inchofer asserted unequivocally that he did. Citing twenty-seven passages to support his judgment, he asked: 'What Catholic ever conducted such a bitter dispute against heretics... as Galileo does against those who maintain the earth's immobility?'
[4]In 1634 he resumed his professorship in
castrati, and his appointment as member of the Congregation of the Index and of the Holy Office dissatisfied him with Rome, and at his own request he was transferred in 1645 to the college at
Macerata where he intended to devote his leisure hours to the compilation of a history of martyrs. The last few years of his life were troubled, and he was brought to trial by his order in 1648 for contributing to an anti-Jesuit tract.
[7] He confessed, received a salutary penance, and was sentenced, as Galileo had been, to indefinite detention.
[4]
With the situation unresolved he undertook a journey to the
]
Works
In his Saint Paul at Messina, but the Congregation of the Index summoned him to Rome and suppressed the first edition, although he was permitted to remove all objectionable features from his work and republish it.
[8] Following Galileo's trial, Inchofer published
Tractus Syllepticus (Rome, 1633), which argues that belief in an immobile earth and a moving sun were matters of faith for Catholics.
[4]
Melchior Inchofer also wrote
meteorological phenomena
).
In Historia sacrae Latinitatis (Messina, 1635), Inchofer elevated Latin to the rank of a heavenly court language and regarded it as the speech of the blessed. He also described the history of teaching Latin, drawing heavily on the pioneering work in the history of education,
Caspar Scioppius. He attained his main contemporary fame, however, by the anonymous
Lucii Cornelii Europaei monarchia Solipsorum, ad virum clarissimum Leonum Allatium (Venice, 1645); the long-accepted view is that of
François Oudin writing in 1736 for the
Mémoires of
Jean-Pierre Nicéron, namely that it was incorrectly attributed to him and was really by
Giulio Clemente Scotti, but recently scholars have re-opened the question.
[7]Notes
External links
Further reading
- Richard J. Blackwell (2006), Behind the Scenes at Galileo's Trial: Including the First English Translation of Melchior Inchofer's Tractatus syllepticus
This article incorporates text from a publication in the
New Schaff–Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (third ed.). London and New York: Funk and Wagnalls.
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This article incorporates text from a publication in the