When Horky first presented himself to Kepler, after the publication of this work, the opinion of his patron was announced to him by a burst of indignation which overwhelmed the astonished author. Horky supplicated mercy for his offence; and, as Kepler himself informed Galileo, he took him again into favour, on the condition that Kepler was to show him Jupiter's satellites; and that Horky was not only to see them, but to admit their existence.
When the spirit of philosophy had thus left the individuals who bore her sacred name, it was fortunate for science that it found a refuge in the minds of princes. Notwithstanding the reiterated logic of his philosophical professor at Padua, Cosmo de' Medici preferred the testimony of his senses to the syllogisms of his instructor. He observed the new planets several times, along with Galileo, at Pisa; and when he parted with him, he gave him a present worth more than 1000 florins, and concluded that liberal arrangement to which we have already referred.
As philosopher and principal mathematician to the grand duke of Tuscany, Galileo now took up his residence at Florence, with a salary of 1000 florins. No official duties, excepting that of lecturing occasionally to sovereign princes, were attached to this appointment; and it was expressly stipulated that he should enjoy the most perfect leisure to complete his treatises on the constitution of the universe, on mechanics, and on local motion. The resignation of his professorship at Padua, which necessarily followed his new appointment, created much dissatisfaction in that university: but though many of his former friends refused at first to hold any communication with him, this feeling gradually subsided; and the Venetian senate at last appreciated the views, as well as the powerful motives, which induced a stranger to accept of promotion in his native land.
While Galileo was enjoying the reward and the fame of his great discovery, a new species of enmity was roused against them. Simon Mayer, an astronomer of no character, pretended that he had discovered the satellites of Jupiter before Galileo, and that his first observation was made on the 29th of December, 1609. Other astronomers announced the discovery of new satellites: Scheiner reckoned five, Rheita nine, and others found even so many as twelve: these satellites, however, were found to be only fixed stars. The names of _Vladislavian, Agrippine, Uranodavian_, and _Ferdinandotertian_, which were hastily given to these common telescopic stars, soon disappeared from the page of science, and even the splendid telescopes of modern times have not been able to add another gem to the diadem of Jupiter.