“Fearless in new truth” proved harder than either imagined.
In Bologna, Celia’s painting fame grew. She neglected simpler challenges in her own growth, ordinary feats like riding, or going to sea. Her artistic purity battled with the seductions of the wealth.
They did both negotiate a new world of lover and mistress, but in that Italy, they needed secrecy, and that alone violated their vow.
Gian’s compromises were greater. The Inquisition had executed Bruno and house-arrested Galileo. To the political and religious interests of the seventeenth century, more “heresy” from Cassini’s telescope was not tolerable. The Earth stood still in the Universe, and all else went around. Cassini’s research repeatedly said otherwise.
To speak out would be death.