entrenched in defending Aristotle. He then had the pamphlet published without the lynx emblem of the Accademia on its frontispiece. Van Heeck was furious at these editorial changes, which had been undertaken without his knowledge or permission. Later life Van Heeck's correspondence with Cesi in 1604 and 1605 suggest that he was experiencing some kind of crisis of confidence about his relationship with the other Lincei. He wrote at one point of marrying and not returning to Rome, but Cesi prevailed on him to come back. In April 1605 they asked him to prepare a new book attacking heresy, which was perhaps more suited to his interests at the time. In October 1605 he returned to Italy, but went to Rome only briefly in 1606 before leaving Italy again. In 1608 he was in Madrid, where he had apparently gone to see the famous Mexican herbarium in the Escorial. He probably practiced medicine there, and wrote a treatise entitled Politeia Catholica de Bono et Malo cum Civil Antidote, now lost. In 1610, Federico Cesi's father died and this meant that the members of the Accademia could associate more freely. It is perhaps significant that despite this, van Heeck still did not return to his friends in Rome. Although he continued to contribute to the work of the Accademia, this was on a more sporadic basis and the apparent crisis in his nerves diminished his involvement. One of the Accademia's original founders, Anastasio de Filiis, had died in 1608 and Cesi invited the elderly and highly esteemed Giambattista della Porta to join in his place. This helped the Accademia to re-establish itself and gave it greatly enhanced respectability after the mistrust it had experienced in its earlier years. The next person to join after Della Porta was Galileo Galilei. Nothing more is known about him until 26 July 1614, when he made a fleeting appearance in Rome, accompanied by Stelluti, for an academic conference on the Greek and Latin languages. A note, probably from 1615, by the Linceian Theophilus Müller at the end of his book 'De Animalibus' indicates that he visited van Heeck in the abbey of Sant'Angelo in Capoccia. Van Heeck appeared to be in the grip of a persecution mania, and told him that the king of Spain was persecuting him and insisting that he marry his daughter. The very last known reference to him is in a