Remembering with what warmth Barberini had written to him shortly before his election Galileo considered that the time spent in going to Rome to lay his homage at the feet of his Holiness would not be time wasted. He thought that he had reason to hope from a Pontiff so enlightened as Urban had appeared to be, the recognition of the Copernican theory now banned for nearly a century. He felt that as far as he himself was concerned he must gain permission to teach it as actual truth now or never and according as his desire was fulfilled or not would his life be complete or incomplete .