Giordano Bruno (; ; la, Iordanus Brunus Nolanus; born Filippo Bruno, January or February 1548 – 17 February 1600) was an
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
,
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
,
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
,
cosmological
Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...
theorist, and
Hermetic occultist. He is known for his cosmological theories, which conceptually extended the then novel
Copernican model
Copernican heliocentrism is the astronomical model developed by Nicolaus Copernicus and published in 1543. This model positioned the Sun at the center of the Universe, motionless, with Earth and the other planets orbiting around it in circular pa ...
. He proposed that the stars were distant suns surrounded by their own
planets
A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a young ...
, and he raised the possibility that these planets might foster life of their own, a cosmological position known as
cosmic pluralism
Cosmic pluralism, the plurality of worlds, or simply pluralism, describes the belief in numerous "worlds" (planets, dwarf planets or natural satellites) in addition to Earth (possibly an infinite number), which may harbour extraterrestrial life ...
. He also insisted that the universe is
infinite
Infinite may refer to:
Mathematics
* Infinite set, a set that is not a finite set
*Infinity, an abstract concept describing something without any limit
Music
*Infinite (group), a South Korean boy band
*''Infinite'' (EP), debut EP of American m ...
and could have no "center".
While Bruno began as a
Dominican friar
A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ol ...
, during his time in Geneva he embraced
Calvinism
Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Cal ...
. Bruno was later tried for
heresy
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
by the
Roman Inquisition
The Roman Inquisition, formally the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, was a system of partisan tribunals developed by the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church, during the second half of the 16th century, respons ...
on charges of denial of several core Catholic doctrines, including
eternal damnation, the
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...
, the
divinity of Christ
In Christianity, Christology (from the Greek grc, Χριστός, Khristós, label=none and grc, -λογία, -logia, label=none), translated literally from Greek as "the study of Christ", is a branch of theology that concerns Jesus. Differ ...
, the
virginity of Mary
The perpetual virginity of Mary is a Christian doctrine that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virgin before, during and after the birth of Christ. In Western Christianity, the Catholic Church adheres to the doctrine, as do some Lutherans, Anglic ...
, and
transubstantiation
Transubstantiation (Latin: ''transubstantiatio''; Greek: μετουσίωσις ''metousiosis'') is, according to the teaching of the Catholic Church, "the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of th ...
. Bruno's
pantheism
Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ex ...
was not taken lightly by the church, nor was his teaching of the
transmigration of the soul
Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death. Resurrection is a ...
(
reincarnation
Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death. Resurrection is a ...
). The Inquisition found him guilty, and he was
burned at the stake
Death by burning (also known as immolation) is an execution and murder method involving combustion or exposure to extreme heat. It has a long history as a form of public capital punishment, and many societies have employed it as a punishment f ...
in Rome's
Campo de' Fiori
Campo de' Fiori (, literally "field of flowers") is a rectangular square south of Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy, at the border between rione Parione and rione Regola. It is diagonally southeast of the Palazzo della Cancelleria and one block nort ...
in 1600. After his death, he gained considerable fame, being particularly celebrated by 19th- and early 20th-century commentators who regarded him as a martyr for science, although most historians agree that his heresy trial was not a response to his cosmological views but rather a response to his religious and
afterlife
The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving ess ...
views. However, some historians do contend that the main reason for Bruno's death was indeed his cosmological views. Bruno's case is still considered a landmark in the history of
free thought
Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other metho ...
and the emerging sciences.
In addition to cosmology, Bruno also wrote extensively on the
art of memory
The art of memory (Latin: ''ars memoriae'') is any of a number of loosely associated mnemonic principles and techniques used to organize memory impressions, improve recall, and assist in the combination and 'invention' of ideas. An alternative ...
, a loosely organized group of
mnemonic
A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding.
Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imag ...
techniques and principles. Historian
Frances Yates
Dame Frances Amelia Yates (28 November 1899 – 29 September 1981) was an English historian of the Renaissance, who wrote books on esoteric history.
After attaining an MA in French at University College London, she began to publish her resear ...
argues that Bruno was deeply influenced by the
presocratic
Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of thes ...
Empedocles
Empedocles (; grc-gre, Ἐμπεδοκλῆς; , 444–443 BC) was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a native citizen of Akragas, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for originating the cosmogonic theory of the ...
,
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonism, Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and Hellenistic religion, religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of ...
, Renaissance
Hermeticism
Hermeticism, or Hermetism, is a philosophical system that is primarily based on the purported teachings of Hermes Trismegistus (a legendary Hellenistic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth). These teachings are containe ...
, and
Genesis
Genesis may refer to:
Bible
* Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind
* Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
-like legends surrounding the Hellenistic conception of
Hermes Trismegistus
Hermes Trismegistus (from grc, Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος, "Hermes the Thrice-Greatest"; Classical Latin: la, label=none, Mercurius ter Maximus) is a legendary Hellenistic figure that originated as a syncretic combination of t ...
. Other studies of Bruno have focused on his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of the spatial concepts of geometry to language.
Life
Early years, 1548–1576
Born Filippo Bruno in
Nola
Nola is a town and a municipality in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania, southern Italy. It lies on the plain between Mount Vesuvius and the Apennines. It is traditionally credited as the diocese that introduced bells to Christian wor ...
(a ''
comune
The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...
'' in the modern-day
province of Naples
The Province of Naples ( it, Provincia di Napoli; nap, Pruvincia 'e Nàpule) was a province in the Campania region of southern Italy.
In 2014/2015, the reform of local authorities (Law 142/1990 and Law 56/2014), replaced the Province of Naples ...
, in the
Southern Italian region of
Campania
Campania (, also , , , ) is an administrative Regions of Italy, region of Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian peninsula (with the Tyrrhenian Sea to its west), but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islands and the i ...
, then part of the
Kingdom of Naples
The Kingdom of Naples ( la, Regnum Neapolitanum; it, Regno di Napoli; nap, Regno 'e Napule), also known as the Kingdom of Sicily, was a state that ruled the part of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States between 1282 and 1816. It was ...
) in
1548, he was the son of Giovanni Bruno, a soldier, and Fraulissa Savolino. In his youth he was sent to
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
to be educated. He was tutored privately at the Augustinian monastery there, and attended public lectures at the
Studium Generale
is the old customary name for a medieval university in medieval Europe.
Overview
There is no official definition for the term . The term ' first appeared at the beginning of the 13th century out of customary usage, and meant a place where stude ...
. At the age of 17, he entered the
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...
at the monastery of
San Domenico Maggiore
San Domenico Maggiore is a Gothic, Roman Catholic church and monastery, founded by the friars of the Dominican Order, and located in the square of the same name in the historic center of Naples.
History
The square is bordered by a street/alle ...
in Naples, taking the name Giordano, after Giordano Crispo, his metaphysics tutor. He continued his studies there, completing his
novitiate
The novitiate, also called the noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a Christian ''novice'' (or ''prospective'') monastic, apostolic, or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether ...
, and
ordained
Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform va ...
a
priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...
in 1572 at age 24. During his time in Naples, he became known for his skill with the art of memory and on one occasion traveled to Rome to demonstrate his
mnemonic
A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding.
Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imag ...
system before
Pope Pius V
Pope Pius V ( it, Pio V; 17 January 1504 – 1 May 1572), born Antonio Ghislieri (from 1518 called Michele Ghislieri, O.P.), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1566 to his death in May 1572. He is v ...
and
Cardinal Rebiba. In his later years, Bruno claimed that the Pope accepted his dedication to him of the lost work ''On The Ark of Noah'' at this time.
While Bruno was distinguished for outstanding ability, his taste for
free thinking
''Free Thinking'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 3 as part of their "After Dark" late night programming. The programme is a rebranded version of ''Night Waves'', "Radio 3's flagship arts and ideas programme". ''Night Waves'' was ...
and forbidden books soon caused him difficulties. Given the controversy he caused in later life, it is surprising that he was able to remain within the monastic system for eleven years. In his testimony to Venetian inquisitors during his trial many years later, he says that proceedings were twice taken against him for having cast away images of the saints, retaining only a
crucifix
A crucifix (from Latin ''cruci fixus'' meaning "(one) fixed to a cross") is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the ''corpus'' (Lati ...
, and for having recommended controversial texts to a novice. Such behavior could perhaps be overlooked, but Bruno's situation became much more serious when he was reported to have defended the
Arian heresy, and when a copy of the banned writings of
Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...
, annotated by him, was discovered hidden in the monastery
latrine
A latrine is a toilet or an even simpler facility that is used as a toilet within a sanitation system. For example, it can be a communal trench in the earth in a camp to be used as emergency sanitation, a hole in the ground (pit latrine), or m ...
. When he learned that an
indictment
An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a legal person, person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felony, felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concep ...
was being prepared against him in Naples he fled, shedding his
religious habit
A religious habit is a distinctive set of religious clothing worn by members of a religious order. Traditionally some plain garb recognizable as a religious habit has also been worn by those leading the religious eremitic and anchoritic life, ...
, at least for a time.
First years of wandering, 1576–1583
Bruno first went to the Genoese port of
Noli
Noli (; lij, Nöi ) is a coast ''comune'' of Liguria, Italy, in the Province of Savona, it is about southwest of Genoa by rail, about above sea-level. The origin of the name may come from ''Neapolis'', meaning "new city" in Greek.
From 1192 ...
, then to
Savona,
Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...
and finally to
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
, where he published his lost work ''On the Signs of the Times'' with the permission (so he claimed at his trial) of the Dominican
Remigio Nannini Fiorentino. From Venice he went to
Padua
Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...
, where he met fellow Dominicans who convinced him to wear his
religious habit
A religious habit is a distinctive set of religious clothing worn by members of a religious order. Traditionally some plain garb recognizable as a religious habit has also been worn by those leading the religious eremitic and anchoritic life, ...
again. From Padua he went to
Bergamo
Bergamo (; lmo, Bèrghem ; from the proto- Germanic elements *''berg +*heim'', the "mountain home") is a city in the alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from Switzerland, the alpine lakes Como ...
and then across the Alps to
Chambéry
Chambéry (, , ; Arpitan: ''Chambèri'') is the prefecture of the Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of eastern France. The population of the commune of Chambéry was 58,917 as of 2019, while the population of the Chambér ...
and
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
. His movements after this time are obscure.
![Earlierbruno](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Earlierbruno.jpg)
In 1579 he arrived in
Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
. As
D.W. Singer, a Bruno biographer, notes, "The question has sometimes been raised as to whether Bruno became a Protestant,
and there is evidence he joined a Calvinist church. During his Venetian trial he told inquisitors that while in Geneva he told the Marchese de Vico of Naples, who was notable for helping Italian refugees in Geneva, "I did not intend to adopt the religion of the city. I desired to stay there only that I might live at liberty and in security." Bruno had a pair of breeches made for himself, and the Marchese and others apparently made Bruno a gift of a sword, hat, cape and other necessities for dressing himself; in such clothing Bruno could no longer be recognized as a priest. Things apparently went well for Bruno for a time, as he entered his name in the Rector's Book of the
University of Geneva
The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centur ...
in May 1579. But in keeping with his personality he could not long remain silent. In August he published an attack on the work of , a distinguished professor. Bruno and the printer, Jean Bergeon, were promptly arrested. Rather than apologizing, Bruno insisted on continuing to defend his publication. He was refused the right to take
sacrament
A sacrament is a Christianity, Christian Rite (Christianity), rite that is recognized as being particularly important and significant. There are various views on the existence and meaning of such rites. Many Christians consider the sacraments ...
. Though this right was soon restored, he left Geneva.
He went to France, arriving first in
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
, and thereafter settling for a time (1580–1581) in
Toulouse
Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...
, where he took his doctorate in theology and was elected by students to lecture in philosophy. He also attempted at this time to return to Catholicism, but was denied absolution by the Jesuit priest he approached. When religious strife broke out in the summer of 1581, he moved to Paris. There he held a cycle of thirty lectures on theological topics and also began to gain fame for his prodigious memory. His talents attracted the benevolent attention of the king
Henry III; Bruno subsequently reported
"I got me such a name that King Henry III summoned me one day to discover from me if the memory which I possessed was natural or acquired by magic art. I satisfied him that it did not come from sorcery but from organized knowledge; and, following this, I got a book on memory printed, entitled ''The Shadows of Ideas'', which I dedicated to His Majesty. Forthwith he gave me an Extraordinary Lectureship with a salary."
In Paris, Bruno enjoyed the protection of his powerful French patrons. During this period, he published several works on mnemonics, including ''
De umbris idearum'' (''On the Shadows of Ideas'', 1582), ' (''The Art of Memory'', 1582), and ''Cantus circaeus'' (''Circe's Song'', 1582; described at ). All of these were based on his mnemonic models of organized knowledge and experience, as opposed to the simplistic logic-based mnemonic techniques of
Petrus Ramus
Petrus Ramus (french: Pierre de La Ramée; Anglicized as Peter Ramus ; 1515 – 26 August 1572) was a French humanist, logician, and educational reformer. A Protestant convert, he was a victim of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.
Early life
...
then becoming popular. Bruno also published a comedy summarizing some of his philosophical positions, titled ''Il Candelaio'' (''The Torchbearer'', 1582). In the 16th century dedications were, as a rule, approved beforehand, and hence were a way of placing a work under the protection of an individual. Given that Bruno dedicated various works to the likes of King Henry III, Sir
Philip Sidney
Philip, also Phillip, is a male given name, derived from the Greek language, Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominent Philip ...
,
Michel de Castelnau (French Ambassador to England), and possibly
Pope Pius V
Pope Pius V ( it, Pio V; 17 January 1504 – 1 May 1572), born Antonio Ghislieri (from 1518 called Michele Ghislieri, O.P.), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1566 to his death in May 1572. He is v ...
, it is apparent that this wanderer had risen sharply in status and moved in powerful circles.
England, 1583–1585
![GiordanoBrunomnemonic](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/GiordanoBrunomnemonic.gif)
In April 1583, Bruno went to England with letters of recommendation from
Henry III as a guest of the French ambassador,
Michel de Castelnau. Bruno lived at the French embassy with the lexicographer
John Florio
Giovanni Florio (1552–1625), known as John Florio, was an English linguist, poet, writer, translator, lexicographer, and royal language tutor at the Court of James I. He is recognised as the most important Renaissance humanist in England. F ...
. There he became acquainted with the poet
Philip Sidney
Philip, also Phillip, is a male given name, derived from the Greek language, Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominent Philip ...
(to whom he dedicated two books) and other members of the Hermetic circle around
John Dee
John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, teacher, occultist, and alchemist. He was the court astronomer for, and advisor to, Elizabeth I, and spent much of his time on alchemy, divinatio ...
, though there is no evidence that Bruno ever met Dee himself. He also lectured at
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, and unsuccessfully sought a teaching position there. His views were controversial, notably with
John Underhill, Rector of
Lincoln College and subsequently bishop of Oxford, and
George Abbot, who later became
Archbishop of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...
. Abbot mocked Bruno for supporting "the opinion of
Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus (; pl, Mikołaj Kopernik; gml, Niklas Koppernigk, german: Nikolaus Kopernikus; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated ...
that the earth did go round, and the heavens did stand still; whereas in truth it was his own head which rather did run round, and his brains did not stand still", and found Bruno had both plagiarized and misrepresented
Ficino
Marsilio Ficino (; Latin name: ; 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a reviver o ...
's work, leading Bruno to return to the continent.
Nevertheless, his stay in England was fruitful. During that time Bruno completed and published some of his most important works, the six "Italian Dialogues", including the
cosmological tracts ''La cena de le ceneri'' (''The Ash Wednesday Supper'', 1584), ''De la causa, principio et uno'' (''On Cause, Principle and Unity'', 1584), ''De l'infinito, universo et mondi'' (''On the Infinite, Universe and Worlds'', 1584) as well as ''Lo spaccio de la bestia trionfante'' (''The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast'', 1584) and ''De gli eroici furori'' (''On the Heroic Frenzies'', 1585). Some of these were printed by
John Charlewood
John Charlewood (died 1593) was an English printer.
Life
He went into business early in Mary I of England, Mary's reign in partnership with John Tisdale, in Holborn. He was important as one of the first printers to print Italian works in England ...
. Some of the works that Bruno published in London, notably ''The Ash Wednesday Supper'', appear to have given offense. Once again, Bruno's controversial views and tactless language lost him the support of his friends.
John Bossy
John Antony Bossy FBA (30 April 1933 – 23 October 2015) was a British historian who was a professor of history at the University of York.
Career
Bossy was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he was inspired by Walter Ullmann. He ...
has advanced the theory that, while staying in the French Embassy in London, Bruno was also spying on Catholic conspirators, under the pseudonym "Henry Fagot", for
Sir Francis Walsingham
Sir Francis Walsingham ( – 6 April 1590) was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England from 20 December 1573 until his death and is popularly remembered as her "spymaster".
Born to a well-connected family of gentry, Wals ...
,
Queen Elizabeth's Secretary of State.
Bruno is sometimes cited as being the first to propose that the universe is infinite, which he did during his time in England, but an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
scientist
A scientist is a person who conducts Scientific method, scientific research to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences.
In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, ...
,
Thomas Digges
Thomas Digges (; c. 1546 – 24 August 1595) was an English mathematician and astronomer. He was the first to expound the Copernican system in English but discarded the notion of a fixed shell of immoveable stars to postulate infinitely many s ...
, put forth this idea in a published work in 1576, some eight years earlier than Bruno. An infinite universe and the possibility of alien life had also been earlier suggested by
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
Catholic Cardinal
A cardinal ( la, Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae cardinalis, literally 'cardinal of the Holy Roman Church') is a senior member of the clergy of the Catholic Church. Cardinals are created by the ruling pope and typically hold the title for life. Col ...
Nicholas of Cusa
Nicholas of Cusa (1401 – 11 August 1464), also referred to as Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus (), was a German Catholic cardinal, philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Re ...
in "On Learned Ignorance" published in 1440.
Last years of wandering, 1585–1592
In October 1585, Castelnau was recalled to France, and Bruno went with him. In Paris, Bruno found a tense political situation. Moreover, his 120 theses against
Aristotelian natural science soon put him in ill favor. In 1586, following a violent quarrel over these theses, he left France for Germany.
![unamed Figures](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Unamed_Figures.jpg)
In Germany he failed to obtain a teaching position at
Marburg
Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approximate ...
, but was granted permission to teach at
Wittenberg
Wittenberg ( , ; Low Saxon language, Low Saxon: ''Wittenbarg''; meaning ''White Mountain''; officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg (''Luther City Wittenberg'')), is the fourth largest town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Wittenberg is situated on the Ri ...
, where he lectured on
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
for two years. However, with a change of intellectual climate there, he was no longer welcome, and went in 1588 to
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
, where he obtained 300
taler from
Rudolf II
Rudolf II (18 July 1552 – 20 January 1612) was Holy Roman Emperor (1576–1612), King of Hungary and Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572–1608), King of Bohemia (1575–1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576–1608). He was a member of the Hous ...
, but no teaching position. He went on to serve briefly as a professor in
Helmstedt, but had to flee again in 1590 when he was
excommunicated
Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...
by the
Lutherans
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...
.
During this period he produced several
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
works, dictated to his friend and secretary Girolamo Besler, including ''De Magia'' (''On Magic''), ''Theses De Magia'' (''Theses on Magic'') and ''De Vinculis in Genere'' (''A General Account of Bonding''). All these were apparently transcribed or recorded by Besler (or Bisler) between 1589 and 1590. He also published ''De Imaginum, Signorum, Et Idearum Compositione'' (''On the Composition of Images, Signs and Ideas'', 1591).
In 1591 he was in
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
, where he received an invitation from the
Venetian patrician
Giovanni Mocenigo
Monument to Giovanni Mocenigo - Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice
Giovanni Ser di Mocenigo, Jr. (1409 – November 4, 1485), Pietro Mocenigo's brother, was doge of Venice from 1478 to 1485. He fought at sea against the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II ...
, who wished to be instructed in the art of memory, and also heard of a vacant chair in mathematics at the
University of Padua
The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from B ...
. At the time the
Inquisition
The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...
seemed to be losing some of its strictness, and because the
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice ( vec, Repùblega de Venèsia) or Venetian Republic ( vec, Repùblega Vèneta, links=no), traditionally known as La Serenissima ( en, Most Serene Republic of Venice, italics=yes; vec, Serenìsima Repùblega de Venèsia, ...
was the most liberal state in the
Italian Peninsula, Bruno was lulled into making the fatal mistake of returning to Italy.
He went first to
Padua
Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...
, where he taught briefly, and applied unsuccessfully for the chair of mathematics, which was given instead to
Galileo Galilei
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...
one year later. Bruno accepted Mocenigo's invitation and moved to Venice in March 1592. For about two months he served as an in-house tutor to Mocenigo, to whom he let slip some of his heterodox ideas. Mocenigo denounced him to the
Venetian Inquisition
Venetian often means from or related to:
* Venice, a city in Italy
* Veneto, a region of Italy
* Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area
Venetian and the like may also refer to:
* Venetian language, a Romance language s ...
, which had Bruno arrested on 22 May 1592. Among the numerous charges of
blasphemy
Blasphemy is a speech crime and religious crime usually defined as an utterance that shows contempt, disrespects or insults a deity, an object considered sacred or something considered inviolable. Some religions regard blasphemy as a religiou ...
and
heresy
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
brought against him in Venice, based on Mocenigo's denunciation, was his belief in the
plurality of worlds, as well as accusations of personal misconduct. Bruno defended himself skillfully, stressing the philosophical character of some of his positions, denying others and admitting that he had had doubts on some matters of dogma. The Roman Inquisition, however, asked for his transfer to Rome. After several months of argument, the Venetian authorities reluctantly consented and Bruno was sent to Rome in January 1593.
Imprisonment, trial and execution, 1593–1600
During the seven years of his trial in Rome, Bruno was held in confinement, lastly in the
Tower of Nona. Some important documents about the trial are lost, but others have been preserved, among them a summary of the proceedings that was rediscovered in 1940. The numerous charges against Bruno, based on some of his books as well as on witness accounts, included blasphemy, immoral conduct, and heresy in matters of dogmatic theology, and involved some of the basic doctrines of his philosophy and cosmology.
Luigi Firpo speculates the charges made against Bruno by the Roman Inquisition were:
* holding opinions contrary to the
Catholic faith
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and speaking against it and its ministers;
* holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...
, the
divinity of Christ
In Christianity, Christology (from the Greek grc, Χριστός, Khristós, label=none and grc, -λογία, -logia, label=none), translated literally from Greek as "the study of Christ", is a branch of theology that concerns Jesus. Differ ...
, and the
Incarnation
Incarnation literally means ''embodied in flesh'' or ''taking on flesh''. It refers to the conception and the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form or the appearance of a god as a human. If capitalized, it is the union of divinit ...
;
* holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith pertaining to Jesus as the
Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, names and titles), was ...
;
* holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the
virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus;
* holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about both
Transubstantiation
Transubstantiation (Latin: ''transubstantiatio''; Greek: μετουσίωσις ''metousiosis'') is, according to the teaching of the Catholic Church, "the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of th ...
and the
Mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
;
* claiming the existence of a
plurality of worlds and
their eternity;
* believing in
metempsychosis
Metempsychosis ( grc-gre, μετεμψύχωσις), in philosophy, is the Reincarnation#Conceptual definitions, transmigration of the soul, especially its reincarnation after death. The term is derived from ancient Greek philosophy, and has be ...
and in the
transmigration of the human soul into brutes;
* dealing in magics and divination.
![Relief Bruno Campo dei Fiori n1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Relief_Bruno_Campo_dei_Fiori_n1.jpg)
Bruno defended himself as he had in Venice, insisting that he accepted the Church's dogmatic teachings, but trying to preserve the basis of his cosmological views. In particular, he held firm to his belief in the plurality of worlds, although he was admonished to abandon it. His trial was overseen by the Inquisitor Cardinal
Bellarmine, who demanded a full recantation, which Bruno eventually refused. On 20 January 1600,
Pope Clement VIII
Pope Clement VIII ( la, Clemens VIII; it, Clemente VIII; 24 February 1536 – 3 March 1605), born Ippolito Aldobrandini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 2 February 1592 to his death in March 1605.
Born ...
declared Bruno a heretic, and the Inquisition issued a sentence of death. According to the correspondence of
Gaspar Schopp of
Breslau, he is said to have made a threatening gesture towards his judges and to have replied: ''Maiori forsan cum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam'' ("Perhaps you pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it").
He was turned over to the secular authorities. On 17 February 1600, in the
Campo de' Fiori
Campo de' Fiori (, literally "field of flowers") is a rectangular square south of Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy, at the border between rione Parione and rione Regola. It is diagonally southeast of the Palazzo della Cancelleria and one block nort ...
(a central Roman market square), with his "tongue imprisoned because of his wicked words", he was hung upside down naked before finally being
burned at the stake
Death by burning (also known as immolation) is an execution and murder method involving combustion or exposure to extreme heat. It has a long history as a form of public capital punishment, and many societies have employed it as a punishment f ...
.
His ashes were thrown into the
Tiber
The Tiber ( ; it, Tevere ; la, Tiberis) is the third-longest List of rivers of Italy, river in Italy and the longest in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where ...
river.
All of Bruno's works were placed on the ''
Index Librorum Prohibitorum'' in 1603. The inquisition cardinals who judged Giordano Bruno were
Cardinal Bellarmino (Bellarmine),
Cardinal Madruzzo (Madruzzi), Camillo Cardinal Borghese (later
Pope Paul V
Pope Paul V ( la, Paulus V; it, Paolo V) (17 September 1550 – 28 January 1621), born Camillo Borghese, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 16 May 1605 to his death in January 1621. In 1611, he honored ...
), Domenico Cardinal Pinelli, Pompeio Cardinal Arrigoni,
Cardinal Sfondrati,
Pedro Cardinal De Deza Manuel and
Cardinal Santorio (Archbishop of Santa Severina, Cardinal-Bishop of Palestrina).
The measures taken to prevent Bruno continuing to speak have resulted in his becoming a symbol for free thought and speech in present-day Rome, where an annual memorial service takes place close to the spot where he was executed.
Physical appearance
The earliest likeness of Bruno is an engraving published in 1715 and cited by Salvestrini as "the only known portrait of Bruno". Salvestrini suggests that it is a re-engraving made from a now lost original.
This engraving has provided the source for later images.
The records of Bruno's imprisonment by the Venetian inquisition in May 1592 describe him as a man "of average height, with a hazel-coloured beard and the appearance of being about forty years of age".
Alternately, a passage in a work by
George Abbot indicates that Bruno was of diminutive stature: "When that Italian Didapper, who intituled himselfe Philotheus Iordanus Brunus Nolanus, magis elaboratae Theologiae Doctor, &c. with a name longer than his body...". The word "didapper" used by Abbot is the derisive term which at the time meant "a small diving waterfowl".
Cosmology
Contemporary cosmological beliefs
![Bartolomeu Velho 1568](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Bartolomeu_Velho_1568.jpg)
In the first half of the 15th century,
Nicholas of Cusa
Nicholas of Cusa (1401 – 11 August 1464), also referred to as Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus (), was a German Catholic cardinal, philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Re ...
challenged the then widely accepted philosophies of
Aristotelianism
Aristotelianism ( ) is a philosophical tradition inspired by the work of Aristotle, usually characterized by deductive logic and an analytic inductive method in the study of natural philosophy and metaphysics. It covers the treatment of the socia ...
, envisioning instead an infinite universe whose center was everywhere and circumference nowhere, and moreover teeming with countless stars. He also predicted that neither were the rotational orbits circular nor were their movements uniform.
In the second half of the 16th century, the theories of Copernicus (1473–1543) began diffusing through Europe. Copernicus conserved the idea of planets fixed to solid spheres, but considered the apparent motion of the stars to be an illusion caused by the rotation of the Earth on its axis; he also preserved the notion of an immobile center, but it was the Sun rather than the Earth. Copernicus also argued the Earth was a planet orbiting the Sun once every year. However he maintained the
Ptolemaic hypothesis that the orbits of the planets were composed of perfect circles—
deferents
In the Hipparchus, Hipparchian, Ptolemaic system#Ptolemaic model, Ptolemaic, and Copernican heliocentrism, Copernican systems of astronomy, the epicycle (, meaning "circle moving on another circle") was a geometric model used to explain the var ...
and
epicycles—and that the stars were fixed on a stationary outer sphere.
Despite the widespread publication of Copernicus' work ''
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
''De revolutionibus orbium coelestium'' (English translation: ''On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres'') is the seminal work on the heliocentric theory of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) of the Polish Renaissance. The book, ...
'', during Bruno's time most educated Catholics subscribed to the Aristotelian
geocentric
In astronomy, the geocentric model (also known as geocentrism, often exemplified specifically by the Ptolemaic system) is a superseded description of the Universe with Earth at the center. Under most geocentric models, the Sun, Moon, stars, an ...
view that the Earth was the
center of the universe, and that all heavenly bodies revolved around it. The ultimate limit of the universe was the ''primum mobile'', whose diurnal rotation was conferred upon it by a
transcendental God, not part of the universe (although, as the
kingdom of heaven
Kingdom of Heaven may refer to:
Religious
* Kingdom of Heaven (Gospel of Matthew)
**Kingship and kingdom of God, or simply Kingdom of God, the phrase used in the other gospels
* Kingdom of Heaven (Daviesite), a schismatic sect, founded by Will ...
,
adjacent to it), a motionless
prime mover
Prime mover may refer to:
Philosophy
*Unmoved mover, a concept in Aristotle's writings
Engineering
* Prime mover (engine), motor, a machine that converts various other forms of energy (chemical, electrical, fluid pressure/flow, etc) into energy ...
and
first cause
The unmoved mover ( grc, ὃ οὐ κινούμενον κινεῖ, ho ou kinoúmenon kineî, that which moves without being moved) or prime mover ( la, primum movens) is a concept advanced by Aristotle as a primary cause (or first uncaused cau ...
. The fixed stars were part of this celestial sphere, all at the same fixed distance from the immobile Earth at the center of the sphere.
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
had numbered these at 1,022, grouped into 48
constellation
A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object.
The origins of the e ...
s. The
planet
A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a you ...
s were each fixed to a transparent sphere.
Few
astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...
s of Bruno's time accepted
Copernicus's heliocentric model. Among those who did were the Germans
Michael Maestlin
Michael Maestlin (also Mästlin, Möstlin, or Moestlin) (30 September 1550 – 26 October 1631) was a German astronomer and mathematician, known for being the mentor of Johannes Kepler. He was a student of Philipp Apian and was known as the tea ...
(1550–1631),
Christoph Rothmann,
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler (; ; 27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws ...
(1571–1630); the Englishman
Thomas Digges
Thomas Digges (; c. 1546 – 24 August 1595) was an English mathematician and astronomer. He was the first to expound the Copernican system in English but discarded the notion of a fixed shell of immoveable stars to postulate infinitely many s ...
(c. 1546–1595), author of ''A Perfit Description of the Caelestial Orbes''; and the Italian
Galileo Galilei
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...
(1564–1642).
Bruno's cosmological claims
In 1584, Bruno published two important philosophical dialogues (''La Cena de le Ceneri'' and ''De l'infinito universo et mondi'') in which he argued against the planetary spheres (
Christoph Rothmann did the same in 1586 as did
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe ( ; born Tyge Ottesen Brahe; generally called Tycho (14 December 154624 October 1601) was a Danish astronomer, known for his comprehensive astronomical observations, generally considered to be the most accurate of his time. He was k ...
in 1587) and affirmed the Copernican principle.
In particular, to support the Copernican view and oppose the objection according to which the motion of the Earth would be perceived by means of the motion of winds, clouds etc., in ''La Cena de le Ceneri'' Bruno anticipates some of the arguments of Galilei on the relativity principle. Note that he also uses the example now known as
Galileo's ship
Galileo's ship refers to two physics experiments, a thought experiment and an actual experiment, by Galileo Galilei, the 16th and 17th century physicist and astronomer. The experiments were created to argue the idea of a rotating Earth as opposed t ...
.
Theophilus – ..air through which the clouds and winds move are parts of the Earth, ..to mean under the name of Earth the whole machinery and the entire animated part, which consists of dissimilar parts; so that the rivers, the rocks, the seas, the whole vaporous and turbulent air, which is enclosed within the highest mountains, should belong to the Earth as its members, just as the air oes Oes or owes were metallic "O" shaped rings or eyelets sewn on to clothes and furnishing textiles for decorative effect in England and at the Elizabethan and Jacobean court. They were smaller than modern sequins.
Making and metals
Robert Sharp obta ...
in the lungs and in other cavities of animals by which they breathe, widen their arteries, and other similar effects necessary for life are performed. The clouds, too, move through accidents in the body of the Earth and are in its bowels as are the waters. ..
With the Earth move ..all things that are on the Earth. If, therefore, from a point outside the Earth something were thrown upon the Earth, it would lose, because of the latter's motion, its straightness as would be seen on the ship ..moving along a river, if someone on point C of the riverbank were to throw a stone along a straight line, and would see the stone miss its target by the amount of the velocity of the ship's motion. But if someone were placed high on the mast of that ship, move as it may however fast, he would not miss his target at all, so that the stone or some other heavy thing thrown downward would not come along a straight line from the point E which is at the top of the mast, or cage, to the point D which is at the bottom of the mast, or at some point in the bowels and body of the ship. Thus, if from the point D to the point E someone who is inside the ship would throw a stone straight up, it would return to the bottom along the same line however far the ship moved, provided it was not subject to any pitch and roll."
Bruno's infinite universe was filled with a substance—a "pure air",
aether, or ''spiritus''—that offered no resistance to the heavenly bodies which, in Bruno's view, rather than being fixed, moved under their own
impetus (momentum). Most dramatically, he completely abandoned the idea of a
hierarchical
A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...
universe.
The universe is then one, infinite, immobile.... It is not capable of comprehension and therefore is endless and limitless, and to that extent infinite and indeterminable, and consequently immobile.
Bruno's cosmology distinguishes between "suns" which produce their own light and heat, and have other bodies moving around them; and "earths" which move around suns and receive light and heat from them.
Bruno suggested that some, if not all, of the objects classically known as
fixed stars
In astronomy, fixed stars ( la, stellae fixae) is a term to name the full set of glowing points, astronomical objects actually and mainly stars, that appear not to move relative to one another against the darkness of the night sky in the backgro ...
are in fact suns.
According to astrophysicist
Steven Soter
Steven Soter is an astrophysicist currently holding the positions of scientist-in-residence for New York University's Environmental Studies Program and of Research Associate for the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural Hi ...
, he was the first person to grasp that "stars are other suns with their own planets."
Bruno wrote that other worlds "have no less virtue nor a nature different from that of our Earth" and, like Earth, "contain animals and inhabitants".
During the late 16th century, and throughout the 17th century, Bruno's ideas were held up for ridicule, debate, or inspiration.
Margaret Cavendish
Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1623 – 15 December 1673) was an English philosopher, poet, scientist, fiction writer and playwright.
Her husband, William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was Royalist co ...
, for example, wrote an entire series of poems against "atoms" and "infinite worlds" in ''Poems and Fancies'' in 1664. Bruno's true, if partial, vindication would have to wait for the implications and impact of
Newtonian cosmology.
Bruno's overall contribution to the birth of modern science is still controversial. Some scholars follow Frances Yates in stressing the importance of Bruno's ideas about the universe being infinite and lacking geocentric structure as a crucial crossing point between the old and the new. Others see in Bruno's idea of multiple worlds instantiating the infinite possibilities of a pristine, indivisible One, a forerunner of
Everett's
many-worlds interpretation
The many-worlds interpretation (MWI) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts that the universal wavefunction is objectively real, and that there is no wave function collapse. This implies that all possible outcomes of quantum ...
of quantum mechanics.
While many academics note Bruno's theological position as
pantheism
Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ex ...
, several have described it as
pandeism
Pandeism (or pan-deism), is a theological doctrine that combines aspects of pantheism with aspects of deism. Unlike classical deism, which holds that God does not interfere with the universe after its creation, pandeism holds that a creator d ...
, and some also as
panentheism
Panentheism ("all in God", from the Greek language, Greek grc, πᾶν, pân, all, label=none, grc, ἐν, en, in, label=none and grc, Θεός, Theós, God, label=none) is the belief that the Divinity, divine intersects every part of Univers ...
. Physicist and philosopher
Max Bernhard Weinstein
Max Bernhard Weinstein (1 September 1852 in Kaunas, Vilna Governorate – 25 March 1918) was a German physicist and philosopher. He is best known as an opponent of Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and for having written a broad examination ...
in his ''Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis'' ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Nature"), wrote that the theological model of
pandeism
Pandeism (or pan-deism), is a theological doctrine that combines aspects of pantheism with aspects of deism. Unlike classical deism, which holds that God does not interfere with the universe after its creation, pandeism holds that a creator d ...
was strongly expressed in the teachings of Bruno, especially with respect to the vision of a deity for which "the concept of God is not separated from that of the universe." However,
Otto Kern
Otto Ferdinand Georg Kern (14 February 1863 in Schulpforte (now part of Bad Kösen) – 31 January 1942 in Halle an der Saale) was a German classical philologist, archaeologist and epigraphist. He specialized in the field of ancient Greek reli ...
takes exception to what he considers Weinstein's overbroad assertions that Bruno, as well as other historical philosophers such as
John Scotus Eriugena
John Scotus Eriugena, also known as Johannes Scotus Erigena, John the Scot, or John the Irish-born ( – c. 877) was an Irish Neoplatonist philosopher, theologian and poet of the Early Middle Ages. Bertrand Russell dubbed him "the most ...
,
Anselm of Canterbury,
Nicholas of Cusa
Nicholas of Cusa (1401 – 11 August 1464), also referred to as Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus (), was a German Catholic cardinal, philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Re ...
,
Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sym ...
, and Lessing, were pandeists or leaned towards pandeism. ''
Discover
Discover may refer to:
Art, entertainment, and media
* ''Discover'' (album), a Cactus Jack album
* ''Discover'' (magazine), an American science magazine
Businesses and brands
* DISCover, the ''Digital Interactive Systems Corporation''
* D ...
'' editor
Corey S. Powell also described Bruno's
cosmology
Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount (lexicographer), Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in ...
as pandeistic, writing that it was "a tool for advancing an animist or Pandeist theology", and this assessment of Bruno as a pandeist was agreed with by science writer Michael Newton Keas,
and ''
The Daily Beast
''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008.
It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...
'' writer David Sessions.
Retrospective views of Bruno
Late Vatican position
The Vatican has published few official statements about Bruno's trial and execution. In 1942, Cardinal
Giovanni Mercati
Giovanni Mercati (17 December 1866 – 23 August 1957) was an Italian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives and librarian of the Vatican Library from 1936 until his death, and was eleva ...
, who discovered a number of lost documents relating to Bruno's trial, stated that the Church was perfectly justified in condemning him. On the 400th anniversary of Bruno's death, in 2000, Cardinal
Angelo Sodano declared Bruno's death to be a "sad episode" but, despite his regret, he defended Bruno's prosecutors, maintaining that the Inquisitors "had the desire to serve freedom and promote the common good and did everything possible to save his life". In the same year, Pope
John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
made a general apology for "the use of violence that some have committed in the service of truth".
A martyr of science
Some authors have characterized Bruno as a "martyr of science", suggesting parallels with the
Galileo affair
The Galileo affair ( it, il processo a Galileo Galilei) began around 1610 and culminated with the trial and condemnation of Galileo Galilei by the Roman Catholic Inquisition in 1633. Galileo was prosecuted for his support of heliocentrism, the ...
which began around 1610. "It should not be supposed," writes A. M. Paterson of Bruno and his "heliocentric solar system", that he "reached his conclusions via some mystical revelation....His work is an essential part of the scientific and philosophical developments that he initiated." Paterson echoes Hegel in writing that Bruno "ushers in a modern theory of knowledge that understands all natural things in the universe to be known by the human mind through the mind's dialectical structure".
Ingegno writes that Bruno embraced the philosophy of
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into En ...
, "aimed at liberating man from the fear of death and the gods." Characters in Bruno's ''Cause, Principle and Unity'' desire "to improve speculative science and knowledge of natural things," and to achieve a philosophy "which brings about the perfection of the human intellect most easily and eminently, and most closely corresponds to the truth of nature."
Other scholars oppose such views, and claim Bruno's martyrdom to science to be exaggerated, or outright false. For Yates, while "nineteenth century liberals" were thrown "into ecstasies" over Bruno's Copernicanism, "Bruno pushes Copernicus' scientific work back into a prescientific stage, back into Hermeticism, interpreting the Copernican diagram as a hieroglyph of divine mysteries."
According to historian Mordechai Feingold, "Both admirers and critics of Giordano Bruno basically agree that he was pompous and arrogant, highly valuing his opinions and showing little patience with anyone who even mildly disagreed with him." Discussing Bruno's experience of rejection when he visited Oxford University, Feingold suggests that "it might have been Bruno's manner, his language and his self-assertiveness, rather than his ideas" that caused offence.
Theological heresy
In his ''
Lectures on the History of Philosophy
''Lectures on the History of Philosophy'' (''LHP''; german: Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, ''VGPh'',) delivered by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1805-6, 1816-8, 1819, 1820, 1825–6, 1827–8, 1829–30, and 1831, just before ...
''
Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...
writes that Bruno's life represented "a bold rejection of all
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
beliefs resting on mere authority."
Alfonso Ingegno states that Bruno's philosophy "challenges the developments of the Reformation, calls into question the truth-value of the whole of Christianity, and claims that Christ perpetrated a deceit on mankind... Bruno suggests that we can now recognize the universal law which controls the perpetual becoming of all things in an infinite universe."
[''Cause, Principle and Unity,'' by Giordano Bruno. Edited by R.J. Blackwell and Robert de Lucca, with an Introduction by Alfonso Ingegno. p.x. Cambridge University Press, 1998.] A. M. Paterson says that, while we no longer have a copy of the official papal condemnation of Bruno, his heresies included "the doctrine of the infinite universe and the innumerable worlds" and his beliefs "on the movement of the earth".
Michael White notes that the Inquisition may have pursued Bruno early in his life on the basis of his opposition to
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
, interest in
Arianism
Arianism ( grc-x-koine, Ἀρειανισμός, ) is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God ...
, reading of
Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...
, and possession of banned texts.
[White, Michael (2002). ''The Pope and the Heretic: The True Story of Giordano Bruno, the Man who Dared to Defy the Roman Inquisition,'' p. 7. Perennial, New York.] White considers that Bruno's later heresy was "multifaceted" and may have rested on his conception of infinite worlds. "This was perhaps the most dangerous notion of all... If other worlds existed with intelligent beings living there, did they too have their visitations? The idea was quite unthinkable."
Frances Yates
Dame Frances Amelia Yates (28 November 1899 – 29 September 1981) was an English historian of the Renaissance, who wrote books on esoteric history.
After attaining an MA in French at University College London, she began to publish her resear ...
rejects what she describes as the "legend that Bruno was prosecuted as a philosophical thinker, was burned for his daring views on innumerable worlds or on the movement of the earth." Yates however writes that "the Church was... perfectly within its rights if it included philosophical points in its condemnation of Bruno's heresies" because "the philosophical points were quite inseparable from the heresies."
According to the ''
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible to Internet users. It is maintained by Stanford University. Eac ...
'', "in 1600 there was no official Catholic position on the Copernican system, and it was certainly not a heresy. When
..Bruno
..was burned at the stake as a heretic, it had nothing to do with his writings in support of Copernican cosmology."
The website of the
Vatican Apostolic Archive
The Vatican Apostolic Archive ( la, Archivum Apostolicum Vaticanum; it, Archivio Apostolico Vaticano), formerly known as the Vatican Secret Archive, is the central repository in the Vatican City of all acts promulgated by the Holy See.
The Pon ...
, discussing a summary of legal proceedings against Bruno in Rome, states:
"In the same rooms where Giordano Bruno was questioned, for the same important reasons of the relationship between science and faith, at the dawning of the new astronomy and at the decline of Aristotle's philosophy, sixteen years later, Cardinal Bellarmino, who then contested Bruno's heretical theses, summoned Galileo Galilei, who also faced a famous inquisitorial trial, which, luckily for him, ended with a simple abjuration."
In art and literature
Artistic depictions
Following the 1870
Capture of Rome by the newly created
Kingdom of Italy
The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...
and the end of the Church's
temporal power over the city, the erection of a
monument to Bruno on the site of his execution became feasible. The monument was sharply opposed by the clerical party, but was finally erected by the Rome Municipality and inaugurated in 1889.
A statue of a stretched human figure standing on its head, designed by
Alexander Polzin
Alexander Polzin (born 1973) is a German sculptor, painter, graphic artist, costume and set designer.
Life
Born in Berlin, originally trained as a stonemason, Polzin launched his international career as a freelance sculptor, painter, graphic ar ...
and depicting Bruno's death at the stake, was placed in
Potsdamer Platz
Potsdamer Platz (, ''Potsdam Square'') is a public square and traffic intersection in the center of Berlin, Germany, lying about south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag (German Parliament Building), and close to the southeast corn ...
station in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
on 2 March 2008.
Retrospective iconography of Bruno shows him with a Dominican
cowl
A cowl is an item of clothing consisting of a long, hooded garment with wide sleeves, often worn by monks.
Originally it may have referred simply to the hooded portion of a cloak. In contemporary usage, however, it is distinguished from a clo ...
but not
tonsure
Tonsure () is the practice of cutting or shaving some or all of the hair on the scalp as a sign of religious devotion or humility. The term originates from the Latin word ' (meaning "clipping" or "shearing") and referred to a specific practice in ...
d. Edward Gosselin has suggested that it is likely Bruno kept his tonsure at least until 1579, and it is possible that he wore it again thereafter.
An idealized animated version of Bruno appears in the first episode of the 2014 television series ''
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey''. In this depiction, Bruno is shown with a more modern look, without tonsure and wearing clerical robes and without his hood. ''Cosmos'' presents Bruno as an impoverished philosopher who was ultimately executed due to his refusal to recant his belief in other worlds, a portrayal that was criticized by some as simplistic or historically inaccurate.
Corey S. Powell, of ''Discover'' magazine, says of Bruno, "A major reason he moved around so much is that he was argumentative, sarcastic, and drawn to controversy...He was a brilliant, complicated, difficult man.
[
]
References in poetry
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as ''Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition ...
wrote a poem honoring Giordano Bruno in 1889, when the statue of Bruno was constructed in Rome.
Czeslaw Milosz evokes the story and image of Giordano Bruno in his poem "Campo Dei Fiori" (Warsaw 1943).
Randall Jarell's poem "The Emancipators" addresses Bruno, along with Galileo and Newton, as an originator of the modern scientific-industrial world.
Heather McHugh
Heather McHugh (born August 20, 1948) is an American poet notable for the independent ranges of her aesthetic as a poet, and for her working devotion to teaching and translating literature.
Life
Heather McHugh, a poet, translator, educator and ...
depicted Bruno as the principal of a story told (at dinner, by an "underestimated" travel guide) to a group of contemporary American poets in Rome. The poem (originally published in McHugh's collection of poems ''Hinge & Sign'', nominee for the National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
, and subsequently reprinted widely) channels the very question of ''ars poetica'', or meta-meaning itself, through the embedded narrative of the suppression of Bruno's words, silenced towards the end of his life both literally and literarily.
Louis L’amour wrote "To Giordano Bruno", a poem published in "Smoke From This Altar", 1990.
Appearances in fiction
Bruno and his theory of "the coincidence of contraries" (''coincidentia oppositorum'') play an important role in James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
's 1939 novel ''Finnegans Wake
''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish literature, Irish writer James Joyce. It is well known for its experimental style and reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the Western canon. It has been called "a work of fiction whi ...
''. Joyce wrote in a letter to his patroness, Harriet Shaw Weaver
Harriet Shaw Weaver (1 September 1876 – 14 October 1961) was an English political activist and a magazine editor. She was a significant patron of Irish writer James Joyce.
Life
Harriet Shaw Weaver was born in Frodsham, Cheshire, the sixth of ...
, "His philosophy is a kind of dualism – every power in nature must evolve an opposite in order to realise itself and opposition brings reunion".[James Joyce, Letter to Harriet Shaw Weaver, 27 January 1925, ''Selected Letters'', p. 307] Amongst his numerous allusions to Bruno in his novel, including his trial and torture, Joyce plays upon Bruno's notion of ''coincidentia oppositorum'' through applying his name to word puns such as "Browne and Nolan" (the name of Dublin printers) and '"brownesberrow in nolandsland".
Giordano Bruno features as the hero in a series of historical crime novels by S.J. Parris (a pseudonym of Stephanie Merritt). In order these are ''Heresy'', ''Prophecy'', ''Sacrilege'', ''Treachery'', ''Conspiracy'' and ''Execution''.
''The Last Confession'' by Morris West
Morris Langlo West (26 April 19169 October 1999) was an Australian novelist and playwright, best known for his novels '' The Devil's Advocate'' (1959), '' The Shoes of the Fisherman'' (1963) and ''The Clowns of God'' (1981). His books were pub ...
(posthumously published) is a fictional autobiography of Bruno, ostensibly written shortly before his execution.
In 1963 soviet writer Alexander Volkov published ''The Wandering'', a novel about the childhood and youth of Bruno.
In 1973 the biographical drama '' Giordano Bruno'' was released, an Italian/French movie directed by Giuliano Montaldo
Giuliano Montaldo (born 22 February 1930) is an Italian film director.
Biography
While he was still a young student, Montaldo was recruited by the director Carlo Lizzani for the role of leading actor in the film '' Achtung! Banditi!'' (1951). ...
, starring Gian Maria Volonté
Gian Maria Volonté (9 April 1933 – 6 December 1994) was an Italian actor, including roles in four Spaghetti Western films: Ramón Rojo in Sergio Leone's ''A Fistful of Dollars'' (1964) and El Indio in Leone's '' For a Few Dollars More'' ( ...
as Bruno.
Bruno is a central character, and his philosophy a central theme, in John Crowley’s ''Aegypt'' (1987), renamed '' The Solitudes'', and the ensuing series of novels: ''Love & Sleep
''Love & Sleep'' is a 1994 fantasy novel by John Crowley. It is the second novel in Crowley's Ægypt Sequence and a sequel to Crowley's 1987 novel '' The Solitudes''. In it, the protagonist Pierce Moffett continues his book project begun in ''Th ...
'' (1994), '' Daemonomania'' (2000), and ''Endless Things
Endless or The Endless may refer to:
Business
* Endless (private equity), a British firm
* Endless.com, an e-commerce website selling shoes and accessories
* Endless Computers, an American operating system company
Film
* ''The Endless'' (film ...
'' (2007).
Appearances in music
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as ...
set his large scale cantata for orchestra, choir and four soloists, ''Novae de infinito laudes'' to Italian texts by Bruno, recorded in 1972 at the Salzburg Festival reissued on CD Orfeo C609 031B.
Robert Ashley
Robert Reynolds Ashley (March 28, 1930 – March 3, 2014) was an American composer, who was best known for his television operas and other theatrical works, many of which incorporate electronics and extended techniques. His works often involve i ...
intones in his Perfect Lives (1983): "Giordano Bruno. I think they burned him. He was too... positive."
Massimiliano Larocca's La breve estate (2008) includes as track 7 ''"Anima Mundi (a Giordano Bruno)"''
The album ''Numen Lumen'' (2011) by neofolk group Hautville
Hautville is a progressive neofolk music project that was formed in 2006 by Leonardo Lonigro (guitars) and Francesco Dinnella (keyboards and vocals) who had already played together in some progressive rock bands. Simona Bonavita (vocals) later j ...
tracks Bruno's lyrics and is dedicated to the philosopher.
In 2014 the Italian composer Francesco Filidei
Francesco Filidei (born 1973) is an Italian concert organist and composer. A student of Salvatore Sciarrino, he has performed internationally. As a composer, he has collaborated with singer-songwriter Claire Diterzi and written operas premiered ...
wrote an opera, based on a libretto by Stefano Busellato, titled ''Giordano Bruno''. The premiere took place on 12 September 2015 at the Casa da Música
The Casa da Música is a concert hall in Porto, Portugal. It was designed by architect Rem Koolhaas and opened in 2005.
Designed to mark the festive year of 2001 in which the city of Porto was designated European Capital of Culture, it was the ...
in Porto, Portugal.
The 2016 song "Roman Sky" by heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold
Avenged Sevenfold (abbreviated as A7X) is an American heavy metal band from Huntington Beach, California, formed in 1999. The band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist M. Shadows, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Zacky Vengeance, ...
focuses on the death of Bruno.
Bruno is the central character in Roger Doyle
Roger Doyle (born 17 July 1949) is an Irish composer best known for his electro-acoustic work, for which he was made a Saoi of Aosdána, and for his piano music for theatre.
Education
Born in Malahide, County Dublin, Doyle studied piano from t ...
’s ''Heresy - an electronic opera'' (2017).
Legacy
Giordano Bruno Foundation
The Giordano Bruno Foundation (German: Giordano-Bruno-Stiftung) is a non-profit foundation based in Germany that pursues the "Support of Evolutionary Humanism
Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system or life stance that embraces human reason, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality ...
". It was founded by entrepreneur Herbert Steffen in 2004. The Giordano Bruno Foundation is critical of religious fundamentalism
Fundamentalism is a tendency among certain groups and individuals that is characterized by the application of a strict literal interpretation to scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, along with a strong belief in the importance of distinguishi ...
and nationalism
Giordano Bruno Memorial Award
The SETI League makes an annual award honoring the memory of Giordano Bruno to a deserving person or persons who have made a significant contribution to the practice of SETI
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other p ...
(the search for extraterrestrial intelligence). The award was proposed by sociologist Donald Tarter in 1995 on the 395th anniversary of Bruno's death. The trophy presented is called a Bruno.
Astronomical objects named after Bruno
The 22 km impact crater Giordano Bruno on the far side of the Moon is named in his honor, as are the main belt Asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere.
...
s 5148 Giordano and 13223 Cenaceneri; the latter is named after his philosophical dialogue ''La Cena de le Ceneri'' ("The Ash Wednesday Supper") (see above).
Other remembrances
Radio broadcasting station 2GB
2GB is a commercial radio station in Sydney, Australia owned by parent company Nine Radio, a division of Nine Entertainment Co., who also own sister station 2UE.
2GB broadcasts on 873 kHz, AM.
In 2010, 2GB held 14.7% of the total rad ...
in Sydney, Australia is named for Bruno. The two letters "GB" in the call sign were chosen to honor Bruno, who was much admired by Theosophists
Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion ...
who were the original holders of the station's licence.
Works
* '' De umbris idearum'' (''On the Shadows of Ideas'', Paris, 1582)
* ''Cantus circaeus'' (''The Incantation of Circe'' or ''Circe's Song'', Paris, 1582)
* ' (''The Art of Memory'', Paris, 1582)
* ''De compendiosa architectura et complento artis Lulli'' (''A Compendium of Architecture and Lulli's Art'', 1582)
* ''Candelaio'' (''The Torchbearer'' or ''The Candle Bearer'', 1582; play)
* ''Ars reminiscendi'' (''The Art of Memory'', 1583)
* ''Explicatio triginta sigillorum'' (''Explanation of Thirty Seals'', 1583)
* ''Sigillus sigillorum'' (''The Seal of Seals'', 1583)
* ''La cena de le ceneri'' (''The Ash Wednesday Supper'', 1584)
* ''De la causa, principio, et uno'' (''Concerning Cause, Principle, and Unity'', 1584)
* ' (''De l'infinito universo et mondi)'', 1584)
* ''Spaccio de la bestia trionfante'' (''The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast'', London, 1584)
* ''Cabala del cavallo Pegaseo'' (''Cabal of the Horse Pegasus'', 1585)
* ''De gli eroici furori'' (''The Heroic Frenzies'', 1585)
* ''Figuratio Aristotelici Physici auditus'' (''Figures From Aristotle's Physics'', 1585)
* ''Dialogi duo de Fabricii Mordentis Salernitani'' (''Two Dialogues of Fabricii Mordentis Salernitani'', 1586)
* ''Idiota triumphans'' (''The Triumphant Idiot'', 1586)
* ''De somni interpretatione'' (''Dream Interpretation'', 1586)
* ''Animadversiones circa lampadem lullianam'' (''Amendments regarding Lull's Lantern'', 1586)
* ''Lampas triginta statuarum'' (''The Lantern of Thirty Statues'', 1586)
* ''Centum et viginti articuli de natura et mundo adversus peripateticos'' (''One Hundred and Twenty Articles on Nature and the World Against the Peripatetics'', 1586)
* ''De Lampade combinatoria Lulliana'' (''The Lamp of Combinations according to Lull'', 1587)
* ''De progressu et lampade venatoria logicorum'' (''Progress and the Hunter's Lamp of Logical Methods'', 1587)
* ''Oratio valedictoria'' (''Valedictory Oration'', 1588)
* ''Camoeracensis Acrotismus'' (''The Pleasure of Dispute'', 1588)
* ''De specierum scrutinio'' (1588)
* ''Articuli centum et sexaginta adversus huius tempestatis mathematicos atque Philosophos'' (''One Hundred and Sixty Theses Against Mathematicians and Philosophers'', 1588)
* ''Oratio consolatoria'' (''Consolation Oration'', 1589)
* ''De vinculis in genere'' (''Of Bonds in General'', 1591)
* ''De triplici minimo et mensura'' (''On the Threefold Minimum and Measure'', 1591)
* ''De monade numero et figura'' (''On the Monad, Number, and Figure'', Frankfurt, 1591)
* ''De innumerabilibus, immenso, et infigurabili'' (''Of Innumerable Things, Vastness and the Unrepresentable'', 1591)
* ''De imaginum, signorum et idearum compositione'' (''On the Composition of Images, Signs and Ideas'', 1591)
* ''Summa terminorum metaphysicorum'' (''Handbook of Metaphysical Terms'', 1595)
* ''Artificium perorandi'' (''The Art of Communicating'', 1612)
Collections
* ''Jordani Bruni Nolani opera latine conscripta'' (''Giordano Bruno the Nolan's Works Written in Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''), Dritter Band (1962) / curantibus F. Tocco et H. Vitelli
See also
* Fermi paradox
The Fermi paradox is the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the apparently high a priori likelihood of its existence, and by extension of obtaining such evidence. As a 2015 article put it, ...
* List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby unio ...
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Michel, Paul Henri (1962). ''The Cosmology of Giordano Bruno''. Translated by R.E.W. Maddison. Paris: Hermann; London: Methuen; Ithaca, New York: Cornell.
* ''The Cabala of Pegasus by Giordano Bruno'',
* ''Giordano Bruno'', Paul Oskar Kristeller, Collier's Encyclopedia, Vol 4, 1987 ed., p. 634
* ''Il processo di Giordano Bruno'', Luigi Firpo, 1993
* Giordano Bruno,''Il primo libro della Clavis Magna, ovvero, Il trattato sull'intelligenza artificiale'', a cura di Claudio D'Antonio, Di Renzo Editore.
* Giordano Bruno,''Il secondo libro della Clavis Magna, ovvero, Il Sigillo dei Sigilli'', a cura di Claudio D'Antonio, Di Renzo Editore.
* Giordano Bruno, ''Il terzo libro della Clavis Magna, ovvero, La logica per immagini'', a cura di Claudio D'Antonio, Di Renzo Editore
* Giordano Bruno, ''Il quarto libro della Clavis Magna, ovvero, L'arte di inventare con Trenta Statue'', a cura di Claudio D'Antonio, Di Renzo Editore
* Giordano Bruno ''L'incantesimo di Circe'', a cura di Claudio D'Antonio, Di Renzo Editore
* Guido del Giudice
Guido del Giudice (born August 14, 1957) is an Italian philosopher and writer.He is one of the most influential experts on life and works of the philosopher Giordano Bruno.
Biography
Del Giudice was born in Naples, Italy, where he still liv ...
, ''WWW Giordano Bruno'', Marotta & Cafiero Editori, 2001
* Giordano Bruno, ''De Umbris Idearum'', a cura di Claudio D'Antonio, Di Renzo Editore
* Guido del Giudice
Guido del Giudice (born August 14, 1957) is an Italian philosopher and writer.He is one of the most influential experts on life and works of the philosopher Giordano Bruno.
Biography
Del Giudice was born in Naples, Italy, where he still liv ...
, ''La coincidenza degli opposti'', Di Renzo Editore, , 2005 (seconda edizione accresciuta con il saggio ''Bruno, Rabelais e Apollonio di Tiana'', Di Renzo Editore, Roma 2006 )
* Giordano Bruno, ''Due Orazioni: Oratio Valedictoria – Oratio Consolatoria'', a cura di Guido del Giudice
Guido del Giudice (born August 14, 1957) is an Italian philosopher and writer.He is one of the most influential experts on life and works of the philosopher Giordano Bruno.
Biography
Del Giudice was born in Naples, Italy, where he still liv ...
, Di Renzo Editore, 2007
* Giordano Bruno, ''La disputa di Cambrai. Camoeracensis Acrotismus'', a cura di Guido del Giudice
Guido del Giudice (born August 14, 1957) is an Italian philosopher and writer.He is one of the most influential experts on life and works of the philosopher Giordano Bruno.
Biography
Del Giudice was born in Naples, Italy, where he still liv ...
, Di Renzo Editore, 2008
* ''Somma dei termini metafisici'', a cura di Guido del Giudice
Guido del Giudice (born August 14, 1957) is an Italian philosopher and writer.He is one of the most influential experts on life and works of the philosopher Giordano Bruno.
Biography
Del Giudice was born in Naples, Italy, where he still liv ...
, Di Renzo Editore, Roma, 2010
* Massimo Colella, ''«Luce esterna (Mitra) e interna (G. Bruno)». Il viaggio bruniano di Aby Warburg'', in «Intersezioni. Rivista di storia delle idee», XL, 1, 2020, pp. 33-56.
External links
*
* Paul Richard Blum (2021)
Giordano Bruno
''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''IEP'') is a scholarly online encyclopedia, dealing with philosophy, philosophical topics, and philosophers. The IEP combines open access publication with peer reviewed publication of original pape ...
''.
How 'Cosmos' Bungles the History of Religion and Science
Bruno's works
text, concordances and frequency list
''Library of the World's Best Literature Ancient and Modern'' Charles Dudley Warner
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...
Editor
Bruno's Latin and Italian works online: Biblioteca Ideale di Giordano Bruno
Complete works of Bruno as well as main biographies and studies available for free download in PDF format from the Warburg Institute and the Centro Internazionale di Studi Bruniani Giovanni Aquilecchia
Online Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries
High resolution images of works by and/or portraits of Giordano Bruno in .jpg and .tiff format.
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bruno, Giordano
1548 births
1600 deaths
16th-century executions by Italian states
16th-century Italian Christian monks
16th-century Italian philosophers
16th-century Italian scientists
16th-century non-fiction writers
16th-century poets
Architectural theoreticians
Atomists
Commentators on Aristotle
Communication theorists
Cosmologists
Cultural critics
Date of birth unknown
Epistemologists
Executed Italian people
Executed philosophers
Executed scientists
Executed writers
Former Dominicans
Galileo affair
Hermeticists
History of philosophy
History of religion
History of science
Intellectual history
Italian architecture writers
Italian astrologers
Italian essayists
Italian-language poets
Italian logicians
Italian male non-fiction writers
Italian male writers
Italian occult writers
Italian philosophers
Italian poets
Italian scientists
Italian semioticians
Metaphysicians
Mystics
Natural philosophers
Ontologists
Pantheists
People excommunicated by the Catholic Church
People executed by the Papal States by burning
People executed by the Roman Inquisition
People executed for heresy
People from Nola
Philosophers of art
Philosophers of culture
Philosophers of logic
Philosophers of mathematics
Philosophers of religion
Philosophers of science
Philosophers of social science
Philosophy writers
Social commentators
Social critics
Social philosophers
University of Helmstedt faculty
Writers about religion and science