Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno ( jor-DAH-noh BROO-noh; Italian: [dʒorˈdaːno ˈbruːno]; Latin: Iordanus Brunus Nolanus; born Filippo Bruno; February 1548 – 17 February 1600) was an Italian philosopher, Dominican friar and priest, poet, alchemist, astronomer, cosmological theorist, and esotericist. He is known for his cosmological theories, which conceptually extended to include the then-novel Copernican model. He practised Hermeticism and took a mystical approach to exploring the universe. He proposed that the stars were distant suns surrounded by their own planets (exoplanets), and he raised the possibility that these planets might foster life of their own, a cosmological position known as cosmic pluralism. He also insisted that the universe is infinite and can have no centre. Bruno was tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges of denial of several core Catholic doctrines, including eternal damnation, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and transubstantiation. Bruno's pantheism was not taken lightly by the church, nor was his teaching of metempsychosis regarding the reincarnation of the soul. The Inquisition found him guilty, and he was burned at the stake in Rome's Campo de' Fiori 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. Some historians are of the opinion that his heresy trial was not a response to his cosmological views but rather a response to his views on religion and the afterlife, while others largely reject this view. Bruno's case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the emerging sciences. In addition to cosmology, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organised group of mnemonic techniques and principles. Historian Frances Yates argues that Bruno was deeply influenced by the presocratic Empedocles, Neoplatonism, Renaissance Hermeticism, and Book of Genesis-like legends surrounding the Hellenistic conception of Hermes Trismegistus. 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 (a comune in the modern-day Metropolitan City of Naples, in the Southern Italian region of Campania, then part of the Kingdom of Naples) in 1548, he was the son of Giovanni Bruno (1517 – c. 1592), a soldier, and Fraulissa Savolino (1520–?). In his youth, he was sent to Naples to be educated. He was tutored privately at the Augustinian monastery there, and attended public lectures at the local Studium Generale. At the age of 17, he entered the Dominican Order at the monastery of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, taking the name Giordano, after Giordano Crispo, his metaphysics tutor. He continued his studies there, completing his novitiate, and ordained a Catholic priest 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 travelled to Rome to demonstrate his mnemonic system before Pope Pius 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 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, 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, annotated by him, was discovered hidden in the monastery latrine. When he learned that an indictment was being prepared against him in Naples, he fled, shedding his religious habit, at least for a time.

Self-exile to Northern Italy, 1576–1579 Bruno first went to the Genoese port of Noli, then to Savona, Turin and finally to Venice, 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, where he met fellow Dominicans who convinced him to wear his religious habit again. From Padua, he went to Bergamo and then across the Alps to Chambéry and Lyon. His movements after this time are obscure.

in Geneva, 1579-1580

In 1579, Bruno arrived in Geneva. 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 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 Antoine de La Faye, 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, and although this right was soon restored, he nevertheless left Geneva soon after.

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