Giordano Bruno,his real crime, in Rome's eyes, was his belief in "free inquiry" and spiritual exploration.
To think is to speculate with images.
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno, one of the most important Copernican thinkers of the European Renaissance, proposed the idea of a ‘heroic philosophy’. He saw philosophy as an active and passionate quest for truth. He left behind him a number of esoteric and philosphical works including The Ash Wednesday Supper.
The report from the Fraternity of St. John the Beheaded is the only documentary account of Bruno’s martyrdom on 17 February 1600 to be considered authentic by the Catholic church. It was published in 1889:
. . . But he insisted till the end always in his damned refractoriness and twisted brain and his mind with a thousand errors; yes, he didn’t give up his stubborness, not even when the court ushers took him away to the Campo de' Fiori. There his clothes were taken off, he was bound to a stake and burned alive [e quivi spogliato nudo e legato a un palo fu brusciato vivo]. In all this time he was accompanied by our fraternity, who sang constant litanies, while the comforters tried till the last moment to break his stubborn resistance, till he gave up a miserable and pitiable life.
The Pope and the Heretic: The True Story of Giordano Bruno, the Man Who Dared to Defy the Roman Inquisition
by Michael White
Giordano Bruno, the subject of Michael White's The Pope and the Heretic, was a thoroughly modern intellect whose fate was to have lived during the late 16th century, a period characterized in large part by the Inquisition, the Church's monomaniacal suppression of what it deemed heretical thought. A "cerebral maverick," Bruno believed in and wrote about an infinite universe--something beyond Copernicus's heliocentric system, the human origins of the concept of the Trinity, and a possible amalgamation of Roman Catholic doctrine with those of ancient religions. His real crime, at least in Rome's eyes, was his belief in "free inquiry." White's biography is exemplary, in no small part because of his concise, crystal-clear discussions of the period's intellectual beliefs, the delicately tempestuous battle between papal and civil authorities, and his detailed, illuminating look at Bruno's trial and subsequent burning at the stake. The Pope and the Heretic is a trustworthy and enlightening entrance into the dizzyingly complex age of the Renaissance. --H. O'Billovich
What is remarkable about Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) is less his execution for heresy by the Catholic Church than the philosophy that led to his death. White, who has written biographies of Galileo, Newton and Leonardo, offers a fast-paced account of the development of Bruno's thought and the reasons why the Church considered these ideas heretical. As White points out in an account that is part history of philosophy, part biography and part church history, Bruno drew on the atomistic philosophy of Democritus, the ancient occult rituals of Egypt and other magi, and the teachings of Jesus to develop a philosophical system that challenged traditional Christian doctrines. Drawing threads from each of these disparate traditions, Bruno became the first modern pantheist, contending that every individual is a part of God and that God is in every individual. He argued that individuals could use mnemonic occult rituals to discover this unity. Bruno also believed that the universe was infinite and filled with inhabitable worlds. The philosopher was so convinced that his ideas would allow individuals to seek God that, as White demonstrates, he was mystified at being charged with heresy. Bruno influenced numerous thinkers from Galileo, Leibniz and Spinoza to Coleridge and Hegel. Although White's tightly focused study offers a nice overview of the conflict between religion and philosophy in the Renaissance, Frances Yates's splendid Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition remains the standard account of Bruno's life and work.
Australian journalist White, who has written popular biographies of Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton, and Leonardo da Vinci, here presents the story of ex-priest and natural philosopher Giordano Bruno in the context of the Roman Inquisition. White provides a lucid description of 16th-century life-the wrong time for Bruno, an intellectual who was a blend of mystic, philosopher, and scientist who studied, explored, and lectured throughout Europe. The Catholic Church's suppression of what it deemed heretical thought led to Bruno's arrest, eight years of imprisonment and torture, and, finally, his burning at the stake. His real crime, in Rome's eyes, was his belief in "free inquiry" and spiritual exploration. White's book is exemplary for its discussions of the period's intellectual beliefs and social structure and for its vivid detail and illuminating look at Bruno's trial and subsequent death. White also captures the influence Bruno had on later followers such as Galileo, Shakespeare, and Goethe. Many more academic books examine Bruno's influence in various spheres of Renaissance thought, but this is the only biography available that is aimed at the general reader. Recommended for all libraries.
L. Kriz, West Des Moines P.L., IA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
The compelling story If one of history's most intriguing yet little-known natural philosophers -- a sixteenth-century Dominican priest whose radical theories influenced some of the greatest thinkers in Western culture -- and the world's first martyr to science
A visionary and rationalist philosopher, Giordano Bruno did not limit himself to one discipline; instead, his erudite intellect accepted nothing and challenged everything in his pursuit of an all-embracing system of thought. It was an openmindedness that brought him patronage from some of the most powerful figures of the day, such as Henry III of France and Elizabeth I of England, but that also put him into direct conflict with the Catholic Church, which defrocked and excommunicated him. Returning to Italy after years spent enjoying intellectual freedom in France, England, and Germany, Bruno was arrested by the Inquisition and tried as a heretic. He endured almost eight years of imprisonment and brutal torture before being burned at the stake in Rome in 1600. And although the Vatican now says that it "regrets" burning Bruno, to this day it has refused to clear him of the charge of heresy.
But the Inquisition's attempts to obliterate Bruno failed, a. his philosophy and influence spread: Galileo, Isaac Newton, Christian Huygens, and Gottfried Leibniz all built upon his ideas; his thought experiments predated the work of such twentieth-century luminaries as Karl Popper; his religious thinking inspired such radicals as Baruch Spinoza; and his work on the art of memory had a profound effect on, among others, William Shakespeare.
The Pope and the Heretic chronicles the work, life, and extraordinary legacy of a genius whose musings helped bring about the modern world. Michael White brilliantly pieces together Bruno's dramatic final years, his capture, and his trial and explains why the Catholic Church felt so threatened by Bruno that it made him a martyr to free thought.
Giordano Bruno: The Forgotten Philosopher
His other works were The Infinity, the Universe and Its Worlds, The Transport of Intrepid Souls, and Cabala of the Steed like unto Pegasus with the Addition of the Ass of Cyllene, an ironical discussion of the pretensions of superstition. This "ass," says Bruno, is to be found everywhere, not only in the church but in courts of law and even in colleges. In his book The Expulsion of the 'Triumphant Beast' he flays the pedantries he finds in Catholic and Protestant cultures. In yet another book The Threefold Leas and Measure of the Three Speculative Sciences and the Principle of Many Practical Arts, we find a discussion on a theme which was to be handled in a later century by the French philosopher Descartes. The book was written five years before Descartes was born and in it he says: "Who so itcheth to Philosophy must set to work by putting all things to the doubt."
He also wrote Of the Unit, Quantity and Shape and another work On Images, Signs and Ideas, as well as On What is Immense and Innumerable; Exposition of the Thirty Seals and List of Metaphysical Terms for Taking the Study of Logic and Philosophy in Hand. His most interesting title is One Hundred Sixty Articles Directed Against the Mathematics and Philosophers of the Day. One of his last works, The Fastenings of Kind, was unfinished.
It is easy to get an impression of the reputation which Bruno had created by the year 1582 in the minds of the clerical authorities of southern Europe. He had written of an infinite universe which had left no room for that greater infinite conception which is called God. He could not conceive that God and nature could be separate and distinct entities as taught by Genesis, as taught by the Church and as even taught by Aristotle. He preached a philosophy which made the mysteries of the virginity of Mary, of the crucifixion and the mass, meaningless. He was so naive that he could not think of his own mental pictures as being really heresies. He thought of the Bible as a book which only the ignorant could take literally. The Church's methods were, to say the least, unfortunate, and it encouraged ignorance from the instinct of self-preservation.
Bruno wrote: "Everything, however men may deem it assured and evident, proves, when it is brought under discussion to be no less doubtful than are extravagant and absurd beliefs." He coined the phrase "Libertes philosophica." The right to think, to dream, if you like, to make philosophy. After 14 years of wandering about Europe Bruno turned his steps toward home. Perhaps he Was homesick. Some writers have it that he was framed. For Bruno to go back to Italy is as strange a paradox as that of the rest of his life.
He was invited to Venice by a young man whose name was Mocenigo, who offered him a home and who then brought charges against him before the Inquisition. The case dragged on. He was a prisoner in the Republic of Venice but a greater power wanted him and he was surrendered to Rome. For six years, between 1593 and 1600 he lay in a Papal prison. Was he forgotten, tortured? Whatever historical records there are never have been published by those authorities who have them. In the year 1600 a German scholar Schoppius happened to be in Rome and wrote about Bruno, who was interrogated several times by the Holy Office and convicted by the chief theologians. At one time he obtained forty days to consider his position; by and by he promised to recant, then renewed his "follies." Then he got another forty days for deliberation but did nothing but baffle the pope and the Inquisition. After two years in the custody of the Inquisitor he was taken on February ninth to the palace of the Grand Inquisitor to hear his sentence on bended knee, before the expert assessors and the Governor of the City.
Bruno answered the sentence of death by fire with the threatening: "Perhaps you, my judges, pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it." He was given eight more clays to see whether he would repent. But it was no use. He was taken to the stake and as he was dying a crucifix was presented to him, but he pushed it away with fierce scorn.
They were wise in getting rid of him for he wrote no more books, but they should have strangled him when he was born. As it turned out, they did not get rid of him at all. His fate was not an unusual one for heretics; this strange madcap genius was quickly forgotten. His works were honored by being placed on the Index expurgatorius on August 7, 1603, and his books became rare. They never obtained any great popularity.
In the early part of the 18th Century English deists rediscovered Bruno and tried to excite the imagination of the public with the retelling of the story of his life, but this aroused no particular enthusiasm.
The enthusiasm of German philosophy reached the subject of Bruno when Jacobi (1743-1819) drew attention to the genius of Bruno and German thinkers generally recognized his genius but they did not read his books. In the latter part of the 19th Century Italian scholars began to be intrigued with Bruno and for a while "Bruno Mania" was part of the intellectual enthusiasm of cultured Italians. Bruno began to be a symbol to represent the forward- looking free-thinking type of philosopher and scientist, and has become a symbol of scientific martyrdom. Bruno was a truant, a philosophical tramp, a poetic vagrant, but has no claims to the name of scientist. His works are not found in American libraries. In this age of biographical writing it is surprising that no modern author has attempted to reconstruct his life, important because it is in the direct line of modern progress. Bruno was a pioneer who roused Europe from its long intellectual sleep. He was martyred for his enthusiasm.
Bruno was born five years after Copernicus died. He had bequeathed an intoxicating idea to the generation that was to follow him. We hear a lot in our own day about the expanding universe. We have learned to accept it as something big. The thought of the Infinity of the Universe was one of the great stimulating ideas of the Renaissance. It was no longer a 15th Century God's backyard. And it suddenly became too vast to be ruled over by a 15th Century God. Bruno tried to imagine a god whose majesty should dignify the majesty of the stars. He devised no new metaphysical quibble nor sectarian schism. He was not playing politics. He was fond of feeling deep thrills over high visions and he liked to talk about his experiences. And all of this refinement went through the refiners' fire -- that the world might be made safe from the despotism of the ecclesiastic 16th Century Savage. He suffered a cruel death and achieved a unique martyr's fame. He has become the Church's most difficult alibi. She can explain away the case of Galileo with suave condescension. Bruno sticks in her throat.
He is one martyr whose name should lead all the rest. He was not a mere religious sectarian who was caught up in the psychology of some mob hysteria. He was a sensitive, imaginative poet, fired with the enthusiasm of a larger vision of a larger universe ... and he fell into the error of heretical belief. For this poets vision he was kept in a dark dungeon for eight years and then taken out to a blazing market place and roasted to death by fire.
It is an incredible story.
The "Church" will never outlive him.
by John J. Kessler, Ph.D., Ch.E.
Vatican Says Torture, Burning at Stake During Inquisition Less Widespread Than Thought
Frances D'emilio | Vatican City |
Torture, burning at the stake and other punishment for the faithful condemned as witches or heretics by church tribunals during the centuries-long Inquisition was not as widespread as commonly believed, the Vatican said Tuesday.
Research findings into the dark era in church history were praised by Pope John Paul II as part of his efforts to identify wrongs it had committed
During the Catholic Church's millennium celebrations in 2000, the pope apologized for the sins of Catholics made in the name of their faith throughout the ages, including such abuses as those committed during the Inquisition, a systematic crackdown by Church officials in defense of doctrinal orthodoxy.
The research, presented at a news conference, grew out of a conference of historians and other scholars in 1998 at the Vatican as John Paul sought to objectively assess the Inquisition, which stretched from the 13th to the 19th centuries.
The experts included historians and other scholars, with specialties ranging from the medieval period to more modern times, and included non-Catholics. They came from Europe, including many of the countries involved in the Inquisition such as Spain, Portugal, and Italy, as well as the United States and Canada.
"Before seeking pardon, it is necessary to have a precise knowledge of the facts," John Paul wrote in a letter Tuesday in which he expressed his "strong appreciation" for the research, which is contained in a 783-page book. For the public, "the image of the Inquisition represents almost the symbol ... of scandal," the pope wrote.
At the news conference, Church officials and others involved in the project said statistics and other data demolished long-held beliefs about the Inquisition, including that torture and executions were commonly used.
"For the first time we studied the Inquisition in its entirety, from its beginnings to the 19th century, and it's the first time scholars have met together to try to study" it in its whole, said Agostino Borromeo, a professor of history of Catholic and other Christian Confessions at Rome's Sapienza University.
Borromeo, curator of the work, said, for example, that while there were some 125,000 trials of suspected heretics in Spain, research found that about 1 percent of the defendants were executed, far fewer than commonly believed. Many of the burnings at the stake which took place during the centuries of the Inquisition actually were carried out by non-church tribunals, experts told reporters.
Cardinal Georges Cottier, a Vatican theologian, stressed the need to have the facts before making judgments about a period of history. "You can't ask pardon for deeds which aren't there," he said.
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