Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno, original name Filippo Bruno, byname Il Nolano (born 1548, Nola, near Naples [Italy]—died February 17, 1600, Rome), Italian philosopher, astronomer, mathematician, and occultist whose theories anticipated modern science. The most notable of these were his theories of the infiniteuniverse and the multiplicity of worlds, in which he rejected the traditional geocentric (Earth-centred) astronomy and intuitively went beyond the Copernican heliocentric (Sun-centred) theory, which still maintained a finite universe with a sphere of fixed stars. Bruno is, perhaps, chiefly remembered for the tragic death he suffered at the stake because of the tenacity with which he maintained his unorthodox ideas at a time when both the Roman Catholic and Reformed churches were reaffirming rigid Aristotelian and Scholastic principles in their struggle for the evangelization of Europe.

EARLY LIFE

Bruno was the son of a professional soldier. He was named Filippo at his baptism and was later called “Il Nolano,” after the place of his birth. In 1562 Bruno went to Naples to study the humanities, logic, and dialectics (argumentation). He was impressed by the lectures of G.V. de Colle, who was known for his tendencies toward Averroism—i.e., the thought of a number of Western Christian philosophers who drew their inspiration from the interpretation of Aristotle put forward by the Muslim philosopher Averroës—and by his own reading of works on memory devices and the arts of memory (mnemotechnical works). In 1565 he entered the Dominican convent of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples and assumed the name Giordano. Because of his unorthodox attitudes, he was soon suspected of heresy. Nevertheless, in 1572 he was ordained as a priest. During the same year he was sent back to the Neapolitan convent to continue his study of theology. In July 1575 Bruno completed the prescribed course, which generated in him an annoyance at theological subtleties. He freely discussed the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ, and, as a result, a trial for heresy was prepared against him by the provincial father of the order, and he fled to Rome in February 1576. After forbidden commentaries by Erasmus were found in Naples with marginal notes by Bruno, he fled again in April 1576.

Bruno abandoned the Dominican order, and, after wandering in northern Italy, he went in 1578 to Geneva, where he earned his living by proofreading. He formally embraced Calvinism. After publishing a broadsheet against a Calvinist professor, however, he discovered that the Reformed church was no less intolerant than the Catholic. He was arrested, excommunicated, rehabilitated after retraction, and finally allowed to leave the city. He moved to France, first to Toulouse—where he unsuccessfully sought to be absolved by the Catholic church but was nevertheless appointed to a lectureship in philosophy—and then in 1581 to Paris.

In Paris Bruno at last found a congenial place to work and teach. Despite the strife between the Catholics and the Huguenots (French Protestants), the court of Henry III was then dominated by the tolerant faction of the Politiques (moderate Catholics, sympathizers of the Protestant king of Navarre, Henry of Bourbon, who became the heir apparent to the throne of France in 1584). Bruno’s religious attitude was compatible with this group, and he received the protection of the French king, who appointed him one of his temporary lecteurs royaux. In 1582 Bruno published three mnemotechnical works, in which he explored new means to attain an intimate knowledge of reality. He also published a vernacularcomedy, Il candelaio (1582; “The Candlemaker”), which, through a vivid representation of contemporary Neapolitan society, constituteda protest against the moral and social corruption of the time.

In the spring of 1583 Bruno moved to London with an introductory letter from Henry III for his ambassador Michel de Castelnau. He was soon attracted to Oxford, where, during the summer, he started a series of lectures in which he expounded the Copernican theory maintaining the reality of the movement of Earth. Because of the hostile reception of the Oxonians, however, he went back to London as the guest of the French ambassador. He frequented the court of Elizabeth I and became associated with such influential figures as Sir Philip Sidney and Robert Dudley, the earl of Leicester.

WORKS

In February 1584 he was invited by Fulke Greville, a member of Sidney’s circle, to discuss his theory of the movement of Earth with some Oxonian doctors, but the discussion degenerated into a quarrel. A few days later he started writing his Italian dialogues, which constitute the first systematic exposition of his philosophy. There are six dialogues: three cosmological—on the theory of the universe—and three moral. In the Cena de le Ceneri (1584; “The Ash Wednesday Supper”), he not only reaffirmed the reality of the heliocentric theory but also suggested that the universe is infinite, constituted of innumerable worlds substantially similar to those of the solar system. In the same dialogue he anticipated his fellow Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei by maintaining that the Bible should be followed for its moral teaching but not for its astronomical implications. He also strongly criticized the manners of English society and the pedantry of the Oxonian doctors. In the De la causa, principio e uno (1584; Concerning the Cause, Principle, and One) he elaborated the physical theory on which his conception of the universe was based: “form” and “matter” are intimately united and constitute the “one.” Thus, the traditional dualism of the Aristotelianphysics was reduced by him to a monistic conception of the world, implying the basic unity of all substances and the coincidence of opposites in the infinite unity of Being. In the De l’infinito universo e mondi (1584; On the Infinite Universe and Worlds), he developed his cosmological theory by systematically criticizing Aristotelian physics; he also formulated his Averroistic view of the relation between philosophy and religion, according to which religion is considered as a means to instruct and govern ignorant people, philosophy as the discipline of the elect who are able to behave themselves and govern others.

The Spaccio de la bestia trionfante (1584; The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast), the first dialogue of his moral trilogy, is a satire on contemporary superstitions and vices, embodying a strong criticismof Christian ethics—particularly the Calvinistic principle of salvation by faith alone, to which Bruno opposes an exalted view of the dignity of all human activities. The Cabala del cavallo Pegaseo (1585; “Cabal of the Horse Pegasus”), similar to but more pessimistic than the previous work, includes a discussion of the relationship between the human soul and the universal soul, concluding with the negation of the absolute individuality of the former. In the De gli eroici furori (1585; The Heroic Frenzies), Bruno, making use of Neoplatonic imagery, treats the attainment of union with the infinite One by the human soul and exhorts man to the conquest of virtue and truth.

In October 1585 Bruno returned to Paris, where he found a changed political atmosphere. Henry III had abrogated the edict of pacification with the Protestants, and the king of Navarre had been excommunicated. Far from adopting a cautious line of behaviour, however, Bruno entered into a polemic with a protégé of the Catholic party, the mathematician Fabrizio Mordente, whom he ridiculed in four Dialogi, and in May 1586 he dared to attack Aristotle publicly in his Centum et viginti articuli de natura et mundo adversus Peripateticos (“120 Articles on Nature and the World Against the Peripatetics”). The Politiques disavowed him, and Bruno left Paris.

He went to Germany, where he wandered from one university city to another, lecturing and publishing a variety of minor works, including the Articuli centum et sexaginta (1588; “160 Articles”) against contemporary mathematicians and philosophers, in which he expounded his conception of religion—a theory of the peaceful coexistence of all religions based upon mutual understanding and the freedom of reciprocal discussion. At Helmstedt, however, in January 1589 he was excommunicated by the local Lutheran church. He remained in Helmstedt until the spring, completing works on natural and mathematical magic (posthumously published) and working on three Latin poems—De triplici minimo et mensura (“On the Threefold Minimum and Measure”), De monade, numero et figura (“On the Monad, Number, and Figure”), and De immenso, innumerabilibus et infigurabilibus (“On the Immeasurable and Innumerable”)—which reelaborate the theories expounded in the Italian dialogues and develop Bruno’s concept of an atomic basis of matter and being. To publish these, he went in 1590 to Frankfurt am Main, where the senate rejected his application to stay. Nevertheless, he took up residence in the Carmelite convent, lecturing to Protestant doctors and acquiring a reputation of being a “universal man” who, the prior thought, “did not possess a trace of religion” and who “was chiefly occupied in writing and in the vain and chimerical imagining of novelties.”

FINAL YEARS

In August 1591, at the invitation of the Venetian patrician Giovanni Mocenigo, Bruno made the fatal move of returning to Italy. At the time, such a move did not seem to be too much of a risk: Venice was by far the most liberal of the Italian states; the European tension had been temporarily eased after the death of the intransigent pope Sixtus V in 1590; the Protestant Henry of Bourbon was now on the throne of France; and a religious pacification seemed to be imminent. Furthermore, Bruno was still looking for an academic platform from which to expound his theories, and he must have known that the chair of mathematics at the University of Padua was then vacant. Indeed, he went almost immediately to Padua and, during the late summer of 1591, started a private course of lectures for German students and composed the Praelectiones geometricae (“Lectures on Geometry”) and Ars deformationum (“Art of Deformation”).

At the beginning of the winter, when it appeared that he was not going to receive the chair (it was offered to Galileo in 1592), he returned to Venice, as the guest of Mocenigo, and took part in the discussions of progressive Venetian aristocrats who, like Bruno, favoured philosophical investigation irrespective of its theological implications. Bruno’s liberty came to an end when Mocenigo—disappointed by his private lessons from Bruno on the art of memory and resentful of Bruno’s intention to go back to Frankfurt to have a new work published—denounced him to the Venetian Inquisition in May 1592 for his heretical theories. Bruno was arrested and tried. He defended himself by admitting minor theological errors, emphasizing, however, the philosophical rather than the theological character of his basic tenets. The Venetian stage of the trial seemed to be proceeding in a way that was favourable to Bruno. Then, however, the Roman Inquisition demanded his extradition, and on January 27, 1593, Bruno entered the jail of the Roman palace of the Sant’Uffizio (Holy Office).

During the seven-year Roman period of the trial, Bruno at first developed his previous defensive line, disclaiming any particular interest in theological matters and reaffirming the philosophical character of his speculation. This distinction did not satisfy the inquisitors, who demanded an unconditional retraction of his theories. Bruno then made a desperate attempt to demonstrate that his views were not incompatible with the Christian conception of God and creation. The inquisitors rejected his arguments and pressed him for a formal retraction. Bruno finally declared that he had nothing to retract and that he did not even know what he was expected to retract. At that point, Pope Clement VIII ordered that he be sentenced as an impenitent and pertinacious heretic. On February 8, 1600, when the death sentence was formally read to him, he addressed his judges, saying: “Perhaps your fear in passing judgment on me is greater than mine in receiving it.” Not long after, he was taken to the Campo de’ Fiori, his tongue in a gag, and burned alive.

INFLUENCE

Bruno’s theories influenced 17th-century scientific and philosophical thought and, since the 18th century, have been absorbed by many modern philosophers. As a symbol of the freedom of thought, Bruno inspired the European liberal movements of the 19th century, particularly the Italian Risorgimento (the movement for national political unity). Because of the variety of his interests, modern scholars are divided as to the chief significance of his work. Bruno’s cosmological vision certainly anticipates some fundamental aspects of the modern conception of the universe; his ethical ideas, in contrast to religious ascetical ethics, appeal to modern humanistic activism; and his ideal of religious and philosophical tolerance has influenced liberal thinkers. On the other hand, his emphasis on the magical and the occult has been a source of criticism, as has been his impetuous personality. Bruno stands, however, as one of the important figures in the history of Western thought, a precursor of modern civilization.

Giovanni Aquilecchia