Giordano Bruno
The man who was burned for his thoughts
Giordano Bruno was born in Nola, near Naples (Italy), in 1548. He was named Filippo at his baptism, but later Filippo was called “II Nolano”. When Bruno was 14 years old, he left his hometown of Nola to go study in Naples. In Naples, he attended lectures on the humanities, logic, and dialectics. One of his teachers influenced him to embrace Averroism. This was Christian philosophy based on an interpretation of Aristotle’s works by the Muslim philosopher Averroes. Its basic belief was that mind and philosophy are superior to faith and knowledge founded on faith. After finishing his studies in Naples, Bruno entered the San Domenico Maggiore Dominican convent in 1565, taking the name Giordano at the time. He was soon suspected of heresy due to his unconventional views, yet he was still consecrated as a Catholic priest in 1572. During the same year, he was sent back to the Neapolitan convent to continue his study of theology. Bruno finished the required course in July 1575, which generally disturbed him. Bruno read several forbidden works in the meantime and specifically discussed Arianism. This viewpoint disavowed the deity of Christ. Bruno fled to Rome in February 1576 as the Church started to get ready to try him for heresy. As things grew worse, he once more left Rome in April 1576 to escape yet another attempt to have him excommunicated.
He then traveled to Geneva in 1578 and formally adopted Calvinism there. But after writing an article criticizing a Calvinist professor, he quickly realized that the Calvinist church was just as intolerable as the Catholic church. He was arrested, excommunicated, and finally allowed to leave the city. He moved to France, first to Toulouse, where he unsuccessfully tried to be absolved by the Catholic church, and then in 1581 to Paris. At the University of Paris, Bruno started teaching philosophy.
Paris seemed to provide an answer to Bruno’s problems, for his views were not seen as a problem there. On the contrary, Henry III of France, who selected him as a royal lecturer in 1582, believed strongly in him. In three mnemotechnical works that he published, Bruno examined new methods to gain an in-depth knowledge of reality.
Bruno traveled to London the following year with a letter of introduction written by Henry III. He was soon drawn to Oxford, where he began a summer lecture series explaining Copernicus’ theory that the sun served as the center of the solar system and that the Earth and other planets orbited it. While initially, everything went smoothly, the Oxford University scholars found Bruno’s generally critical and argumentative attitude to be unacceptable, leaving Bruno with little choice but to return to London.
Back in London, he continued to debate Copernicus’ theory, but arguments broke out between him and several learned men. At this point, Bruno made the decision to put his thoughts on paper, which he did in the form of three dialogues on morality and three dialogues on cosmology. His ideas on cosmology are quite remarkable, for he not only argued for a moving Earth, but he also argued for an infinite universe containing other stars like the Sun and other worlds like the Earth. Of course, Bruno was aware that this contradicted the Biblical version of the universe, but he put forward the same argument as Galileo would some years later, namely that the Bible should be seen as providing moral teaching, not the teaching of physics. In his writings, Bruno also argues that Christianity is a religion that is held through faith, not philosophical or scientific reasoning.
Bruno visited Paris once more in 1585 and discovered that the political climate had changed. He no longer saw the same kind of tolerance; instead, there were tensions between the various religious groups. Bruno, who was not afraid to say his thoughts, entered into a polemic with a protege 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”). Because of these discussions, Bruno had to leave Paris.
His teachings that different Christian churches should be allowed to coexist and that they should respect each other’s views do not look to our eyes like a major crime, but they did not go down well in the religious climate that then prevailed.
He went to Germany, where he wandered from one university city to another, lecturing and publishing a variety of works against contemporary mathematicians and philosophers. Of course, he was declared persona non grata (unwelcome person) by many people, as a person who bravely writes about and discusses taboo topics. He lived for a while in a Carmelite convent and continued to lecture on his views.
Bruno returned to Italy in August 1591 at the aristocrat Giovanni Mocenigo’s request. In his opinion, the Catholic church has been more liberal since the strict Pope Sixtus V passed away. Bruno thought that since the University of Padua was looking to fill the chair of mathematics, this would provide him with the ideal platform to spread his thoughts. As a result of his travels, he gave lectures on geometry and the art of deformation in Padua. At this time, he was also an individual teacher in Padua for German students. However, by late 1591, the University of Padua had made it clear to Bruno that they wanted Galileo to fill the vacant chair of mathematics and not him.
Then he returned to Venice as the guest of Mocenigo and was involved in discussions with those who shared his views that an investigation of natural philosophy should be possible even if it led to ideas that were not accepted by the church. 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, and the Venetian stage of the trial seemed to be proceeding in a way that was favorable to Bruno. Then, however, the Roman Inquisition demanded his extradition, and on January 27, 1593, Bruno entered the jail of the Roman palace of Sant’Uffizio.
Bruno arrived in Rome in January 1593, at which point his seven-year trial began. Bruno initially defended himself using the same arguments he had used in his Venetian Inquisition trial. However, the Roman Inquisition declared his cosmological and physical theories to be theological and demanded that he repudiate them. When Bruno disagreed with it and refused to retract his words, Pope Clement VIII requested that Bruno be punished as a heretic, and the Inquisition gave him the death penalty.
He addressed his judges after being formally given the death penalty, saying:
“Perhaps your fear in passing judgment on me is greater than mine in receiving it.”
He was burned alive by being tied to the stake at the Campo de’ Fiori on February 17, 1600.
The person mentioned died in defense of what he truly believed to be right. Such people have made it possible for us to grow scientifically and move closer to our liberties. In the words of Ludwig van Beethoven, “Only art and science can raise men to the level of gods.” Anyone who engages in a war against the mind and science will ultimately fail.
This text was written using the sources listed below:
Knox, Dilwyn, “Giordano Bruno”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2019 Edition)
Aquilecchia, G.. “Giordano Bruno.” Encyclopedia Britannica, March 24, 2023
